Popee the Performer (2000–2001) User Reviews

I adore Popee the performer

[kaizoman · 8/10 · 19 June 2021]

I LOVE this show and it's one of my favorites! I think it's really funny and I love that eerie feeling it gives off. I constantly find myself watching 10 episodes at a time when I turn it on for an episode or two.

Popee is the main character of the show who's bloodlust runs the show. You'll always find him doing a trick or something with kedamono of which usually turns into a war for example in the second episode "limbo" Popee and kedamono are challenging each other at a limbo contest. Popee does well but then it's kedamonos turn and the everyone finds out kedamono is really good at limbo. So Popees bloodlust comes in the way of this and he sets the bar to its lowest and then sets it on fire.

Kedamono is my favorite character. He is a blue dog that where's orange shorts with stars on them and expresses his emotions with masks that fall off to reveal other emotions. For example if he is sad then happy, he will have a sad mask on and then the mask will fall off revealing a happy mask. This is genius in my eyes! I LOVE THIS IDEA!!! And it's executed amazingly!!! In some episode he will be making masks or hanging them up to dry. In one episode he sets up a bunch of masks on the floor so Popee will step on them to reveal his position to him.

Lastly Papi he is definitely my least favorite and is the main reason I didn't give it a ten star rating. He is great in some episodes and not so great in others, but mostly not so great, but one of the only times I really liked his character was in the episode "opening" where it shows Popee and the others preforming the opening. This is one of my favorite episodes and papi is played as the director of the opening and is really funny. In one part Popee does the opening by himself without realizing kedamono isn't on set. Papi takes his hat off and throws it at Popee which I thought was hilarious

There are many side characters like a frog, an alien, and even an elephant car.

Though the show isn't for everyone I'd recommend it to anyone that likes don't hug me I'm scared kind of stuff. It's really good and the fact it was made by 4 people in a couple months amazes me! You can find the entire series on YouTube and it consists of 39 4-5 minute shorts and one special that is just a lot of shorts put together but overall still very funny!

THIS IS BRILLIANT

[hisajamie · 10/10 · 3 May 2021]

I absolutely love this show. Why? For its abstract humor, ridiculous and weirdly good working storytelling in short episode format. This was made by 4 guys with limited budget, also no voice acting was a risky decision, but they made it work. Everything here just works PERFECTLY.

Weird but unique

[grizzilydino · 9/10 · 30 June 2021]

I love this show. Everything about it to the episodes to the backstory of how this show was created and the creator solutions to its's tight budget.

Extraneously uncanny, but phantasmagorically good...?

[bicenhower · 9/10 · 11 May 2021]

This show is so weird. It's a kids show, but the fact that kids are able to watch it is nothing short of... beautiful. The show has surreal humor and it doesn't need to look good in order to... be a good show. Any other animation style would have done this show dirty. Its almost unapologetically surreal, it's like a fever dream. But a fever dream you won't want to forget. The plot leads much to be desired I guess. There is a huge lore and fanbase to the show. Lastly, the cuts in this show are comical and there are no lessons to be taught to kids, but I guess that only makes it more comedic for the primarily adult fanbase.

A great show

[fgmppsvhh · 10/10 · 3 April 2023]

This show is really interesting. I am surprised that this only took 3 months to make with such a small budget. Every episode starts out with something similar like a character doing a circus trick and failing, causing a creative series of events. I like how this show isn't repetitive as everything that happens in each episode is crazy and unpredictable. One meaning i'm able to get out of this show is how toxic jealousy is. Whenever the main character, Popee, cant complete a magic trick successfully and one of his assistants, Papi (his dad) and Kedamono can, he goes into insanity wanting to be better than everyone else. Unfortunately, it always ends bad for Popee when he acts like this, dying at the end of almost every episode because of the things that he did based off of jealousy. Popee is my favorite character, every aspect of him just makes she show so interesting and fun. I cant help but think that every 39 episodes of this show have some kind of meaning behind it, based on Wakako and Ryuji Masuda's great storytelling. Despite how everyone over exaggerates how creepy and violent this show is, its really not as bad as people make it out to be, its honestly much more funny than scary. Popee the Performer is a masterpiece that I would highly recommend if you are looking for a quick laugh.

a ¨kids¨ show

[zw-89530 · 5/10 · 14 December 2020]

This is supposed to be for kids but it is not for kids it has blood,gore, and every character gets brutally killed or injured i guess japan has different views for what is inappropriate or not

Unique and great show that needs more votes.

[vuzalwuzal · 9/10 · 15 March 2023]

Popee the Performer is a CGI anime kids series created by Ryuji Masuda, which is a comedy that also happens to have blood, dirty jokes and nightmare fuel in it. I believe even for Japanese kids show standards, this has been seen as too much by even the Japanese actually.

This show relys on expressions and action to convey its stories, which gives it a broad international appeal despite never officially being released outside of Japan. The majority of the series is episodic, in-part of how it's common for episodes to end with at least one major character dead by the end, only for them to reappear alive and well by the next. All this is a reason why many people compare this to Happy Tree Friends. The show has an unique, distinct soundtrack that will get stuck in your head (literally they play the theme song about every episode), sureal humor, borderline PS1 cutscene visuals, insane characters and more. What can you not love about this show? The characters themselves include:

Popee is a clown bunny-thing boy who's determined to be the greatest performer, at any cost. He's typically uncaring at best and angry and vicious at worst, often trying to attack Kedamono and sometimes Papi whenever he needs to take out his frustration. He is a fun character though, as his cruelity is too comical and out of reality to really find him hateable, and he's always seen as the bad guy, despite being the protagonist, which is really telling.

Kedamono is a blue wolf wearing orange boxers and a mask that constantly drops off to another expression to emote what he's feeling. Unlike Popee, he is much kinder and typically the down-to-earth character of the show... Unless it involves food that he loves so much he'd do anything for it, even literal murder, though this aspect of him only comes up around thrice in the series. He is often the victim of abuse from Popee and sometimes other characters, but he tends to get off lighter than them in the end.

Papi is Popee's father, a man wearing an outfit modelled after the sun who is the owner of the circus and somebody who's insane enough to give Popee a run for his yen. He doesn't appear until the second series, and he was indeed a welcome addition. He is a skilled performer, to the point he can take his head off like it was nothing and put it back on again and even send the moon crashing into the Earth. He is kinder than Popee but crueler than Kedamono, as he sometimes does rather questionable things, like as I said, crashing the moon down into Earth.

There are some more, like a frog, an alien and Papi's elephant with a cart for a body named Paola, but these are the main three for the majority of the series.

Check out this series if you are into weirdness of the following sort: Japanese CGI, death with inexplicable recovery, show that was somehow for kids, niche show with an equally solid niche Tumblr fanbase and more. Ryuji also went onto make two similar shows, Mr. Stain on Junk Alley, which while isn't exactly the same, has a similar style, and Funny Pets, which is honestly this show but kind of worse, but it has it's good spots.

ICONIC

[windywingpony · 9/10 · 12 April 2024]

I love this show!! It's a great mix of uncanny and goofy. The violent humour, the sound effects, the limited soundtrack replaying over and over again. Poppe being this sociopathic kid who always has to get his way. Kedamono is a punch bag for Popee. And Papi? He's just hilarious. He's Popee's weird gay dad, who can speak to aliens.

I absolutely love their character designs. Their colour palettes, costumes and expressions work so well, especially Kedamono's masks. The fact they didn't have the budget to make them speak, but made it work perfectly.

Some episodes were just 'violence is funny' and I could name some that didn't have a good punch line, and left me saying to myself ''that wasn't chaotic enough''. But I love it anyway.

I kind of got sad at the end of season 3, cause I just NEED MORE CONTENT. I can't get enough of this show.