I had nothing to watch and while realizing my Photoshop deleted itself (i still don’t know why or how – and still don’t have it installed again so enjoy no screens) I remembered I wanted to watch this since it came out and kept forgetting about it. So I finally went ahead and watched it all over the past week-ish.

I havn’t written in awhile and I just wrote a bunch and it came out like shit, so I’ll start again and see how it goes.

I went into this expecting another lucky star moeblob hurf durf series, but what I got was much better. It’s a lot more like taking the characters and writing of Azumanga Daioh and putting them into Hidamari Sketch (minus all the weird shit in Hidamari). The ‘story’ follows a group of students in an art program in highschool, as well as another group of their seniors.

The art is a lot like how Hidamari managed to be moeblobs without being moeshit, in this case they look a bit more like Azumanga characters made into moeblobs but yeah, not to the point of being K-ON or something. On that note – there’s no lack of quality either that I noticed in the entire series, the entire thing seemed like it was I don’t know, actually worked on by people who know how to draw and not a bunch of Koreans being paid .15 cents a scene.

The writing, which is something I usually never talk about, was really good too. I never felt like I usually do watching newer slice of life and comedy shows – where it just feels rehashed and is full of stolen jokes – in the case of GA it felt fresh and even fun the whole way through. Some of this is thanks to the fact that the series has the backing of art, so while there are a few other SoL shows about this like Hidamari, there’s still a lot more you can do with it that hasn’t already been done. And I think they did really well of finding that, as well as taking an original approach by making the main point of the series art rather than character development.

The story actually focuses more on their activities in class (assignments and projects) rather than ‘which side of the coronet is the head?’ or even on the characters. It really feels like the main subject matter of the series is ART and that the characters are there to help that keep moving and feel interesting and fun – rather than vice versa which is the case in most slice of life shows. So this also gave it a feeling that, while it’s similar to most SoL shows, feels different from the rest in a good way. Some examples of the stuff they do in the show (which most of the episode would focus on) range from types of art (surrealism, modern, etc) to specific tasks like making a mascot for a blood drive or making a story book for a nearby preschool.

The characters were all great, the cast isn’t huge, but it isn’t small either – yet I couldn’t find a single one I dislike or even was just ‘eh they are okay’ about. I really liked everyone in the show a lot, even the ones that usually I’d hate. I guess what I’m trying to say is like what I’ve read in a few other reviews of the show – that the characters seem a lot like ‘tools to help teach’ rather than the main point at all. Surprisingly though, while I’ve also read they feel ‘bland and not deep at all’ I felt like they were fleshed out really well via their art which shows their personalities clearly (which is another point of the show).

Try and guess my favorite out of those ones in the picture. If you know me, you’re probably wrong but maybe only by a little. Surprisingly, that super tomboyish looking one is not my top favorite, she’s second place.

My favorite character in this is Namiko, the one on the top left. I don’t know why, I just ended up liking her the most. I like how she dresses, it’s the school uniform but stylish, I don’t really care about that but it looks really cute somehow, I really like her hair as well. Her voice is also worth mentioning, it’s Yui Horie but in one of her (few nowadays) not-12-years-old voice. Really, her voice is pretty nice when she isn’t trying to play little girls with speech-impediments like uguu, auuu, hauu, and uu uu!

Her personality is kind of like the older sister, so I guess kind of like Chika she’s the “straight man” of the group. To be honest – in the first couple of episodes I thought she was their teacher or someone who was helping their teacher (mostly due to her outfit and height). I dunno, but yeah she’s awesome and was my favorite. Oh and she’s got a rather sizeable chest.

Tomokane (the one on the top right) is second, which is the one you’d probably guess is my favorite if you happen to know my usual tastes. What I find interesting with her aside from the obvious looks and personality (true to heart tomboy in both ways) is her name and looks are much like Tomo Takino from Azumanga Daioh. Also, she’s the only main character with NO last name. If you ask me she’s an obvious throw-back to Tomo – her looks and personality are the exact same, but also her name is also practically “Tomo Takino” smushed into a single name. Her voice is that of Suruga’s from Bakemonogatari, so she’s also extra delicious as anyone voiced by that moe monkey spats wearing tomboy will no doubt become.

I guess I’ll pick a third favorite too so it’s not two and then ‘lol everyone else’…I’d probably go with the quiet one, I forget her name. She looks stereotypical but I found that she was a lot different than the normal quiet eerie types in anime – actually she reminded me of a mix of Sakaki and Ichijou (from Pani Poni Dash). Sakaki being a good example of the stereotypical quiet but actually happy and cutesy types, and Ichijou being one of the weirdest fucking characters I’ve seen in anime who is also very active and silly as shit but always eerie, quiet, weird, and ‘dark’.

The rest were all nice too, i just dont feel like writing about all of them. There’s the meganekko whom I don’t like the looks of, but wasn’t annoying somehow – the loli-lookalike who is spoiled and always messing around…she’s worth talking about a bit more i guess. Noda (the loli wannabe) is one of the big ways the show gets into art throughout the series aside from the classwork and projects – she always has them play games like ‘color tag’ and this and that, which end up being some form of something simple to understand mixed with art concepts. It’s pretty original and interesting, and also furthers the thought that this is an art-centric show, not a ‘cute girls doing cute things’ show.

(The ending changes each time a bit, actually, showing them in different stages of life as well as having a different seiyuu sing – though the final episode has all the life stages and all of them sing together)

Anyway, I’d recommend watching it if you like art or like these types of shows. I think even if you aren’t into ‘moe’ stuff (can handle it though), but ARE into art, it’s worth watching. It’s only 12 episodes anyway and a nice break from the recent stream of shit thats been coming out for the most part.