Shonen Ashibe GO! GO! Goma-chan Episode #71 Anime Review

© Hiromi Morishita · OOP / Team Goma

“Ashibe’s Pockets”

What They Say:
A comedy manga, “Shonen Ashibe,” that follows the friendship between baby spotted seal Goma-chan and first-grade student Ashiya Ashibe. First serialized in 1988 and adapted to anime in 1991, the adorable Goma-chan created a massive following and a spotted seal boom. This spring, Goma-chan returns to “Tentere Anime.” A cute, pleasant story of Ashibe and Goma-chan and their unusual school and their neighbors. Sometimes endearing, sometimes bizarre, it’s a fun anime for the whole family!

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With a focus on physical comedy the last time around we got a lot of material with Goma-chan trying to save his froggie friend. It was cute but it did stretch the nine minute running time a fair bit because it was something that, while amusing, was simply too padded for my taste. Goma-chan episodes can be a bit hit or miss but more so when it’s just Goma-chan and with little in the way of human presence. So this episode, amusingly named Ashibe’s Pockets, brings in our other title character for a bit more fun. This actually provides some good stuff with his mother at first as she’s cleaning out his pockets for the wash and discovered that there were pillbugs in there, which freaks her out as one would rightly expect. The things in little kids clothes should always be approached that way.

With Ashibe only sorta listening to her and Pa going with a boys will be boys kind of thing, Ashibe’s shocked when he gets home from school the next day and discovers a massive pillbug on the floor – which is just Goma-chan in an outfit that Mom is doing some ventriloquism through. It’s a lot of work but we’ve seen parents do more complex things than this to deal with kids. And Ashibe always needs dealing with. There’s a lot of fun back and forth with this as she plays the role and as we see Ashibe basically ignore what’s suggested by her through the pillbug. Ashibe, of course, goes in the complete opposite direction and just makes things worse, which is exactly what you’d expect.

In Summary:
Ashibe episodes work best for me when he gets to play off a range of supporting characters but an episode focusing on him and Mom working off each other plays out very well. The pillbug thing is comical and creepy at the same time and seeing how Ashibe pulls one big fake out on his mother at the end is just beautiful. I love the parents in this series and getting as much time as we do with Mom here is very much worth it.

Grade: B-

Streamed By: Crunchyroll