Common Name: Uchuu Senkan Tiramisu
Alternative Names: Space Battleship Tiramisu
Score: 5/10, 4/5
Length: 13 Episodes
Genre: Action, Comedy, Mecha, Military, Slice of Life, Short-Form
Summary: After humanity's various space colonies rebelled against their home on Earth, the space around the planet has been under the protection of the Space Battleship Tiramisu and the orbital mech pilots that call the battleship home. Foremost among these pilots is the ace of the Tiramisu, Ichinose Subaru and his trusty mech Durandal are tasked with protecting the Earth and his own sanity from the various threats space has to offer. From enemy pilots to annoying techies that insist on cleaning up your personal space, Subaru will do whatever it takes to protect the sanctity of Durandal's cockpit.
Review: Parody is something of a double-edged sword in the world of comedy, arguably more so than many other common forms of humor. While they tend to be rather simple to plan and are especially effective at appealing to those familiar with the subject matter that the work is parodying, they also risk leaving massive portions of a demographic out of the loop. So, while I did find Tiramisu to be mildly funny, a lot of the jokes went right over my head simply because I'm not much of a mech person. I'm not hip on all the Battleship Yamato, Gundam, and Evangelion (a travesty, I know) jokes. Still, as I said, in spite of my general ineptitude, I was still able to derive some enjoyment from this absurd macho office humor show about a New Type pilot staving off and isolating himself from the rest of the universe for the sake of his own sanity.
Unfortunately, the way this show usually functions, Subaru
keeping his sanity comes at the cost of my own.
While the show as a whole is worthy of few good chuckles here and there, it isn't all that imaginative. More often than not, I could see where this show's attempts at absurdist humor would lead and, even then, the jokes didn't find them to have that much substance to them. For instance, in one particular, Subaru undergoes what basically amounts to a standard trucker's dilemma. Having just splurged his paycheck on drinks and ice cream at the local space convenience store, Subaru is called into duty to fight off an enemy force, leaving him no choice but to eat all the ice cream now rather than letting it melt. So, of course, in the middle of a battle, Subaru is struck by the desperate need to pee. Seeing how he's in the middle of battle and is too afraid a fellow pilot might see him just pissing in space (the physics of which I won't even criticize), Subaru decides to hold it until he can't anymore. As he flees the battle he spots a space restroom for mech pilots, the presence of which, like the convenience store, makes absolutely no sense. As the bit ends, Subaru is forced to piss himself due to a massive line of other mech pilots in front of the space restroom. As humorously relatable as this story is for anyone who has even tried to hold it during a long drive, the build-up and layout of the joke are predictable to the point of being dull and borders on being brain-dead stupid given the various absurdist additions to the world needed to make the joke work at all. To make matters worse, this kind of dull, contrived humor makes up the vast majority of this show's runtime, so each new episode just adds insult to injury as the show goes on until it becomes a dull palate cleanser at best.
At worst, it's just disgusting.
In all honesty, there was only one time this show ever surprised me with a joke and bit of drama that I'd actually go so far as to consider good, even though it's still insanely contrived. In this one moment, Subaru actually abandons his post on the Tiramisu and defects to the enemy's side to connect with his long-lost brother, Isuzu. In this skit, we learn a little about the enemy faction and their weird and supposedly superior technologies that work to improve the skills of New Types like Subaru. While the logistics of how Subaru's brother ended up on the enemy side or why they also seem to have tons of other New Types on their side, contradicting the sheer dominance Subaru has shown over this enemy's forces even though they are New Types like him, this bit is particularly noteworthy and effective because it breaks away from the standard, dull humor in lieu of an actual story. Unfortunately, all this development leads to nothing since Subaru ends up fleeing back to the Tiramisu over something insanely petty, returning to the old humor as he learns he's been replaced with a trouble-making robot pilot.
What a humorously topical scenario!
As humorous as it is to basically turn militarized mech scenarios, something traditionally grand and full of high-minded ideology, into a blue-collar worker's standard week, this show fails in that it relies almost solely on the crassest humor possible as it lampoons the mecha genre. I'm willing to assume that I might have simply "not gotten" this show and have scored it in accordance with that possibility. If I'm going to be honest, though, Tiramisu just isn't good. I'm barely willing to even call it OK or tolerable. It was different enough to warrant not dropping it but this show eventually became a detriment to my day that I just had to quickly blow through before I could enjoy something actually funny or imaginative. Still, perhaps hard-core mecha fans will get something out of this that I didn't, so I'll give it a tentative recommendation for that specific demographic. Can't say that means much in the grand scheme of things though.