paniponi dash is basically if the entire religion of christianity was an anime except maybe its satanism? really it could be either one depends on whether its raining i suppose... its not raining. its like if the entire religion blah blah blah. 520https://i.ur.com/55CysbP.jpg the episode titles are brilliant. theyre all spins on classic proverbs and all the text splattered across the blackboards and whatnot in classic shaft style not classic til paniponi dash made it so adds to the chaos of it all and sometimes can be very chilling with whats sneakily snuck in there. theres lots of very subtle touches like with the creepy old teacher that wont make sense the first time around but when they do it changes everything unless it doesnt. ysee paniponi dash despite coming off as a wacky mindless romp like most cute girls high school anime oh... it is just that actually... well besides that it happens to also be a total mosh pit of ideas one with a creative output so large it pulls from everybody in the studio literally. everybody in the studio scribbles all over the fucking walls to the point of it filling the entire screen with subtitles and then it happens again the very next time anything at all happens including it which just happened. not only that but paniponi dash is filled to the brim with references which range from eroge games touhou to western pop fiction kung fu films depending on whether its raining it could be one of the two so many references in fact that each episode is accompanied by a 15 page pdf file that attempts to explain them all. and yet despite all this random chaos every step of the way there is an underbelly of depth and intentionality that captivates all of my mind each time i watch it. its fucking brilliant. if you still arent convinced of paniponi dash being the second coming of christ then just watch this opening storyboarded by tatsuya oishi all of them actually are storyboarded by him. all of the openings. all three of them. what a twig. the proof is in the pudding my friend. okay so get this.. hidamari sketch is basically if the entire religion of BUDDHISM was an anime but thats a topic for another day when i dont take my meds and skip sleeping for 48 hours. and im dead serious about that whatever that may be. v this part of the review was literally a reply to someone elses review about negima that somehow ended up here but im keeping it in because it makes sense that being said i believe all of shinbos productions with shaft walk a very fine line between being extremely meaningful and being nonsensical clusterfucks and any good shaft production is both of these things simultaneously. now theres no denying there are plenty bizarre connections between shaft anime. namely those that get talked about pretty regularly like the heavy usage of chairs headtilts text flashes and photographed objects which practically define the studios style. one common trait that typically goes unnoticed however is how each anime plays off religious ideas.