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Funny shows in box sets - does it get any better? Funimation rolls out three new box sets (Love Hina, The Wallflower, Shin Chan) that will have you in stitches.

The name of the game is romance in the world of Love Hina. LH isn’t, by any means, a new show - but it does have shiny new packaging and the bonus twenty-fifth episode that makes this classic of anime come to life again.

Keitaro just can’t catch a break. No matter how hard he studies, he can’t get into Tokyo University and now his parents want him to get a job. But what no one knows is that Keitaro wants to get into Tokyo U. to meet up with the girl of his dreams, a girl from his past whose name he can’t even remember. As children they were split up when her parents moved away, and they vowed to each get into Tokyo U and find each other. But now that Keitaro is grown, he’s a miserable student and the only real talent he has is drawing. Lost, without and idea what to do, fate intervenes. His grandmother decides to retire from running an all-girl boarding house and leave the job to Keitaro. He doesn’t know how to manage a boarding house (or even talk to girls), and what’s worse, the girls don’t even want him around. Wackiness of the Three’s Company variety ensues. 

One boy and five girls - it’s your standard harem show, but LH is old school, one of the shows that made anime such a hit in the states. There’s a ton of physical comedy - Keitaro gets beaten by the girls so often he should, by all rights, be a vegetable -and that’s not even including all the sexy mixups and accidental nudity - but as the title suggests, the show is all about love.

The Wallflower season one part one is a new release from Funimation but the concept is as old as George Bernard Shaw. Four beautiful boys, adored by girls everywhere, share a mansion together. One day their landlord charges them with a mission - turn her niece Sunako into a lady and they’ll get free rent. If not, the consequences will be (monetarily) dire. They agree, naturally, but this shrew goes a little past the rain in Spain. She’s a bedraggled horror film fanatic with a thing for anatomically correct disectable dolls. She can’t get within five feet of her handsome new roommates without her nose turning into a fountain of blood.

Their work, clearly, is cut out for them.

Is Sunako ugly, or isn’t she? She’s been told her whole life that she is, bvut between maniacal giggles and death related obsessions (or being mistaken for an evil spirit) she emerges as a stunningly beautiful woman, only to resort to the scary Sunako again. Because it never lasts, the boys are left trying to figure out their disturbing roommate.

The Wallflower is a little over the top (I usually try to avoid animes that make me want to yell at the characters to use their inside voices - I’m looking at you, Dragonball) but ultimately strangely hilarious. Sunako is totally odd and a little creepy, but fun as all get out, and it becomes clear pretty quickly that she and Kyohei, the blonde cutie, have a little sumthin’ brewing. And did I mention the dancing corpse in the credits? The Wallflower is fun, fantastic, and I cannot wait for the next set.

Who can take a pee joke and make it about poop? Shin Chan can! Shin Chan is a show about a foul mouthed little kid obsessed with poo, pee, and the orafices they come from. Quite possibly the only show that displays child genetalia (animated, but still! Hin loves to show off his junk) Shin Chan goes to places crazy and bizarre. Season two part one is perhaps best known for the episode “Shin Wars“, their version of Star Wars. though not s funny as Robot Chicken’s many goes at Star Wars, it is about on par with Family Guy in terms of funny.

Shin Chan is a bit controversial so far as the dubbing goes. Since the show originally aired almost twenty years ago, the translation has been updated a bit - well, a lot, actually.  Anime Insider called it the best dub of 2008 - Funimation gave it darker humor, characters had new back stories that are seriously different, and pop culture references that are brand spanking new. The show was already a lot crazy, but the version Funimation brings is completely insane, in the best way. Shin Chan has the most ridiculously parasitic closing song of any anime I have ever seen, and it’s just one more thing that makes the show walk the fine line between utter crass garbage and complete brilliance.

Of the three, The Wallflower was my fav, which I would not have guessed beforehand. It’s a little cutesy, but also weird fun. Shin Chan is definitely worth the watch, and Love Hina is good, but if you’re short on cash, it’s the one to set aside for later.