'Chio's School Road' Is a Mixed Bag Comedy Anime

Going into Chio’s School Road, I was somehow led to assume by my readings of its plot synopsis that the series was going to be an absurdist comedy about a high school girl, the titular Chio, who is keen of getting to school on time, but is met along the way by a series of outlandish distractions and unlikely occurrences escalating in absurdity, increasing the likelihood that she will end up tardy.  It was this assumption that made me interested of checking out the show in the first place.

However, the anime isn’t like this at all.

Rather, the 12-episode debut season features Chio undergoing different day-by-day quirky misadventures; not the set-in-just-one-day overarching narrative I thought it was going to have.  Each episode contains two sketches (sometimes, there’s an additional mini-sketch inserted at the middle of the two main sketches or at the end), and each sketch tells a bonkers scenario that Chio somehow has gotten herself into while she’s walking to school.  This may involve her getting into a pickle because she decides to mimic in real life a particular feat from the video game that she played the night before, or this may involve her encountering a variety of bizarre characters, including: her best friend Manana, whom she occasionally relishes to get into trouble (and vice versa); Yuki, the school’s track star who is friendly but obliviously tends to comment with blunt straightforwardness; Mayuta, a biker gang leader whom Chio accidentally knocks out cold and tricks to turn over a new leaf; Madoka, the pervy captain of the Kabaddi Club; and more.

The comedy is a mixed bag for me.  It’s as if it’s throwing wild swings with its brand of humor.  Thus, when it connects, it connects with a hard hit.  But when it misses, it misses by a large margin.  At times, it’s hilarious.  At times, it’s cringe-y.

One good thing going for this anime is that each episode can stand on its own.  Though some character development and references to past events do occur, one doesn’t really need to watch the previous episode/s to enjoy a new episode as it is.  This helps make each episode seemingly light to consume.  So even when the episode happens to be bad, one won’t be left with the kind of bloated, queasy feeling that one usually gets from eating oily, heavy foods.

Another noteworthy thing I like is the opening music.  It’s the kind of music one would expect from an action-oriented shonen anime, but not on an anime like this.  Strangely, I find its out-of-placeness funny.

In the end, I had some laughs with Chio’s School Road.  But all things considered, I prefer the version of it that I initially and mistakenly pictured in my mind.