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Fantastic use of the animation medium
Honestly, I find it hard to believe that this is a manga adaptation given how masterfully they made use of the animation medium to execute the skits. I haven't read the manga but I can heartily recommend the anime to anyone. (EDIT: I read the manga but the anime is waaay better)
This is a very funny slapstick comedy with great replay value. It's so absurd and crazy, it's amazing. One of my favorites.
The main cast is middle school students so the dialogues are rather easy to understand but they can speak quite quickly at times. I also have to admit that I understood none of the haikus, which come up regularly in every episode.
In my experience, the difficulty wasn't so much linguistic, but more so cultural. There are many depictions of traditional Japanese games and references to Japanese culture that flew over my head the first few times I watched but as I (indirectly) learn more about Japanese culture, I find that I'm getting a much better comprehension on my later rewatch sessions.
The anime is broken down in many little bite-sized chunks (day 1, day 2, day 3, helvetica standard 1, ...) so it doesn't feel overwhelming.
There are many scenes that made me go "what??" and I couldn't always tell if that was intended or because I'm just not 日本語上手 enough, so I wouldn't recommend this as a very first anime because even if you manage to understand every line of dialogue, you might still be confused by the insanity of what's happening but if you've already watched an anime or two before, then, by all means, go ahead.