so. long post time. theres this one japanese animated youtube series / manga i really like but im like 95% sure it doesn't have an english fanbase and it's really such a shame because it is Delightful to me and i enjoy watching it even with badly translated youtube subtitles.
its called "Shiretto Sugee Koto Itteru Gal - Shiritsu Paranomaru Koukou no Nichijou", English title "The Gals Who Always Say Incredible Things: My Daily Life at a Private Paranormal High School", and for short its generally called Parako /ParaHigh. it also has a translated manga spinoff which is much more accessible and equally delightful which you can find on mangadex!!
it follows an average guy, hikaru tada, who regularly overhears the craziest conversations between two kogal gyarus, mirai and shoko (heeko) who both have Crazy reality bending powers but do absolutely nothing significant with them besides fuck around. he plays the straightman in their conversations with his thoughts and eventually befriends them enough to hang out and play straightman to Everyone. its like if you put saiki k + mp100 + all saints street + the good place in a blender and then poured it out into the shape of hyperspecific japanese pop culture references in gyaru speak. the art style is so cute the characters are so endearing and even if it's an episodic comedy the plot is not afraid to just get totally batshit sometimes.
reasons to join me in parako hell:
- absurdly funny even when you don't understand japanese. there's something So Great about hikaru's straightman energy. he's like saiki but actually normal. also great if you enjoy fourth wall break meta humor because mirai and heeko do that a lot
- the gals are so yuriful to me. they only really gaf about each other and they've had a few disastrous breakups in canon that play out exactly like that one text post that's like "gay breakups are like level 5 nuclear fallout". whole world literally under threat of ending
- hikaru + the gals are a genuinely endearing example of platonic male-female friendship. zero implications they're just Really good friends and i think that's beautiful. they play apex legends together and the gals clown on hikaru for using a switch to play fucking Apex legends
- a lot of pop culture references that are funny to catch and giggle at like enrichment. also a lot of genuinely thoughtful but still funny deconstructing of tropes like isekai and dating sims
- hikaru and his best friend masa are insanely yaoiful and i think a fandom could go crazy over the black cat / golden retriever dynamic they have. look at them bruh
ill end up talking about this more but i just genuinely think this series deserves a little bit of an english fanbase because it Is popular enough to generate merch in japan. and very selfishly i want that for me. Please let me buy the keychains please please please
with the yt series you can really jump in at any point but there are multi-episode winter / summer / spring / fall specials that have solid plots. they Just did an alice in wonderland themed one i think? i havent watched it yet anf i must... but i have a special fondness for the 2024 winter special [Hikaru Has a Girlfriend] for managing to be a little genuinely scary while still maintaining its comedy roots. also its so yaoiful i wont lie. the entire thing is just masa really crashing out over the fact that hikaru has a girlfriend. granted the girlfriend is The Horrors but still
i have an unofficially subtitled version of all 5 eps of that specific special if anybody would like that they can dm me but FAIR WARNING. i know zero japanese. i just transcribed all the japanese subtitles anf then ran it through 5 different translators to make sure the meaning was about the same so i really could just be making shit up. but it took me two weeks to edit it. so. if anyone has issues with the translation i would Love for them to do it themselves Pleaseee PLEASEEEEE translate more parako stuff id die genuinely.
