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Anime First Impressions

Hidamari Sketch – Anime First Impressions

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Hidamari Sketch is the other “omega moe” anime out this Winter season. The other one is Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight. Both feature school kids who are way too loli to be out of kindergarten. But which one is better? Can you even compare them?

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Hidamari Sketch is a slice of life anime starring a bunch of art school kids. But Honey and Clover this is not. It’s more like a mix between Pani Poni Dash and Azumanga Daioh. The “story” revolves around four students who all live in the same artsy apartment building. Yuno is the normal one, Miyako is the weird clumsy one, Hiro is the teleporting one redhead, and Sae is the hot meganekko.

Since Hidamari Sketch is based on a 4koma manga, the anime has a lot of small bite size chunks to it. In the first episode, the girls all come back to school after Winter break. I’m wondering whether this anime will happen in “real time” since the episode apparently takes place on 1/11 and today is 1/11! Anyway, Miyako forgets to do her Winter homework! The assignment is to make a “Winter Collage.” She just ends up going home and pasting a bunch of crap together.

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Some other random slice of life stuff happens too. Like Yuno and Miyako build snow Easter Island heads, and Miyako misspells “Love and Peace” in the snow. They find out that Hiro is on a diet, and that their teacher sent them all new years’ cards with different cosplay pictures of herself. You know, slice of life stuff.

I guess Hidamari Sketch is a fairly good chill out anime. I liked it because stuff just happened. There wasn’t any impending world explosion or anything, but it was enjoyable. Plus the girls are cute when they’re not super deformed.

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The art style ranges from really beautiful to super ugly deformed to a mix between hand drawn art and real life stuff. It’s way artsy, but I guess that’s appropriate since the anime is about art students. The only think I don’t like is the super deformation. When done correctly it’s supposed to make characters cuter!

The character designs are all really cute. It’s really funny how much shorter than everyone else Yuno is. My favorite is Sae, though, due to the meganekko factor.

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The OP is done by all of the seiyuu for the main characters. It’s definitely high energy. The OP sequence is really weird, too. It reminds me of Azumanga, though slightly less weird. I don’t particularly like the song itself, though. The ED seems a bit too serious for this anime. I still like it a lot.

Download the OP: “Sketch Switch” by Kana Asumi, Kaori Mizuhashi, Ryoko Shintani & Yuko Goto
Download the ED: “Mebae Drive” by marble

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Overall, Hidamari Sketch looks like a good anime. It reminds me of Azumanga and Pani Poni Dash, both of which were awesome anime. It could get boring, but I still might watch it for the cuteness and meganekko factor. Plus I’m convinced that this will happen at some point in the anime!

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13 replies on “Hidamari Sketch – Anime First Impressions”

Pani Poni Dash was terrible. The only awesome thing about it was the art, character design, and animation (when it was good). But I don’t think I can recall a more repulsive array of characters in any other series that I watched. It was a parade of assholes, ineptness, sociopathy, sadism, and plain old jerks. Becky certainly took the prize in that department.

I recall that Steven Den Beste once wrote in a blog comment that to get Pani Poni Dash you mix Azumanga Daioh and Excel Saga, then remove all of Azumanga’s charm and warmth. He really nailed it in my opinion.

So, if Hadamari Sketch takes over from PPD, it’s not a good sign for me.

I like the OP and the animation pretty good, but bI agreed with you about the ED- it looks too serious. However, looking forward to this series a bit more than Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight!. This series just looks more fun to me.

For some reason, Miyako’s like the Tomo of the series. I don’t know. Hee hee!

Anyway, this is your usual Shaft/Shinbou Akiyuki-san series. It has its funny moments and of course, good art. Pretty much what has been said up to this point is why I’m watching this series. That and it’s a TBS anime. (I generally watch and like watching TBS anime series.)

ok, this comment is kind of late, but..

Pete,

Den Beste is great for socio-political analysis, but when it comes to anime, he says the most moronic things. This is what happens when a 50+ yr old white guy watches stuff for a teenage Japanese demographic.

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