If you've been on the Internet around 2014, chances are you've at least come across some clips from the anime "D-Frag!". The comedy show is filled with high-energy humor worthy of a hundred memes. In fact, that comedy is the only major thing it has going for it: the premise is a little too common. Set in high-school, the "game-creation" club is a student club with only three members, all girls. Every club needs at least four, so they're in danger of getting shut down (the club doesn't actually do anything but hang around and play games, and the girls don't want to loose that to join a "real" club). With a bit of "encouragement," they convince new school bad-boy Kazama to join. That encouragement comes about when the girls almost burn the school down while role-playing as magic wielders (fire using sparklers, water using a water bottle, and earth using dirt), and when Kazama runs in, they torture him until he agrees to be the new member. That brief torture scene involves a bag over his head, and putting the sounds of water and an electric taser near his ears to freak him out.The reason I bother going over that first episode in detail: "D-Frag!" sometimes goes a little too far, with scenes of extreme cartoon violence and bizarre fetish references. Depending on your sense of humor, you'll laugh right along, but I think most people will simply get disgusted. It's definitely a hurdle to consider, and prevents the show from being an easy one to recommend to everyone. If this gives you pause, the upside is that the most offending of these jokes don't come about too often.Anyway, the rest of the story involves a bunch of other minor characters, but primarily Takao, the club member of a second "real" game creation club. She's upset that the copy-club exists, and initally tries to find ways for it to be disbanded (she's lighthearted and gets a lot of jokes regarding her large breasts, so she's easy to love despite being the antagonist). Our core club of the show doesn't actually create games, like their title suggests: the girls just waste time. With Kazama involved and with the club in constant danger of being canceled, they begin to come up with new games, from variations on "rock, paper, scissors" to made-up versions of popular board games. Hilarity ensues. As expected, "D-Frag!" doesn't really have a story, like all other anime that are a part of this surprisingly popular sub-genre. It tries to insert more of a story later on, but the average viewer likely doesn't care: for me, it made the show a little boring near the end. It doesn't matter much, as it continues to keep up the jokes from start to finish, and that's why we're here.
And yes, aside from the occasional jokes that go too far: this show is funny. Logic in non-sensical, as if characters make stuff up as they go. And it's fast, with several jokes (both in dialogue and physical humor) every minute, in the context of some new situation that goes out of hand. That's part of its charm, and allows one to take any given 60 seconds of the anime and post it online without any context for a laugh. Most of that humor comes from Roka, the short and quiet president of the game-creation club. Her logic is more bizarre than everyone else, and in the show, she often appears in Chibi-form, both with and without surrounding characters noticing: in one scene, a friend holds her up to another, exclaiming "she's too freakin' adorable!" To help seal the deal, "D-Frag!" could have easily been a harem-romantic-comedy. But it isn't. Even when one or two characters do secretly pine for Kazuma, it's all background noise, and the show purely a comedy through and through, with plenty of colorful male and female characters that each have their own quirks.Visually, the show doesn't have much reason to look ambitious from a production point-of-view. But studio Brain's Base went out of their way while keeping a relatively low budget. The character designs are attractive, distinct and/or cute, with memorable baby-blue and teal school uniforms. Some of those characters get cute Chibi-designs when the joke calls for it. Other moments might call for a chase scene, an extreme punch, or other act of movement, wherein animation picks up above its typical passable quality. The opening and ending themes are as high-spirited and non-sensical and the show is, and are catchy too. The English dub isn't great, but strong enough, keeping up with the jokes without too much getting lost in translation (the original Japanese is probably the one to recommend, but English fans will still roll-over laughing as much as the "purists" do).When I first watched "D-Frag!", I was in the middle of a anime-slump, having watched too much in a short amount of time. I enjoyed the show, but thought it was exhausting and forgettable at the end. After revisting it, I can't help but fall in love with it again, as one of my favorite guilty-pleasure comedies since "Baka and Test." To quote the opening lyrics: "it was a gallant way to kill time." If you're curious, it's still easy to find clips of the show on Youtube to get a taste of what you'd be in for.