A comedic formula that’s gotten one hell of a workout the last decade is that of sticking your main character next to the class oddball. Whether their desk neighbor is building Rube Goldberg machines out of school supplies or just constantly falling asleep, it’s pretty easy to make gags so long as you can innovate on whatever brand of weirdness your central character exudes. On its surface, Aharen-san definitely seems like another entry in that little comedy subgenre, and in some ways it definitely is. But somewhere in episode two it started to hit me that this wasn’t quite the same thing. This wasn’t a show about a rational straightman being constantly surprised by how strange the girl next to him is – it’s a show about two absolute morons “Yes, and”-ing each other’s specific brand of goofiness until the tower of rock-stupid cards they’ve stacked tumbles down on top of…
