UlasanAnime.com – This past weekend, I had about half a dozen ideas for articles, but only one stuck with me, likely because it’s the newest. That anime is NouCome, where the premise itself lends itself to easy jokes, much like the Excel Saga-esque insanity in its first episode.
The show’s initial approach, with its “Put it in” directive, explains why many of the choices presented tend to lean in that direction. Even now, NouCome retains some characteristics of those types of games, evident in its character profiling and presentation. The choices made also play on established tropes and genre conventions.
However, NouCome ventures into a new realm of unexpected twists. It’s best understood by contrasting “expected” and “unexpected” scenarios. In typical anime plots, audiences anticipate a limited set of outcomes. With skilled storytelling and foreshadowing, viewers can usually predict certain events. This often serves to narrow down possibilities, intriguing the audience.
NouCome, conversely, operates in the opposite manner. It declares its intention to draw not just on a canvas, but everywhere imaginable – the floor, the walls, your nose, your mother, the bus, the air, anywhere it can. This mechanism is built into the show. By making you expect everything, it paradoxically makes you more susceptible to genuine surprises.
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It’s tempting to label NouCome as simply random, and it certainly is. Yet, even when a phallic symbol is drawn on a notebook or a screen, it remains a phallic symbol. Similarly, the face seen on that maggot candy, with its “>_
The randomness isn’t in the content itself but in its context. The overarching story of NouCome, outside of its initial montage about choices, isn’t particularly groundbreaking. That specific vignette, however, is quite special.
Looking at NouCome as a data point in a larger progression, it shares similarities with series like Log Horizon or Arpeggio. While the core story remains consistent, the escalating context continually raises the stakes. It makes one ponder the future of late-night TV anime, perhaps featuring dating sims, ship purchasing, or even characters playing as Enchanters – which, of course, is part of the joke. The typical incest romcom is also notably absent.
This leads to another thought: wouldn’t the ultimate sports anime be one that transforms the viewer into an American? This would signify a shift from sports drama as mere idol worship to a genuine way of life. Couldn’t ESPN produce a docu-short on Japanese imported pitchers, for instance?
