Someone put the spring titles out earlier than expected on the free side of Crunchyroll, so I’m going to take advantage of that by talking about Space Battleship Tiramisu.

Space Battleship Tiramisu seems like it should be easy to gauge – from the name alone, you’re already expecting “food x space drama”. However, this seven-minute show’s main conceit is actually comedy, which is a double-edged sword. A lot of short shows specialise in particular brands of comedy and some of them are in the spring lineup (Nobunaga no Shinobi: Anegawa Ishiyama-hen, Omae wa Mada Gunma wo Shiranai), not to mention there’s a few standard-length episode shows in the comedy pool too (Boueibu Happy Kiss, Hinamatsuri). Hence, Tiramisu’s got a lot of competition stacked against it from the beginning.

Sidebar: Interestingly, Tiramisu‘s based off a web manga, which would make its closest match Omae wa Mada Gunma wo Shiranai (which after some digging to find the source material I can confirm is also based on a web manga) out of those 4 “opponents” I listed. Boueibu Happy Kiss is anime original with a precedent in Boueibu LOVE!, but the other two are based on manga.

With that out of the way, what can be said about Tiramisu specifically? Personally, if the show wants to focus on the complications of ordinary food in space, I think that would be a fabulous niche to fill. It looks like the food in this space war is the same as the food on Earth in 2018, which would make for some crazy stuff as you see with the pork skewers in Fly in Space. It could even make for some kind of strange gap appeal, much like how Shokugeki no Souma popularised blending ecchi with food.

Conversely, Naked Dance is a lot more problematic, because most of that segment’s comedy could be pulled off in any other comedy show. The straight man antics of Subaru this episode bring to mind Sakamoto (from Sakamoto Desu Ga?), and for that brand of comedy, execution is key – one of Sakamoto’s comedic appeals is how outlandish it can be while still staying in the boundaries of “real life”. Tiramisu’s comedic appeal, as established by Naked Dance, is the collision of normal life as we know it, crossed with a space war featuring mecha. This could have a lot of crazy wrung out of it, but Naked Dance in particular is what I think of as “playing it safe”, right down to the manservice. Also, another of Sakamoto’s appeals is using the antics of others to make himself look good, while Subaru doesn’t have any people to play off in the first episode of Tiramisu, which may be part of the problem. (There is that one guy who mentions Subaru is “Mr Honour Roll” though…he might be relevant later…)

However, this is just Tiramisu‘s first episode. Even though I thought it was fairly decent, I might just be too critical of it because I watch a lot of comedy…so maybe we’ll have to wait and see if future episodes are more helpings of the same?

Sidebar: To wrap this post up, let’s go through some name jokes I spotted.

If you remember what I said in Studio Comet’s Ode to Anime Studios, Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades, while his mecha is Durandal. Mighty names for a hero in space, eh?

Meanwhile, the name Uchuu Senkan Tiramisu (宇宙戦艦ティラミス) has a very obvious callback to earlier days. Remember that thing some people call Star Blazers? Before that was Star Blazers, it was Uchuu Senkan Yamato (宇宙戦艦ヤマト)…

So, what do you think about Space Battleship Tiramisu? Do you think the comedy’s any good?

(Better question: is there going to be actual tiramisu in this show? All this talk about food and comedy is making me hungry…)