tek's rating: ¾

The Super Milk-chan Show

This is the title of the series as presented on Adult Swim in 2004. In Japan, it consisted of two separate series.

Super Milk Chan, on Fuji TV
ANN

This series consisted of 14 eight-minute segments. It aired on Adult Swim sometime after the second series.

OH! Super Milk Chan, on WOWOW
ANN; IMDb; TV Tropes; Wikipedia

This series consisted of 12 twenty-four minute episodes.

This show is just totally random. Mainly it's about this little girl named Milk, who seems like a baby or a toddler, but I guess she's actually 5. Anyway, she's a superhero with no powers. Mostly she sits around her house watching weird things on TV, evading the landlord's attempts to collect rent, and calling her robot nanny, Tetsuko, a dumbass. And doing and saying random things. Oh, and Milk has a pet slug named Hanage (he doesn't talk, but sometimes we hear "the voice of Hanage's heart" rambling on about something or other). And then the President of the country (which country never seems to be specified, though some sites suggest he's the President of the World) calls Milk (the phone's ring sounds rather like the cackle of some Halloween skeleton decoration, I'd say, or some weird thing like that) to ask for help with some impending disaster, or whatever, but usually ends up having long, random conversations with Milk instead. He's pretty stupid and absent-minded. And Milk is pretty distracting, too, not good for staying on-topic. She makes fun of him alot, and he defends himself, fervidly, though not very convincingly. She may or may not eventually go out to try to save the day.

Milk and Tetsuko fly in a little helicopter; usually they go to the King's Idea Laboratory to consult the lab's director, Dr. Eyepatch, who appears on a video screen, engaging Milk in random conversation, and insulting Tetsuko (who is excited to go to the lab because "the daddy who created" her is there; she always ends up hoping Dr. Eyepatch isn't her daddy). Sometimes Dr. Eyepatch will give Milk some weird idea about how to solve the problem. Sometimes he assigns a robot dog called Robodog to help, though mostly it just ends up arguing with Tetsuko.

Aside from all this, other random things, completely unrelated to whatever passes for the story, happen elsewhere. One recurring random thing on this show involves a family of ants (the father always seems to think his wife is having an affair, which she probably is). Also, there are often random, live-action scenes, with people saying random things in voiceover. Alot of the random things said by such voiceovers (or by Hange's heart) sound like the speaker thinks they're being all deep, philosophical, poetic, but they're rather amusingly not. More than anything else, it's like "Deep Thoughts" on Saturday Night Live.

Anyway, it's a pretty weird show. But trippy and addictive, intoxicating (especially if you're watching it late at night, and you're already loopy from being too tired); it makes me think of candy liqueur, even though I don't think I've ever had any such thing. And Milk-chan ends each episode by saying "Let's go eat sushi or something!" which of course makes me want to go eat sushi. Also I quite like the theme music, very simple and childish and trippy and silly and repetitive....

Now I've described almost every single episode, so there's no point in watching it. Except that it's so damn trippy and intoxicating, and does randomness even better than Williams Street. If you like that kind of thing. Which, if you watch Adult Swim, you obviously do.


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