The Super Milk-Chan Show #1: 100% Whole ADV 135 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles Released: 02/13/2001 Reviewed: 02/15/2005

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There are no words to explain my trepidation about writing this review up. When I first saw the advertisements for Super Milk-Chan on Adultswim I knew this show was for me. As any friend of mine would tell you, I am a big fan of the absurd. There are ridiculous Japanese songs, like the weird "Big Big Penis" song (Chinko Ondo) that I adore though no sane man should. Damn, I mean, there's AMERICAN songs that I adore when no sane man should. No normal person listens to as much Le Tigre as I do. So Super Milk-Chan fits me like a delicious glove, though the show is at once ridiculous and entirely pointless. The eponymous Milk is an annoying brat that is clearly supposed to be a super hero -- though never specifically referred to as such -- and is frequently called out by the ominous "Mr. President" despite her curious lack of super powers and annoying, nihilistic attitude. More frequently Milk cares about stinky potato chips or replica guns than she does about saving the world from a nuclear missile strike launched by the self-same "Mr. President" after a bad dream or stopping a counterfeiter whose M. O. involves Belgian Waffles.

Yes. These are actual plots. Milk is accompanied by the head-nippled robot Tetsuko and the stoic Hanage, a slug armed with only an inner monologue and a curious bent on philosophy. Neither of these make particularly impressive sidekicks, but then Milk isn't a particularly impressive superhero. Together they'll form a Belgian Waffle stand to thwart the counterfeiter, they'll attempt to stop a nuclear missile only to get bored of it and give up halfway through. At the end of the episode Milk invariably exclaims "Now let's go eat sushi or something!", immediately followed by the rousing cheers of her companions. No sushi is ever actually consumed on screen, but the mere idea that it is being consumed somewhere is good enough for me.

It's outrageously bizarre that this is the Japanese humor show that I "get". When they make jokes about how the Shinkinsho A Train only runs northwest from Tokyo, not northEAST it's way over my head. Don't even get me started on the prevalent "sake in Nagasaki" injokes displayed by Kurumi Kurumi Sewing Adventure II (The Legend of the Team Ninja Golden Adventure Squad). Those things are just totally out of my schema. There's just something so perfect about Milk's brash treatment of the flamboyantly gay landlord, and the way she extortsa family of ants out of rent money with a hose. Her frequent non-sequiturs and passive, soft spoken demeanor (punctuated by occasional exclamations of "You dumbass!") find easy purchase in the cockles of my heart. The only real problem with this show is ADV's attempts at filling in bits of it. Milk-Chan was originally interim segments in a live action show, much like our Simpsons in their formative years. ADV's so-called "100% Whole" version mostly involves their voice actors making fools of themselves while the guy behind the camera searches for the "Steadi-cam" button. It's not funny, and the dub written by Steven Foster (who pretty much does everything that sucks at ADV) doesn't help. It's laden with crappy references to "Mary Kate and Ashley" and more profanity than I am comfortable hearing from anyone but "The Joel". We're lucky that there is a 'normal' dub too, clearly unmarked by the foetid hand of Foster. The cast is excellent, Mike McRae is absolutely hilarious as the president and really steals the show, but Hilary Haag is always a fan favorite and does a good job with the soft spoken Milk. Surprisingly, Monica Rial's portrayal of Tetsuko actually manages not to annoy the hell out me, which is so confusing that I'm pretty sure I just freaked out.

So even though you'd need five history books, twelve courses in Japanese Animation and a dictionary to understand even half the jabs at popular culture that Milk-Chan takes, it's really not all that necessary to get a general grasp of things. Though the mood is occasionally broken by an ill placed transvestite or fart joke, stuff like the President's Fist of the Northstar harangue (featured left) is so positively endearing that there's no reason to like this show.** There is no rhyme no reason to Milk's adventures. Many of them are completely mundane, some are boring and most never even get resolved. They don't need to, Milk-Chan is not a show that concerns itself with such things. It's clear that this was made only with the intent of making people laugh. It's rarely TOO coarse, never even close to as raunchy as the glut of reality shows on public TV right now. This show relies more on charm than the "easy" gags. When Milk does venture into the realm of sex and sexuality it's in such a lighthearted and innocent way that it seems hard to hold anything against it. If a fat man wants to wiggle around as he exhorts his sexual prowess to a minute girl in pajamas then that's fine with me. But seriously, only if it's this show. Because anyone else would just make it... weird.

**If you'd like to see my (drunken) rendition of this, simply click this link!