I was recently introduced to this nutty but somewhat amusing "Low Budget Gamer Fantasy Drama" (this description of the show is actually contained in the opening credits) by a family member who likes to watch Asian cinema and television.
Video gamer and table top role playing culture are the mine from which this show's writers (????) draw enough satire, absurd gags, and goofy LARP like action to give any seasoned gaming nut a few chuckles and the occasional outright belly laugh.
The plot is simple: the old trope of the questing party sent on a mission by a god to defeat monsters, gather relics, save towns and indeed the world in an ongoing campaign which, of course, never ends because, well, it's D&D. Or something like it.
The main hero is a hapless, naive and totally sincere knucklehead named Yoshihiko who is on a quest to bring peace to the world equipped with a magic sword which does not kill it's victims but sleeps them instead. He is accompanied by an old grizzled fighter named Danjou who seems to be a parody of the samurai trilogy hero, a strange silly wizard who is part charlatan, part real magic user named Merebu always inventing really cornball spells, and a female fighter/rogue/druid of some sort named Murasuki who is always discovering dumb skills she has like Big Eye, where she stares at her opponents with a vacant goofball stare that is sufficiently dumb enough to throw them off their guard so she can attack them.
Together they encounter paper mache monsters animated by strings or stop motion, goofy bandits who usually end up doing themselves in in one stupid fashion or another, crazy spirits, buxom celestial maidens, and live video game characters who don't know they are in a video game...
It's not ingenious by any means but if you can appreciate Japanese humor its free on the Internet.
Look, the less you know about this one going into the better, so I'm not going to comment on anymore of the show, except to say that every DM who has ever BullShat his way through explaining his game devices or why a quest hasn't really ended will get a kick out of Hokote, the god who is forever sending them on missions that are supposedly life and death world struggles but which sound as if he is making them up as he goes...
You can watch the series at www.gooddrama.net .....
Here are a couple of scenes uploaded to You Tube that should tell you right away whether or not this kind of comedy is for you. I am not responsible for any loss of productivity that results from watching this show...but I will state that it was worth watching just to see the episode wit the scene where they fight a proud bandit who slips as he is about to deliver his death blow because he steps in....never mind.
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