English Dub Review: Pop Team Epic: “Pop Memories To You”

I’ve said it before: Pop Team Epic‘s charm comes from its ability to blend so many different styles together. This week, we get our episode’s namesake, which looks like a cheesy dating sim you’d find in the discount section of Steam. When they give time to a major skit, the PTE really gets rolling. The ending is fucking hilarious, because it jumps from this weird anime dating sim, and we get our normal Pipimi and Popuko and they punch the screen. Game over, my boy.

The writers narrowed the game’s aesthetic down really well. The weird, almost random interactions made no sense, and the dialogue was awful. It fit so well. By far, this was the best skit of the night. However, it was pretty downhill from here.

The next two skits are two sides of the same coin. The first one was Popuko navigating Popuko while she’s “autotracking,” which is just her walking, and Popuko walking to her. It works out. However, when the roles are reversed, Popuko kept getting Pipimi to call in the hole. “Bob Team Epic” is still fucking weird, both with the animation, and what they’re trying to pull across. I just don’t get “Bob Team Epic,” and I probably won’t. It’s just too weird. There was a short skit with Popuko and Pipimi find discount sushi at a national chain.

However, the following skit speaks to me. The woman next to Popuko in a movie theatre kept looking at her phone. So she does what any sensible person does: Popuko decides to spray paint the phone black, then the whole theatre. The final sketch was about Popuko drooling about brown sugar. I guess it’s a thing.

During the back end, they did the gender swap, not only with the voices, but with the actual skit as well. Instead of some guy playing a dating sim, a woman is playing one. Then there’s a different ending, where the game shits on itself. Instead of the guy, it’s a woman who’s playing the game. Also, the movie scene had much better dialogue, with male Popuko talking to the other girl, before losing their mind.

“Pop Memories To You” was a rather weak episode. “Pop Memories To You,” the skit, was the best of the episode, with me laughing my ass off at how on point and accurate the sketch was. The rest, however, was a smaller amount of shorter sketches. None of the sketches, outside of the movie skit, was really funny. It was just a means to get to the end of the episode. There wasn’t a real standout, and nothing really made me laugh like “Pop Memories To You.” I was expecting more. Not a lot more, because “Pop Memories To You” took over half of the episode. It’s been the same hit or miss feeling from the first two episodes.