Current location:	In the black hole that is Miyako.
Current mood:	calm
Current music:	Shinji Orito, Jun Maeda - Shoujo no Ori
Entry tags:	anime, first episode, hidamari sketch, review

Hidamari Sketch Episode 1 Review
I think I'm starting to become some sort of mystery in my school. Among the teachers and the students, none of them can seem to understand how and why I wear shorts when there's an ice storm outside. I tell them that's it's just a natural thing for me and I never get cold, but they don't seem to buy. I've even been stopped in the halls by sophomores this year asking if I've warn shorts all year. With the snow falling this weekend and a day off on Monday, I'm going out to make an army of snow bunnies like Mai. After that, I'll proceed to take a picture of it. I've been talking all freaking day about making snow bunnies and the snow timed itself perfectly. Now that I'm done talking about snow bunnies, let's move on to some Hidamari sketch.



The second moe aimed series of this season in anime. Based off a fairly good manga, I expected some fairly nice things from this. The original artwork was always kind of cute and had a very homey feel to say the least. One of those touching sort of things you get when you know everything sort of works. How that sets in with the anime though is a different story.



If you've been lucky enough to see Pani Poni Dash!, then think about that weird bird that would always start the day. That's what this thing sort of reminded me of. But you'll find that about everything in this series reminds me of PPD, same director and all. Anyhow, it's interesting that everyone in the CV cast is fairly big, while Yuno gets a complete amateur to be her CV. No that I have a problem with her voice, but it just seemed sort of weird. Then again, the creator Ume, got to voice his character anyway. That's probably how they got him to give up the series to being an anime in the first place. Just kidding. To move on though, Yuno reminds me of Sakura from CCS in the opening. Miyako will constantly bring thoughts of Himeko to mind from PPD through the entire review.


Opening: "Sketch Switch" by Kana Asumi, Kaori Mizuhashi, Ryoko Shintani & Yuko Goto

A fairly decent opening for the anime. It's not suprising that Lantis was doing the music since they usually handle any anime that has the CVs do the singing. Interestingly enough though, it's arranged by Takahiro Ando. While an amateur, he was awarded two LLAMAs from me last year. AKA Hare Hare Yukai (SHnY ED) and Uchi de Koi wa Rurunrune (GA-Rune OP). What? You didn't know that he arranged both of those amazing songs? Actually I'm not suprised but he's responsible for this. The song itself is pretty catchy but the CVs aren't the best at doing it. I really love Yuko Goto's singing voice usually but it doesn't stand out much with the group. Mostly because they're all pretty overpowering. Ryoko Shintani's voice stands out like a sore thumb in groups like this.



We get introduced to the rest of the characters in the first segment. Hiro is introduced but I kind of iffy about her voicing. I prefer Yuko Goto's gentle voice, so it's a little strange hearing it a little more mature. It fits pretty well though, I don't think they could have Hiro sounding like Mikuru. As for Sae, it's pretty much what you could expect from Ryoko Shintani. It feels more like her speaking voice then anything else. If you've been unlucky enough to see Kage Kara Mamoru!, then just think of Airi without the constant yelling. Aside from those two, we also get to see Yoshinoya being herself. She is voiced by Miyu Matsuki and is the one voice aside from Miyako that works perfectly. Whenever I see her though, in the Pani Poni like stage, it makes Media come to my mind. But I know there will be no dismantling bombs in this anime though. With all the characters introduced though, the show pretty much went on. Like I said, it's still seemed so much like PPD at this early point.



In this section, we get to see the constant habit of Hidamari sketch. The whole humongous take up the entire widescreen headshot. Not that it's not cute sometimes but they sort of overuse it. In this part, Miyako scares me to now end and it feels like she's going to suck you in like some black hole. But anyhow, there's also the interesting playing in the snow after that. Miyako pulls a Himeko and manages to spell "peace" as "piece". Hiro being educated in English recognizes it as "piece" and actually spells it out in English. Aside from being really cute, I didn't think that Yuko Goto would be able to perfectly spell out piece. There are also snow bunnies in this section. I needed to mention that for self-explanatory reasoning.



This is essentially the part of the show where they laugh at how retarded everyone is. Hiro points out to Miyako how she spelled "peace" wrong and Miyako tries to defend herself in a stupid way. Nobody said you got into an art school for brains, actually Miyako could score some extra publicity as being a talented, mentally gifted artist. Several other pictures are exchanged from dirty snow bunnies to Miayko's Moai heads. The Moai heads thing just sort of out of the blue and continued on the note of how strange this show actually was. I felt like I was honestly getting stupid by continuing to watch.



More character mischief takes place in this part. AKA Yoshinoya shown in outfits that are cute but just seem to scare me in a way. Kigurumi anyone? And Hiro talking about her diet. That's right kids, anorexia isn't a depressing thing when it's in anime. Hiro is truly adorable though. Eating tangerines isn't going to add any pounds, at least I hope it doesn't.



Definitely comparable to ending a day in Hey You! Pikachu! One of those, today was really tiring even though we really did nothing. Seriously, five seconds ago Yuno was just sitting under around with her friends participating in idle chatter. What in the heck is tiring about that? Even playing in the snow doesn't strike me as horribly difficult to do. It looked like she was only at school for about five hours and then spent the rest of the day goofing off. Art schools students are lazy ho bags.


Ending Theme: "Mebae Drive" by marble

Not much to say about the opening. It's fairly tame when you put it side by side with the opening. Pretty much a bunch of stills that make the series look like a non-comedy. Luckily, I'm smart enough not to fall for that crap. In all the panels I read of Hidamari Sketch, nothing justified an ending song like this.

Conclusion: Cold

In all, this premiere could have just aired on a bad day. With shows like Kanon and Nodame Cantabile on that day, it was amazing I even decided to watch this in the end. My excitement was for nothing though and really added up to seem like some PPD wannabe. It was kind of refreshing to see it but it's really nothing more then a simple series for simple minds. I don't think it's really bad but this first episode was undermining.

Winter Moe Battle - Round 1
Since there are two series this year that are horribly moe based, I wanted to do this. Week by week, I'll compare Manabi Straight! to Hidamari Sketch and see who wins. It's really good since both are comedies as well and have the same amount of moe potential.

This weeks winner though is...Manabi Straight!
It wasn't as big as a margin that it could have been for these two. Manabi Straight! was a little dissapointing but it made up for it in a lot of ways. With it's amazing presentation and soothing insert song, it was really worth watching. Nothing in Hidamari Sketch spoke out to me in a great way though. It was presented like PPD, which isn't bad but not great either. It'll really be interesting to go at it again next week though. This week displayed that both are potentially good and since I read some of Hidamari Sketch, I'm slightly biased. This may work in it's favor or not. But Hidamari Sketch also has Media and Mikuru versus Momoha. Snow bunnies dammit.

It's still scary. BLACK HOLE FOOL.