Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto is an anime about the perfect boy. Handsome, smart, cool and attractive to all, Sakamoto relentlessly wins over his would-be bullies and detractors through the sheer magnetic power of his perfect personality.

The premise is a solid enough foundation for a one-shot comic or maybe a 4-panel weekly type of thing, but Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto somehow stretched this joke into four award-winning tankobon volumes. Perfection, resentment, reluctant partisanship, full-throttle devotion – the cycle repeateth twice in episode 1. The writing’s on the wall and it’s just the one joke, over and over. By the end of episode 1, I wanted to shake the screen. I get it.

I have no idea how “Sakamoto is perfect at all things” could possibly stretch into a full season anime with a mere four volumes of manga to mine, but if there’s one thing anime is good at, it’s creating filler. Still, Sakamoto scarcely seems like the kind of anime that would need filler. Surely with a punchline so simple, where the show’s entire conceit is its endless variations on the same joke, Studio DEEN can come up with its own takes on the concept. But how the hell can Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto fill 13 episodes? I was tired of The One Joke ten minutes in.

But technically speaking, Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto has immaculately and precisely crafted humor. For example, the timing in the show’s opening is very careful. A trinity of rough-sounding boys on a cheap repeated animation loop discuss how much they hate Sakamoto, inadvertently hit on each other and laugh awkwardly as the volleyball they’re throwing around rolls away. The humor is as much in the deliberate timing and the long-delayed punchline as it is in anything the characters say. There are plenty of small moments of humor folded into the bigger joke as well, such as Sakamoto vigorously cleaning a desk, sparkles bouncing off his cleaning rag with every stylish thrust.

I understand that the manga is an award-winner, having triumphed over Attack on Titan and Ajin in manga news site Comic Natalie’s Grand Prix 2013. Comparing my reaction to the anime to its source material’s acknowledged quality, I’d conclude that the manga must be a different experience completely. Maybe the jokes are different, or maybe the jokes suffer from their adaption to the small screen. But neither of those things are the case, as episode 1 of Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto hews closely to its source material. I guess this means it’s just not for me.

As far as some of the production’s merits, the character design is stylish and varied, from the thugs in episode 1’s first half to the pudgy self-absorbed model in the second half and Sakamoto himself, a vision of megane beauty. The animation is almost ridiculously good for what the show is. The music is light and jazzy, a great accompaniment to the show’s breezy tone. If you dislike this show, it won’t be because the production values let you down.

Should you watch ‘Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto’?

This is a show you either find funny or you don’t, and maybe five to 10 minutes are all you need to determine whether the show’s humor is to your liking. If watching Sakamoto effortlessly thwart would-be bullies and assorted vainglorious fools is not a wish-fulfillment, self-insertion fantasy that appeals to you, then there’s no need to spend any time on Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto at all.

Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto streams on Crunchyroll every Saturday at 1 AM here.