Paranoia Agent/YMMV

• Counterpart Comparison: The already weird anime is made even weirder when you realize that Shounen Bat is basically a Darker and Edgier version of "Not Me" from The Family Circus.
• Crosses the Line Twice: "Happy Family Planning". Suicide pacts should not be so hilarious.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Arguably the whole soundtrack (composed by the great Susumu Hirasawa, a frequent Kon collaborator), but especially the OP and the triumphant score used when Ikari breaks out of Maromi's Lotus Eater Machine.
• Hypocritical Humor: In "ETC", the gossipers share ridiculous stories. The first to come up is the story of a kid vomiting out typed text and dying, believed to be connected to Lil' Slugger by the typed word "bat" landing on his forehead. The next story involves a girl and her overbearing, abusive gaurdian. They women say "How tragic" and so forth. We get to the new girl telling rediculous stories, some more and some less, and she gets singled out.
• The Woobie: The delusional Makoto Kozuka is apprehended and suspected of being Li'l Slugger but is killed by the real one. Slugger attacks those driven into corners, and Makoto was stressed by the intense and physically abusive interrogation from Ikari - as well as the rest of his life, as implied in episode eight - to the point that he wanted to die, much like the ghosts of Zebra, Fuyubachi, and Kamome in episode eight. Unlike them, however, he gets his wish when he is bloodily beaten to death at the hands of Lil' Slugger.
  • What about Tsuki? She definitely qualifies too.
  • The trainee in the episode "Mellow Maromi" arguably also qualifies.
    • This troper saw each member of the animation team as a Jerkass Woobie. They were pressured to reach some deadline, and because of Lil' Slugger -by extension, themselves- they each DIED to complete the first episode of a series. However, the Jerkass comes from, yes, picking on the idiot of the team, and ALSO from the fact that none of them cared if the others died to complete the show, so long as the show was completed. And the ending before the "Take a rest" part... Dear lord... no wonder they all went nuts, with higher-ups like that.
• Woolseyism: The choice to change Shonen Bat's name to "Lil' Slugger" for the English Dub; if they had gone for a more direct translation it would have been "Bat Boy," which doesn't sound quite as iconic.
  • Besides, it's already taken.