English Dub Season Review: Pop Team Epic Season Two

Man, I’m sure that when I was a kid, I would have been in love with Pop Team Epic. The absolute insanity and random insanity would have fit in. Unfortunately, that was over 20 minutes ago. Now, I’m medicated for ADHD, and it just didn’t click at first.

When Pop Team Epic started its second season, I was not a fan at all. There was so much nonsensical bullshit going on, that it just didn’t click. Going from a live action opening sketch of “Endless Love” in “Identity,” to sketches that really dragged on made it a rough watch. On the other hand, the episode “Endless Love” made this opening sketch of the season get newfound respect from me. Honestly, “Endless Love

However, the unique angle Pop Team Epic has is the “re-airing” of each episode, but with an alternate audio track turning Pipimi and Popuko into more masculine sounding voices. Sometimes, the script is changed as well. Sometimes, this alternate dub actually makes the episode better. A great example of this was “The Kingdom of Nature.” This was not a great episode, at all. However, you get to the back half, and the re-dub was god damn hilarious. Taking an awkward episode, and turning it on its head was what PTE needed.

As season two got going, I was warming up to PTE. There was a great line of episodes that deviated from the massive pile of random shit, and gave us a coherent main skit with a smattering of shorter skits. Episodes like “POPUTAN” showcased what focus could do. You still get the random insanity, but it’s corralled into something that resembles a plot. When there’s a strong focus on one main skit, it makes everything fall into place.

The shining example is “Rising Hell ~The Hellshake Arrow~.” This episode took the entire 12+ minute episode, and used it in such an innovative way. “Rising Hell ~The Hellshake Arrow~” was animated using sketch books, and creative paper cutting. The animation was so creative, I watched the episode in full five times. You NEVER see a sketch book being used for animation for broadcast. It was like the writers were using the storyboard for the actual episode. I am all for it, and want to see more out of the box episode presentations.

One thing I need to really drag through the mud a little, is the sketch series called “Bob Epic Team.” Good lord, do these sketches suck. The animation is trash, the story is utter nonsense, and has literally nothing of worth. Anytime that it comes up, there’s an audible groan from me, and I want to skip it. Luckily, these sketches are less than a minute, so I can suffer a little. Doesn’t mean it’s worth that minute, though.

All in all, Pop Team Epic really aged like a decent wine. It wasn’t something like a good bottle of Maison Trimbach, but more like a decent house brand bottle of Trader Joe’s wine. It wasn’t moonshine wine made out your redneck cousin’s dirty ass bathtub. PTE didn’t start off well at all, but it ended up entertaining the shit out of me. Hopefully, if and when a season three comes out, Pop Team Epic keeps to the strengths of season two.