Alternative title(s): Dekin no Mogura
Manga Adaptation by Brain’s Base
Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise

After an evening of drinking, Magi and Shio, two college students, bump into Mogura, a mysterious and highly eccentric “sage” who has been banned from the afterlife, and whose apparent job is to collect the ‘lamps’ of ghosts, malevolent or otherwise, within his magical lantern.

Artemis’ verdict: Mysteriously Dull

This wasn’t bad in the sense that I hated the story or its characters, although the stylized artwork featuring almost chibi-like character designs (at least, for the pair of its POV leads) did take a bit of self-adjustment. However, the actual storytelling is unspeakably boring. It wasn’t just the large amounts of exposition, though this certainly didn’t help. I’m not sure I can quite put my finger on the root cause, but this episode was a chore to get through, and I forced myself through the final few minutes by sheer effort of will. In all fairness, comedy is incredibly subjective, and Earthbound Mole does officially bill itself as a supernatural comedy/mystery series. Maybe this relatively low-key show will scratch that itch for someone else, but it’s an easy pass for me.