Episode 1 "Panty Panic" Review:

As soon as the super girl says her name is Strange Juice, you should probably stop watching "Punchline" if you cannot appreciate absurd humor. Two panty-shots later and it's of note that you definitely should have stopped watching five minutes ago.

As with most series openers, especially those without source material, exposition usually permeates the first episode. Thankfully "Punchline" pokes fun at this problem by having the cat character say "I'm tired of explaining" to Iridatsu.

Speaking of protagonists, I find Iridatsu to be mildly amusing in the way that Issei is on the series "High School DxD." The best part of his somewhat pathetic reactions to girls' underwear is the fact that he's possibly being setup to overcome it over the course of the series. That setup is one that I can fully tolerate nosebleeds for. Especially since, with three reactions, it is already a joke that could get old, fast.

As far as Hikiotani is concerned, that self-aware joke about magical girl transformations is one of the best I've seen in a while. Otherwise, neither she nor her partner in crime are on screen long enough for there to be any meaningful analysis. My expectation though is that this will quickly turn into something of a harem series since there's just Iridatsu and three women that live with him.

Overall, this first episode of "Punchline" was interesting with funny moments, but lackluster in terms of character development. That is likely because there was the necessity for all the exposition. In fact, the exposition heavy dialogue almost gets a pass because of the satirical joke about it. But then again, after seeing many series like "Punchline" get through the first episode with exposition that is exciting instead of daunting, it likely means this series will need to get better over time to keep interest.

Most importantly however, if Iridatsu is forced over the course of the series to learn to control his reactions to seeing panties. Well, that is a satirical message I can definitely get over exposition-heavy plotting for.