“Fühle meine Musik!” [cue J-pop remix of A Little Serenade]
Kids’ anime often have some of the most bizarre storytelling choices in anime, and anime in general can already be plenty weird. Not necessarily a bad thing: shows like these are often unabashedly fun, and some can even be appreciated by more mature audiences.
One such series I recently encountered is an episodic educational comedy called ClassicaLoid, which first aired last year with 25 episodes and currently has an ongoing sequel. It’s quite popular in Japan, but it unfortunately flew under everyone’s radar overseas.
Being a fan of Classical music and zany comedy, I checked this one out, and boy did I love it!
What is it about? Well, ClassicaLoid is set in a mansion looked after by Kanae Otowa, where shenanigans abound with some goofy reincarnations of famous Classical music composers, who can invoke strange powers called “Musik” (I’ll get to that later).
One important thing I need to say about this show is that it’s silly. Very, very silly. Chopin being a recluse who suddenly falls in love with a Vocaloid-esque waifu? That’s silly! The show wears that silliness on its sleeve, right down to their character designs *cough* Mozart *cough*.
But it’s silly in ways that makes it so much fun. Perhaps one reason why is because of its often excellent comic timing. The very first minute of the show featured Beethoven passionately cooking gyoza timed at the tune of, pfft, Ode to Joy, and it’s perhaps the best first minute of anime I’ve ever seen.
That silliness often culminates to what is perhaps the series’ biggest gimmick, the “Musik” sequences. It involves one of the composers doing a transformation sequence, getting a flashy baton (Mozart’s is literally a Magic Flute), and invoking really catchy remixes of their original compositions. Really catchy. Like I never knew before that I’d describe Toccata and Fugue to be, of all words, “catchy.”
Moving on. The moment a ClassicaLoid invokes their Musik, things..
…like…
…these…
…happen. This is ClassicaLoid at its most absurd, and they’re some of the best parts of the series. The show itself already has a nice cartoony aesthetic going for it, but the Musik sequences are crazy, fantastic and often visually impressive.
Within that silliness though, the show surprisingly has some neat moments of drama to it. One of the best episodes tackled on Beethoven’s growing deafness during his past life. Actually the episode itself was just about his amusing newfound love for guitars equipped with flamethrowers, but the emotions that unfolded felt sincere.
Some people may not like that they’re too loud, but they’re such lovable dorks. I especially love Tchaikovsky; I also love the show’s quiet embrace of her queerness (and queerness represented in the show in general).
Overall, while some might understandably find the zany humor grating, for those who love it like that, ClassicaLoid is a consistently fun and enjoyable ride. (The only actual complaint I have is the lack of Haydn.) I’m glad it has a 2nd season, which introduced two more characters in the story: Wagner and Dvorak. It’s still a bit too early for me to tell if it is going to live up to the 1st season’s promise, but so far, it still has the things that I love the show for.
If zany fun is what you are looking for, though, this is definitely worth checking out!
