After breeching a more serious subject for teenage girls (insecurity) in last week’s episode, “Please Tell Me! Galko-Chan” episodes four and five are all about the jokes.
Luckily, the jokes are actually quite funny and a testament to classic comedic structure.
Episode four explores a couple of different situational jokes, but they’re mainly focused on sexualizing the mundane. That is obviously something that comes with the territory of writing about teenagers (especially teenage boys), but what makes it even more funny is the satire that becomes the second layer of the joke.
Galko-chan is the stereotypically oversexualized popular school girl character, but instead of falling under any of the Yandere, Tsundere, stereotypes, she’s just a normal girl. She’s curious about sex and her weird teenage body, but she’s also sensitive and cares about her friends and other people’s happiness.
In fact, her general niceness even becomes a bit of a joke toward the end of episode four where Otako asks Galko for a rubber since she seems to have things to loan to people endlessly. This leads to a very funny climax where Ojou mentions she always is prepared with rubbers (thinking they mean rubber hair ties) and of course – the boys over hear and lose their minds with thoughts.
Basically, “Please Tell Me! Galko-chan” makes use of building layered and thoughtful jokes and strays away from gag comedy that is often overdone in slice-of-life anime.
Episode five is even funnier than the fourth episode, mostly building on to the sex comedy and adding in the boys of Galko’s class to the mix. The boys figure if they ask the girls about how they like to shop, they’ll get a sense of how they would approach sex. It’s funny because of the dramatic irony that the girls don’t know what the test is about, but it’s even funnier because of the second layer of comedy – sexualizing the mundane experience of buying a gift in a shopping mall.
Overall, “Please Tell Me! Galko-chan” episodes four and five are two more delightful experiences of snappy and well-crafted comedy, with a dash of complexity
