One of the most sensational satire series of all time, Pop Team Epic, rose to fame thanks to its unsuspectingly adorable art style that was ultimately juxtaposed by its over-the-top sense of humor. The original manga creator, Bkub Okawa, started serializing the series on Takeshobo’s Life Win website back in 2014, and ever since, the series has skyrocketed into being a staple satire series for fans of anime and manga. With reference humor featuring everything from Your Name to Ghostbusters, Pop Team Epic is a true love letter to all things pop culture.
While the series isn’t receiving anything new per-say, the creator, Bkub, has officially announced that they’ll be collaborating with the online messaging service LINE to release a brand-new sticker collection for users to use when sending messages. Most notably, the collection includes an absolutely adorable illustration of Goku in his chibi-fied Dragon Ball DAIMA form. That’s not the only icon featured in the new collection, though. The new sticker colelction also features characters like Ash and the Gym Leader Skye from Pokemon, Angewoman from Digimon, Mitsuri from Demon Slayer, as well as Tifa and Aerith from Final Fantasy 7. Bkub shared the special illustration of Goku on their X (formerly Twitter) account to promote the new collection.
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The Creator of Pop Team Epic Has Built Their Legacy On Their Love For Pop Culture
While the series is undoubtedly best known for its anime adaptation, which went viral for its clever use of releasing “A” and “B” style episodes that swapped voice actors for the same animation to constantly keep the same jokes fresh, the original Pop Team Epic web manga is just as clever in its execution, and, for hardcore nerds and pop culture lovers, is the perfect satirical love song to all things geeky. The series, at a glance, follows two teenage girls named Popuko and Pipimi who bounce between a series of outlandish scenarios and respond to each situation in an eccentric and often referential way. As of writing, the original web comic has seven complete volumes, as well as a comic anthology that released in 2023. The anime adaptation originally released in 2017, just around when anime and manga had a major resurgence into mainstream western media. The series was produced by Kamikaze Douga, and staying true to the manga, was originally advertised as an April Fool’s Day joke, marketing itself as an animated adaptation of Hoshiiro Girldrop.
The anime only had 14 episodes in total, with the initial televised series releasing episodes 1-12 with a television special in 2019 releasing episodes 13 and 14. The anime stayed true to the manga’s comedic roots, and in addition to poking fun of popular anime and manga titles also showcased a variety of different animation styles and techniques. Each episode ran for 30 minutes each, but, as previously mentioned, each half of the episode was nearly identical aside from a swap in voice actors – one set being cute female voice performances, and the second set being burly, deep male voices. Each half also had minor differences in punchlines and joke set ups, which managed to keep the humor unique, even if audiences were sitting through what was essentially the same story.
H/T Oricon
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