Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure

It’s no surprise that Keita Takahashi should be behind season one’s biggest laughs, even if this becomes the equivalent of an Andy Kaufman routine: funny at first, then increasingly exasperating. The title character must hurry to a series of dates with his beloved Crankette, Playdate’s appendage winding time forward and back to help him dodge obstacles (by clambering onto a table to hurdle a pig, say). The joke is that he’s always late, often receiving a kick to the unmentionables for his efforts; your patience, too, may wear thin at the exacting trial-and-error mechanics.