Customer Reviews

Hare + Guu, Vol. 3

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There's a murderous creature roaming the jungle attacking villagers indiscriminately....and no, it's not Guu, although she does nibble on some swimmer's feet this volume. Hare gets more than a little scared when his mom goes missing, thinking she has become the monsters latest victim! He rashly goes off on his own to look for her, with Guu in tow. To relax after that encounter, Hare wants to relax with a peaceful day of fishing, but Guu wants to do it too, and ends up using her mouth to suck up whales, giant squids, and other various specimens from different oceans around the world. She has also sucked up a suicidal woman named Yamada, who had tried to drown herself after an emotional relationship ended. It's up to Hare to convince her that his life has been more miserable and that she shouldn't kill herself! In the third episode on the disk, a strange woman barber who can sees spirits arrives in the village and claims the perverted slimebucket school doctor, Clive, is her reincarnated husband, and she wants to bust a move on him. That would normally be acceptable to Clive but the barber is butt-ugly! The last episode is that proverbial anime staple, the beach episode, where all the girls in the show dress in skimpy bikinis and the male characters drool over them. A problem occurs when Hare and his mom fall asleep on a float and drift out to sea, and are surrounded by hungry sharks. Guu might be the only one who can save them!

Hare+Guu is a strange little show, but once you get used to that strangeness, it really grows on you. You really begin to love these characters. There is a moment in one of these episodes when we get a glimpse that Guu is more than she seems and it's really intriguing. The comedy is over the top, but there are also dashes of real drama. Even though the character of Yamada plays a lot of laughs, her episode also becomes a study in carrying on and not letting the past overwhelm you. Or when Hare calls out to Guu for help when the sharks are circling, you realize that he relies on her more than he would ever admit, and yes, even cares about her. It's pretty heartwarming stuff when you think about it. I think this show will continue to increase in quality throughout its run.

These 4 episodes in this volume of Hare+Guu, are my favorite so far. This set of episodes is like one of those sampler platters that have some of everything in them. I'll just do a small list of the high points of each episode:

Episode 8 - A very interesting and serious taste of revelation about Guu (one we've been waiting for, for a long time now).
Episode 9 - A new character, not as good as the doctor, but there are some very funny scenes between the new character and Hare. Another high point is the unbelievably funny battle that Guu has with one of the guys from the school.
Episode 10 - The high point, by far, is the short dream sequence that the doctor has about the new character. The dream is a reaction to his fear that the new character may get ahold of him in a not so pleasant way.
Episode 11 - This episode has no particular high point, but is just overall Guu madness funny.

For those of you interested in the voice actors on the English dub, I'd have to say that for the first new character (from Episode 9), I was not too impressed with the voice acting. I guess that's because that character itself doesn't look like it would have a unique or even interesting voice. I do have to say though that the new character from episode 11 has the perfect voice, it is exactly what I would have imagined. Kudos to the voice actor and the person who hired him/her.

Like the other volumes, this DVD also has the English Recording Outtakes, Translation and Cultural Notes, a Production Gallery and a few more goodies.

Definetely a worthy volume in your collection.

I'll try and be 'straight to the point' about this review, if you want my opinion on the series itself (which I think is hilarious), I'd check out my review on the first volume.

I'd like to point out three different things about this volume, 2 good and 1 bad. The first point, is that this set of episodes is actually funnier than the previous volume (which was already funny as it was). The second point (the bad one...), is that as funny as these episodes were, we were only given 3 episodes in this volume as opposed to 4 in the previous one. I guess the producers thought that since these were so funny, it would be appropriate to take an episode away...

Anyway, the final point I was going to make about this volume, is that they have introduced a new character (on the cover, its the white haired person on the right). This character was a great idea, fits into the show perfectly and is probably one of my favorite characters (somewhere in my Top 2). The character keeps the show from getting repetitive and pointless (which would have surely happened if they continued simply doing random stuff), this character's intro into the series gives the series more of a direction than before and Hare+Guu begins to have more of an overall point. Another pro about the character is that the english voice actor is as good as the rest of the cast. All this and I still havent mentioned how much fun it is to see this interesting character interact with all the other characters already established on the show.

If you've bought the first one, or are thinking about buying the series, and even though there is one less episode than before, I'd definetely recommend this.

Ok, I decided to try this series again. I think this series is growing on me. I actually liked this volume. It's pretty funny and cute. Not to mention I think I found my favorite character on this volume too.

Things are getting no less stressful for poor Hare in the third volume of "Hare + Guu" -- he has to deal with deranged old ladies, mysterious beasts, psychotic suicides and a trip to the beach. Even worse, he has to deal with all this hilarious chaos and weird dialogue ("All my friends and acquaintances are strange...") with the omnipresent Guu at his side... and she does as much harm as she does good.

A fishing trip goes awry when Hare drop his rod, so Guu volunteers to go "cormorant fishing." Unfortunately not only does she slurp up every other kind of sea-life EXCEPT fish, but she swallows a suicidal woman from the Genkai Sea. Ad while Guu brawls with Gupta over a minor offense, Hare gets sucked into her stomach again, where he discovers that this strange woman is not just suicidal... but kind of psychotic.

Then Weda disappears during a hunting trip, courtesy of a "big black hard shiny smelly creature that makes a strange sound." A distraught Hare ventures out into the jungle to save her, but he might need Guu to save HIM. And when the jungle weather becomes too hot to handle, the entire villages ventures to the nearest beach... and Hare and Weda accidentally drift out to sea. Will they be eaten by sharks... or Guu?

And finally Gupta's long-overdue haircut causes problems when the Crazy Old Barber Lady comes to call, with her stories of demons, spirits and other supernatural happenings. But then she mistakes poor Clive for her dead husband... which would be okay, if she weren't old, ugly and crazy. So she starts stalking the increasingly hysterical doctor, who has no choice but to hide in Weda's house.

The semi-titular Hare has a life of constant stress, as he explains to the psychotic Ms. Yamada in the first episode of "Hare + Guu Volume 3." Sadly (for him), the stress is not lessened in these episodes, but he does seem to have adjusted to the levels of sheer weirdness that Guu has brought into his life -- he simply accepts that she can fix a given situation, such as impending shark attacks.

And there's plenty of surreal weirdness here: deranged elderly stalkers, mystery beasts, a brawl involving rafflesias and monkeys, and Guu's method of sea rescue (which swamps aircraft carriers). And it has a sly sense of humour that extends to almost every corner of the plot (Uighar wailing ("I'm just a boring flat character!", which is kind of true), but there are some touching moments as well (Hare's devastation when his mother is missing).

In fact, it's quite sweet to see how much Hare loves his mother, and how he tries hard to cope with the sheer bizarrity of his life. And though he has that pornographic "Red Riding Hood" dream with a ghastly twist, Dr Clive is also given some new dimensions when he turns into a hysterical mess at Weda's house. Oh yeah, and there are more hints that Guu isn't who she seems -- including a physical transformation in the jungle, and growing to higher-than-Everest heights.

The third volume of "Hare + Guu" is a fun, rollicking little celebration of surreal comedy -- poor Hare is adapting to the weirdness of his life, and starting to deal with it. I'M SO SICK OF IT...

Add him to the list of of people who cause Hare extreme stress: Dr. Clive, a lecherous white-haired doctor. And the second volume of "Hare + Guu" is mostly focused on that, as well as Guu's ongoing mind-games and superpowers -- it's a bit less surreal than the episodes that precede it (nobody gets swallowed alive) but it's still a hilarious experience.

Suffering from a cold, Hare drags himself to the nurse's office, only to be threatened and generally abused by the new school doctor, Clive. He hates all boys, likes all girls ("more than the average person") and seem to harbor a fantasy of seducing a married woman. In the meantime, Hare starts asking Weda questions about where his father is, only to be met by bizarre half-truths that may (or may not) involve the Mafia, alien abduction, and a pokete.

So guess who Hare's dad is revealed to be. It doesn't take much to figure it out.

Then Guu' headgames continue when she tells Hare that the hot new trend is to bathe fully-clothed, and poor Hare can't bring himself to ask anyone -- even when the class takes a trip to the Jungle Bath. And Hare has a perfect birthday of gifts, cake and general niceness from his friends and family... except for a squabble with Clive, who gives him a porn mag. Unfortunately, he ends up waking up in Clive's body, with Clive in HIS body. Will Hare learn to understand the pervy doctor, and will they get their own bodies back?

"Hare + Guu Volume 2" sees the introduction of the perverted Dr. Clive -- annoy him and he'll pour disinfectant on you, throw syringes at you, and hurl you through the wall. If you're male, that is. If you're a girl, he'll be "way too friendly" -- and he has some startling history with Weda.

This new character adds some spice and variety to the show, rather than letting it simply be Guu's Weird Event Du Jour in the idyllic village. Suddenly we have some intervillage conflicts, more weird lines ("Those who laugh at porn will one day cry for porn!" "STOP SAYING PORN!"), and more general hilarity. And we have yet another thing that makes Hare freak out, as well as showing some details of Weda's as-yet unexplained past.

But despite Clive's new prominence, the poor over-stressed Hare is still the center of attention -- he's still overwrought and constantly annoyed/manipulated by Guu, and strange things still happen to him on a regular basis. He's also not very happy by the arrival of Dr. Clive and the revelations about the connection between them (oh come on, it's obvious), while Guu sort of floats around causing more trouble.

"Hare + Guu Volume 2" has a somewhat different vibe from the first arc, but it's every bit as funny and chaotic -- except now Guu isn't the only one causing chaos.

The random hilarity continues in the third DVD installment of this popular series. Most notibly, the fan favorite episode "A Big Black, Hard, Shiny Smelly, Noise Making Creature" is sure to squeeze out more than a few laughs!