Imagine Lucky Star with the girls made into perverts, the Seinfeldian Conversations replaced with heated political debates, and Comedic Sociopathy.
Tisasura! is a 12-episode slapstick slice of life series created by Mikuru Fan. Tina Sutton, Sandra Pennington, Susan Jackson, and Rachel Yoon are four girls who attend Granville High School. They encounter unusual situations among themselves, its students, or elsewhere. Has elements of Sketch Comedy.
The main purpose is to make fun of moe culture and shows by subverting every expectation moe characters should have.
A second season, Tisasura!!2, is in consideration.
This work provides examples of:
- All-CGI Cartoon: Parodied mercilessly in "Tisasura CG", which is "animated with love and outsourced Chinese labor."
- Anatomically Impossible Sex: Discussed several times throughout the show.
- Animesque: The initial scene, which was made to resemble moe and iyashikei anime.
- Art-Style Dissonance: The colorful art style was chosen to deliberately contrast the dark humor of the show.
- Asian and Nerdy: Rachel downplays this trope. She has a considerable knowledge in niche subjects, such as the history and type of military aircraft, while doing poorly in school.
- Author Avatar: Changes in every episode. Part of the opening is trying to find out the Author Avatar. One episode has a fish as the Author Avatar.
- Beach Episode: One in Season 1 and one in Season 2. The first beach episode is "Sad", the second beach episode is "Where".
- Berserk Button
- Commenting on Sandra's flat chest.
- People asking Rachel if she's any nationality other than Korean or being stereotyped as one of them.
- Big Beautiful Woman: Susan's noticeably chubbier than the rest of the cast, but she's not that big.
- Bigger Is Better in Bed: Susan read a story where a character had a 20-inch long one.note Sandra: 20 inches?Susan: Yeah. Actually, I think it was meters.Sandra: That's even longer!
- Black Comedy Rape: Used ironically. Rachel tries to rape Travis in "Unfunny". The point is that the scene is not funny.
- Buffy Speak: Everyone at Boyle High School talks like this.
- Cluster Bleep-Bomb: Rachel writes a rap song.Why don't you go [bleep] with your [bleep]And [bleep] too so [bleep] don't do well[bleep] [bleep] don't do no [bleep] to the [bleep]Good night, and [bleep] [bleep]!
- Covert Pervert: All four main characters are like this, arguably being the premise of the show.
- Cram School: Deconstructed. After all the students are forced to attend one due to budget cuts, students actually get poorer grades due to lack of sleep or recreation. They also don't learn anything new.
- The Ditz: Susan might be this, Depending on the Writer.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Downplayed in "Unfunny". While Rachel's rape attempt on Travis was played for laughs, she does end up in prison for it.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Invoked in the Season 1 finale, "Unfunny".
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Parodied in "Out of Our Elements", where people with Elemental Powers try to top each other, coing full-circle with the toppings going even more intense each cycle, wrecking the world in the process.
- Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The sketches at the beginning and end, though the questions never get answered.
- Genre Savvy: Susan, who reads a lot of stories, sometimes bordering on Wrong Genre Savvy.
- Green Aesop: "Sad", the first Beach Episode. Parodied by executing the Aesop by showing that the beach itself is sad.
- Hypocritical Humor: Conversed and meta-example. The Author Avatar says that having someone say something and then immediately opposing it is one of the easiest types of comedy, and therefore, one of the lowest. I then tell TV writers to stop using this trope. As hypocritical humor is one of the things I do a lot, this is an example of hypocritical humor as well.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Episodes are named in groups that relate to each other. For example, episodes 5, 6, and 7 are titled "Blind", "Deaf," and "Mute".
- Improbably Female Cast: All four main characters are female and there's approximately a male to female ratio of 1:5.
- This becomes subverted as the show goes on with more new male characters being introduced.
- Informed Deformity: Sandra really isn't flat-chested. Lampshaded.
- Insane Troll Logic: How Susan came to the conclusion that nature is out to get them.
- Apparently, giving someone flowers is a proposal to get someone to have sex with them because flowers are sex organs. The girls try this and it doesn't work.
- Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Rachel is commonly assumed to be Chinese.
- Iyashikei: Started as one in planning, but has eventually become a subversion. The beginning of the first episode is pretty typical of an iyashikei show. Then Sandra gets thrown into the sky...
- Literal-Minded: Tina.Susan: Look up.[Tina looks up.]Susan: No, I mean, look it up!
- Madness Mantra: Mrs. Munson sings a short song while suffering a breakdown.Good good night, my little sweetie pieWon't ever know when you'll tell me goodbye
- Mind Screw: "What". That's the episode title.
- Mukokuseki: Downplayed. Rachel's character design is almost identical to the other characters while her colors are more typical of Asians.
- Narrative Filigree: Stories are made out of things like trips to the post office, making a paper crane, and conversations at a park.
- New Season, New Name: Tisasura!!2
- No Flow in CGI: Tisasura CG, to the point where Tina's arm remains stiff while she throws a ball.
- Nostalgia Filter: A variant occurs In-Universe when Susan finds a video take of her favorite show when she was a kid. She starts watching it again, only to ask, "Someone tell me what I even liked about this show."
- Only Six Faces: Exploited. Sandra uses this to try to pass off as Tina.
- Overly Long Gag: The conversations can reach this level.
- Retraux: One sketch is made to appear as a Golden Age cartoon.
- Rule 63: Episode 8 has Susan writing one for this show.
- Scenery Porn: The first Beach Episode seems to focus more on the beach than the girls.
- Seinfeldian Conversation
- Parodied by making the subject matter of the conversations outright disgusting.
- Also parodied by having the girls have minor political debates.
- Played straight sometimes.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: While this show is a sex comedy, there's little fanservice and no sex scenes at all.
- Skewed Priorities: There's one woman who was oddly attached to inanimate objects. In one incident, when her house caught fire, she grabbed boxes of napkins and tissues before escaping while leaving her baby inside.
- Slice of Life: Subverted along with Iyashikei in the first episode.
- Small Reference Pools: Averted. Misreading the name of a rail project in Turkey is one of the show's many references to obscure subjects.
- Strictly Formula: Each segment is about 4 minutes long, except for the credits.
- Author Avatar and Animated Actors try to answer questions, but do not do so.
- The girls talk about tropes and such.
- First sketch
- Commercial break
- The girls plan a way to get boys' attention.
- Second sketch
- The girls put their plan into motion. They fail.
- Credits, the Author Avatar and Animated Actors tell a few last jokes.
- Stylistic Suck
- The art on some of the sketches.
- All of Tisasura CG, having No Flow in CGI and invoking Uncanny Valley.
- Subverted Kids' Show
- Take That, Audience!: Tina tells Susan that she thinks grown men are watching her. Susan points out a studio audience consisting of adult men watching them. Tina faints, while Susan wonders why she didn't notice it earlier.
- Technology Marches On: Parodied in the Retraux sketch, titled "Tisasura, Now in Amazing Video".
- Thick-Line Animation
- Token Minority: Rachel is the only non-white main character. However, many background and side characters are non-white as well.
- 12-Episode Anime: Intended to be the Western counterpart of this trope.
- Unmoving Plaid: A stylistic choice. Texturing is represented by unmoving patterns on the area.
- The Unpronounceable: The names of most people outside Granville High School are like this with no explanation. Steven Slltllhnrggl has no vowels in his last name!
- Vulgar Humor: The first season finale tops every last act of perversion seen in the show. Female-on-male rape attempts, death, and cutting Played for Laughs aplenty. Even worse, they added lots and lots of bad puns.
- Where the Hell Is Caribou Park?
- Word Purée Title: The title is made up of the first two letters of each of the four main characters.
- Word Salad Title: Some of the sketches. For example, "Nonsense Happy Lucifer Party", which parodies strange Magical Girl shows.