That is a LOT of stuff up there.

And guess what; it’s not everything.

This is what’s in the picture:

• Rocket-punching Chogokin Hatsune Miku – $220
• AFA T-shirt MikuPa ver. – $35
• 2x MikuPa 2011 T-shirt – $50 each
• 2x MikuPa lanyard – $18 each
• MikuPa sling bag – $72
• Vocaloid pin badge kit – $35

There is also another MikuPa T-shirt not in the picture; the design consists of the official illustration by Osamu. You might remember him as the character designer of Rin/Len Append.

That also cost $50. That means everything bought on the night of the concert (that is, everything listed so far except the figure) amounted to nearly $300. Cripes.

We did manage to acquire a set of 3 ZANEEDS posters from their booth in the convention itself, which consisted of Miku, Rin and Luka in sexy outfits, the same characters in a burger, and Miku imitating our national animal, the merlion.

Sadly though, we couldn’t fit everything into one photo, and I’m actually rushing this post too, so you’ll have to use your imagination from our photo of the ZANEEDS booth. ^_^;

While Fariz was more than satisfied with all of this, I wasn’t, so I picked up this little box from the Artists’ Alley.

This box is actually a fanart set from Alice Overture in the theme of Black Rock Shooter. It doesn’t just contain an artbook though.

It comes with a pin badge, a card sticker, a bookmark and a printed microfiber cloth. The pin badge, card sticker and bookmark may have one of 3 designs each, and while they should be random, the booth was kind enough to build an entire set from scratch for me, letting me pick the designs I want. ( *A*)

The artbook contains a series of illustrations from several artists, ranging from pretty to downright gorgeous, or as Feidamu puts it, “fap-able”.

This one is a rendition of BRS by 礫音(Neptune).

Each illustration is accompanied with a piece of prose, be it a poem or a short passage. Now, I will be perfectly honest here: the grammar needs a little work. Other than that though, it’s a good attempt at showing a bit of “story” behind the picture.

One of the main reasons I bought this in the first place is that the circle actually focuses on all known aspects of BRS, including the game, the “Innocent Soul” manga and other “official” creations aside from the usual BRS vs Dead Master anime material. Here’s a rendition of BRS Beast by rosene.

Here’s a closer look at the pin badge, card sticker and bookmark. The design of the pin badge is BRS by 雪桜々, the one on the card sticker is BRS & Dead Master by Linsert.D, and the design of the bookmark is XNFE by 究.

I promise not to dirty you too much, Grey~

Finally, we have the printed microfiber cloth, which has an beautiful illustration of Grey by 雪桜々. I’m liking her art more and more. =3

Here are links to all the artists listed in the book, in order of appearance:

• 木shiyo
• feifei
• 礫音(Neptune)
• 雪桜々
• rosene (also the President of Alice Overture)
• 暴力社長の猫@主婦
• Linsert.D
• 究 (doesn’t seem to have any illustrations posted as of time of writing)
• centimetre

FYI, the set costs $40 in all. It may be a little exorbitant to the casual buyer, but I know true fandom and effort when I see it, and I think the price fits the product.

Not to mention that nearly everything MikuPa-exclusive is even more expensive.

I finished the game (or at least the first and “good” ending) rather recently, and as a fanboy, I am pleased with how it’s turned out.

However, I’ll be reviewing this game strictly from a gamer’s point of view (except when the plot itself comes into play), so the score may be lower than you expect.

I’ll try to keep it as spoiler-free as possible. But first, a short outline! =D

The Outline

The game puts you in the shoes of the titular character, Black★Rock Shooter, who shoots her way through enemies to get to her nemesis, White Rock Shooter. But I’m sure you already know that.

The game is split into stages AKA levels, and each level is split into several missions, which use parts of the stage as needed (to advance the plot, or for a side quest). Whole stages will be later accessible through Free Hunting missions, though there won’t be any save points between you and the boss. But more on that later.

Once you enter a mission, you can run around in the stage towards your objective, and when you get in contact with a mob or boss, you enter battle.

In battle, you kill enemies by shooting them with your Rock Cannon. Enemies will either approach you (slowly or quickly, depending) to hit you in the face, or dance around and shoot you. Most of the attacks in the game have very clear tells, so you should be able to dodge them, or block them just in time.

You can’t just dodge-spam or Rambo it out though; you’ll raise your Overheat bar. As your body heats up, you shoot less bullets per button press, and when you OVERHEAT, you’re a sitting duck while your body cools down.

Alternatively, you can use active skills and items, which don’t heat up your gun at all. Instead, active skills have their own cool-down timers, and items are in limited quantity.

Passive skills also come into play, though you unlock them over time through the course of the story (and then some). You can choose to turn them on and off any time before a battle, but unless you’re willing to give yourself a challenge, don’t bother.

Now that I’ve pretty much addressed the bread and butter of the game (you can find the rest out for yourself), it’s time for

The Review

While repeatedly returning to the mission menu while taking on the story feels a little jarring, it does allow you to “go back in time” in the game, essentially allowing another full playthrough once you’ve finished the game.

Most expected the game to be a real-time hack & slash game, and while it avoided being the latter, it managed to retain the qualities of a former, borrowing some elements from STGs (shooting-games) like constant bullet-dodging (though not to danmaku levels). Well done, ImageEpoch.

The Overheat system in battle forces you to “ration” your actions and delay them to let your body cool down a little. That means instead of going in guns blazing, you’ll have to work out a strategy to, well, survive.

Enemies don’t all act the same either; over the course of the story, enemies get trickier to take down, and the bosses really take the cake. The button-spam events at the end of each boss are totally unnecessary, since you will never lose, and feel like an excuse to watch B★RS engage her enemies DBZ-style.

The game does try to get imaginative, ranging from saving your bike from being eaten by mooks to rescuing a target within a time limit. Sadly, though, the most they do to your “head from start to finish while killing everything in the way” routine is to change one or two factors (e.g. you’re better off avoiding enemies, you have to deal lots of damage while killing enemies within a time limit, etc).

Thankfully, little in the game is vague though (barring the language barrier), what with all your objectives clearly marked on the stage map and field.

The bike mini-game feels like a breath of fresh air, but after dying a couple of times (or more), you’ll feel thankful it only lasts for a single stage.

Grind…is nearly non-existent if you’re just aiming to complete the story. The stages are made such that you’ll be able to go through all the story missions in order without too much difficulty.

In fact, I’d say levelling is almost too easy. You might miss out on a few useful skills if you don’t manage to unlock them along the way, though unlocking them is a simple matter of killing enough of X in a certain stage (sometimes with weapon Y only).

If anything, ImageEpoch succeeded in creating a traditional JRPG, but without the level-grinding.

For a JRPG (and marketed as part of ImageEpoch’s line of “true JRPGs”), it is amazingly…short. It takes approximately 12 hours (or 2 days of guard duty) to complete the storyline, after which the post-story content begins to unlock.

While the post-story content continues to feature fully-voiced cutscenes (even some hilarious ones) and even goes so far as to reveal a “true” end to the game, it takes only 5-10 hours to finish all that. I’ve yet to complete this part though, but my estimate is from hearing about the end-game content from other chaps online who have already achieved 100% completion.

And by 100% completion, I mean getting every single achievement, unlocking every single gallery item, and bludgeoning that true last boss into submission.

Whether the game’s length (or lack thereof) is because of the writing or vice versa, the plot leaves a lot to be desired. Unexplained origins (other than B★RS’, at least), unjustified motives (except maybe due to insanity or pure boredom), and an unsatisfying ending which doesn’t even leave any room for a Sequel Hook (unless you count the need for a proper ending as one).

Like most PSP games, the textures in the game aren’t exactly crisp; even the star on B★RS’ back (which you’ll be looking at most of the time) looks a little blurred. Some parts really take the cake though, such as the forest stage, where the ground looks like splotches of differing shades of grey and green up close. Not to mention the fact that nearly every path in the forest looks the same.

Effects in the game are decent; they portray what they need to just fine, and nothing more. There is a constant bloom effect going on in-game though, probably to disguise the aliasing. Protip: it doesn’t help much, guys.

While the visuals aren’t much to admire, there is a plus point: loading times are blazing fast. If you’ve downloaded the game (legally or not) or used the data install option, nothing in the game takes longer than 3 seconds to load. The game runs pretty smoothly on my old PSP 1000, too.

The cutscenes in the game are well-animated, or at the very least, much better than God Eater’s stiff movement. The most important plot-heavy ones feature smooth, realistic movement, camera angles, and lip-syncing.

I have only one thing to say about the character and prop design: if you have a heavy metal or gun fetish, this game is for you. Huke definitely made his mark here.

While I’m happy they roped in Manabu Namiki for the music, ImageEpoch seemed to have forgotten something important. With all the skull, star and death metal themes in the game, where did all the rock go? Instead all we get is a lot of synth.

EDIT: Kudos to PAPAEDMUND for uploading the entire OST.

While the music doesn’t exactly live up to the expectations of the song that this game is based on (and it should IMHO), it does give a very “retro” feel to the game.

Which is actually kind of jarring, if you think about it.

Nonetheless though, the music ranges from the calm “safe zone” music to the fast-paced boss battle themes, and does sound good overall. If the game took a little longer than a couple of days to finish though, I think I’d actually be able to reminisce every time I hear the music outside the game.

The voice acting in this game is excellent, but that’s a given since it has an all-star cast. Given titular main character’s personality, Maaya doesn’t get as many chances to act out her role (at least, not as much as Miyuki’s role as Grey), but she makes up for it with her double role as WRS.

I will be honest: I cannot tell that they’re being spoken by the same voice actress.

I’m not going to talk about the limited edition content as part of this review, the main reason being that they don’t really contribute to the game itself. In any case though, tl;dr, here’s a quick summary:

Game-play: 7/10 – Decent and level-grind independent. The creative use of mini-games does liven up the gameplay a little more, though it does get a little repetitive after a while.

Visual: 7/10 – Graphics and effects are decent, though texture quality is low, and the use of bloom feels like an unneeded gimmick.

Aural: 7/10 – The good use of synth complements the game’s atmosphere, though it clashes with its death metal themes.

End-game Appeal: 5/10 – The game is way too short for a JRPG. Even the unlockables (which are there only to lengthen your play-time) aren’t all that hard to obtain.

Overall: 6.5/10

If I had anything else to say, it’d be that B★RS The Game was probably rushed. Greater emphasis was placed on the character design rather than the game itself, though the decent in-battle gameplay became its saving grace.

I am happy, though, that the gaming industry’s first attempt to turn a popular franchise into a game didn’t turn out to be a boring, turn-based dungeon adventure. To be honest, if it did, I wouldn’t have even bothered playing it, let alone reviewing it.

If you’re still considering getting the game, only get it if:

• you love Black★Rock Shooter.
• you’re bored and looking for a quick RPG to clear.
• you’re into tech porn.

Otherwise, look elsewhere.

First off, I’d like to be totally honest and blunt about this: the OVA felt a little disappointing to me.

The OVA in itself is a strange mix of schoolgirl slice-of-life and hot-blooded action scenes which seem to have little correlation, that is, until you realize they’re not exactly following a chronological order. We’ll get back to this part in a bit.

Some of the scenes felt completely useless, too. STRength’s (as in the character) only purpose appears to be augmenting the Sequel Hook scene right after the credits. At least Black★Gold Saw was duking it out with the titular character.

There were also scenes done up to recreate the feel of the original PV, which is all well and good, except for the fact that they don’t add to the overall plot at all. Sure, Black★Rock Shooter’s standing on the end of the bridge. Why? You can’t even tell, especially since she doesn’t even have any internal dialogue during these scenes.

The slice-of-life scenes definitely dragged on for too long; the scenes in which Mato hung out with Yomi in particular. I know the writers are emphasizing the fact that they’re really close, but I think they could’ve cut that down a tad and still make it work.

I know criticizing the slice-of-life part is out of character for me, but Black★Rock Shooter isn’t supposed to be a slice-of-life show anyway.

I’m not saying the OVA was horrible, though. The voice acting was pretty well done; the starring seiyuu fell into their roles perfectly. Kana Asumi did her job pretty well for genki girl Poplar Yuu, too.

The weapon metamorphosis bit was totally unexpected.

The action scenes were also very impressive and well-animated. The lack of speech lets you focus on the fighting on-screen, and since you don’t hear the usual internal monologue (i.e. “she’s just too strong!”) from either side, you can’t really predict the outcome, especially in the final battle. Oh god, that was epic.

Of course, this meant that Dead Master’s defeat seemed totally lame compared to the rest of the OVA. Meh.

Also, I wonder if anyone noticed how Black★Rock Shooter’s weapon reverted to its gun form before she ran down the stairs, and then turned back into its blade form in the corridor scene? Bad Ordet, bad! And we even let you have your one month delay, too!

As far as the soundtrack goes…I’m surprised the very song which the show is based on didn’t play during any of the fighting scenes, or during the opening and closing credits (though it did crop up as slow background music a couple of times).

The song playing during the closing credits was “Braveheart” by THE GOMBAND, though the song itself was composed by ryo. I’m addicted to the chorus, and the way the song picks up the pace right before it. Not to mention the rocking out.

Here’s the song and lyrics to sing along to, if you feel like it:

Japanese (Romaji)	English
Hitotsu, jibun ni uso Futatsu, mune ga itande Dakara mittsume ni wa kizukanai furishita	Firstly, I lied to myself Secondly, my chest ached So thirdly, I pretended not to notice it.
Kore de heiki Mou daijoubu da yo Boku wa boku de nakute ii kara	I feel fine with this I’m all right now Because it’s okay that I’m not myself
Yowakute okubyou na Braveheart Kizutsuku no ga kowain da Aa waraeba iin darou	The weak and timid Braveheart Is scared of getting hurt Ah, I think you should smile
Nakenashi no yuuki daite Me o tsuburi susumu shika nai Aa mubou to wakatte ite mo	Embracing what little courage I have There’s nothing to do but shutting my eyes and moving on Ah, even if I know it’s reckless
Koukai ni oitsukare Hayaku hayaku nigenakya Dakara sutetetan da daiji ni shiteta mono	Getting overtaken by regret I must run away quickly, quickly So I threw away the things I cherished
Ki ga tsuitara Tada ikiteru dake Boku no kachi nante sonna mon da kara	When I realized it I was only simply living on Because my worth is that sort of thing
Mamae wa go-rippa da Braveheart Yaku ni tatanai kuse shite Abb sore de mo mada ugoku	Your name is remarkable, Braveheart Despite that you’re of no use Ah, yet you still move
Inochi ni nani o negaeba ii Furueru kokoro ga sake Aa ikitakute shou ga nai y Mou takusan da	What should I wish upon life? My trembling heart tears apart Ah, I can’t help that I want to live There’s already plenty
Kanashiku nanka nai no ni Namida ga afurete kuru Aa nande atatakain darou	Even though I’m not sad My tears overflow Ah, I wonder why they are warm
Aa tsutaete kuretan da Braveheart Konna ni natte made mo Aa gomen boku no sei de	Ah, you told me so, Braveheart Even to the point when it’s like this Ah, I’m sorry, it’s my fault
Arittake no yuuki hataite Me o ake mae o mirun da Aa konna ni mo sekai wa kagayaiteru	Expending all of the courage I have I’ll open my eyes and look forward Ah, even when it’s like this, the world is shining
Saa mou waraeru darou Maketsuzukeru yuuki o mote Kizutsuku no o osorenna Saa sore koso ga boku no Braveheart	C’mon, I wonder if you can laugh now Have the courage to keep losing Don’t fear getting hurt C’mon, indeed that is my Braveheart.

Lyrics are ripped from courtesy of Words of Songs.

And now, back to the chronological order bit. I’ve been reading up some reviews and plot explanations here and there, and it seems the jumble of scenes got some scratching their heads.

So here’s my rough interpretation of the story’s chronology, assuming there are 4 antagonists (counting Insane Black★Rock Shooter):

1. Mato befriends Yomi.
2. Mato befriends Yuu, Yomi turns into Dead Master.
3. Mato turns into Black★Rock Shooter to find Yomi.
4. Mato defeats Dead Master and rescues Yomi.
5. Yuu falls into depression, turns into STRength.
6. Mato defeats STRength and rescues Yuu.
7. ???
8. Mato defeats Black★Gold Saw and rescues ???.
9. Insane Black★Rock Shooter appears.
10. ???

Expecting IB★RS to appear seems like a long stretch, but I just have the feeling she’ll show herself eventually.

So, overall, the OVA was a bit of a letdown thanks to the scene structure, but the action scenes certainly help to prevent the OVA being a total disappointment. That, and the promise of more to come.

In any case, I’ve already pre-ordered the Limited Edition set, so expect a second review on its contents when it arrives. Hopefully the animation quality will be much better by then.

I do have a lot more to say about the OVA, but due to time constraints (i.e. I can’t stay up too late since I’m booking in in 7 hours) I’ll have to cut myself short. Oh well. >_<

This’ll be another spoiler-ific review post, so only hit the jump if you’re ready (or skip the post in the feed).

Summer Wars aired last year in August in Japan, and while I did watch it the same year, I haven’t had time to review it till now. But better late than never I suppose.

Here’s the first five minutes of the movie, lest you didn’t actually watch it (and ignored my “spoilers abound” warning):

The movie’s main focus is OZ, a social network engineer’s wet dream. It’s accessible from almost every modern electronic device, from the PC to the DS, and can probably do almost everything you can think of. That’s one heck of an API.

But geek-gasming aside, the main plot feels like it got ripped out of a certain Digimon Movie. Observe the following facts:

• The main setting is an online social networking site.
• Residents in OZ take on the form of digital creatures.
• The antagonist is a virus. It’s butt ugly, too.
• Millions of people worldwide offer their accounts to the protagonists just as things look bleak.
• The virus decides to chuck a piece of a satellite to Earth, starting a countdown timer in the process. In the end the satellite aims for the protagonists.

If you’re still doubtful about whether they actually used the same plot (though not totally), note that Mamoru Hosoda (the director) also directed Our War Game. I don’t think there’s any coincidence there.

Yes, this reminded me of Cherubimon for some reason. >_>

There is a slight disconnect in the way OZ works, though. While Digimon did it right by having the humans look on from virtual screens, in Summer Wars, the people are able to express their actions through their avatars, no matter the medium through which the owner is accessing OZ. How the heck do you fly around and fight in a 3D environment using a Nintendo DS? How do you play hanafuda on a mobile phone, and get distracted doing so in-game?

Or maybe no one gives a crap about logic anymore…meh. Don’t mind me.

Anyway, the art style of the movie resembles The Girl Who Leapt Through Time; in short, if you’re looking for moe, this movie is definitely not for you. The action scenes are also very well-drawn and smoothly animated, and Madhouse certainly didn’t skimp on the CGI (in OZ) either.

As you might’ve guessed, there’s product placement abound, though not as obvious as a certain show I did episodics on (see second image in post). I don’t recall Windows 7 ever having that cube effect though…unless someone out there managed to port Compiz to Windows. Oops, geek-gasming again. =3

It’s also interesting to see how the movie manages to introduce about 20 characters almost at once without breaking a sweat. Add to the fact that all of them have unique traits (some of which play a part in the main plot directly), and you have an awesome extended family right there.

I’m glad though, that they didn’t try to make Kenji the all-powerful (an) hero, though he’s still able to crack codes since he just happens to be an almost-Math-Olympiad. His Crowning Moment Of Awesome still pales in comparison to Kazuma’s Courage Of Maka at the end, though.

Speaking of Kazuma, the fight scenes are awesome. King Kazma is awesome. Kenji’s freaking useless as a fighter, and his own avatar doesn’t even show up anymore after its initial appearance.

Also, of all the things that happened in the movie, Sakae’s death was the most surprising (but not as facepalm-y as the countdown timer). I have to admit, I could tell they were building up to it, especially with the last few scenes involving her encouraging our emo and unconfident hero, but come on! Why did you have to kill off the only character badass enough to wield a naginata IRL? ( *A*)

While I did mention that the plot is re-used, they did do a good job in the story-telling department, and even managed to keep things interesting with all the twists, like when Wabisuke reveals he’s the virus’ creator, or when the vision of his younger self in the city with Sakae turns out not to be a vision at all.

All in all though, Summer Wars turned out to be a pretty good movie, and it kept me watching till the end. Mamoru was pretty ambiguous about making a new movie at his interview back at last year’s AFA, so here’s hoping he’ll make another.

Rating? All that and you just want a rating? Fine.

Overall Rating: 8/10

It’s here! \o/

Our order finally came in yesterday, straight from Japan. Well, technically I still had to pick it up from a friend of mine, and now I owe him $45 thanks to Amazon.jp’s shipping costs.

The entire package consists of the following:

• The DVD itself,
• a music CD, and
• a booklet

The DVD contains the PV that aired at the last Animelo Summer Live, and I won’t go over the details since I’ve already covered the PV itself. What I didn’t mention was that the PV comes with 3 audio tracks: 2 instrumental (one original, one 2M MIX) and one 2M MIX-ed version.

You can watch the PV again below (which contains all 3 audio tracks):

The music CD is shiny. Very shiny. Besides that, it contains the 2M MIX version of the song which the entire franchise (if you can call it that) is based off. I’ve already covered the song itself, so go have a listen.

The booklet contains the lyrics of the song, as well as concept art of the characters and scenes from the PV (as well as not from the PV).

They included the character behind Black★Rock Shooter herself, though the page is simply titled “少女” (shoujo), which means girl. Maybe they still haven’t decided her name at this point in time.

Also, on a later page, this little bit pops up. The horns don’t resemble those of Dead Master, and she happens to be sporting the same outfit as Black★Rock Shooter. In fact, she greatly resembles Black★Gold Saw.

Confused with the names? Maybe we should set the record straight.

This is ブラック★ロックシューター (Black★Rock Shooter).

This is デッドマスター (Dead Master).

And this is ブラック★ゴールドソー (Black★Gold Saw). All three are original characters illustrated by huke.

The sketch for Black★Gold Saw (if it’s really her) lacks her signature sword, though it seems like she isn’t fully formed herself, and is also sporting a pair of wings. Will we see B★GS (and probably other characters) in the anime? Only time will tell.

Another concept sketch has Black★Rock Shooter being pitted against a humanoid monster, so there’s probably more than just the story between her and Dead Master.

We managed to get the DVD working in our father’s car DVD player, though to be honest it was just for lulz. You can’t make out much from a tiny screen like that (though listening to the explosions via a car surround sound system is epic).

Was it worth the $45 in the end? Hell yes. Let’s just hope the anime doesn’t disappoint. If it contained this scene I’d be the happiest man on earth…but I doubt it.

Note: The photos of the booklet are blurred, partially intentional and partially due to me being able to hold the camera steady. Sorry! ^.^;

I’ve only just recently finished Sunshine Sketch, or Hidamari Sketch as it’s more commonly known as.

It’s definitely one of the best slice-of-life anime in my book, and I strongly encourage you to give it a look as well. Unless you’re not into this sort of thing.

To summarize, Hidamari Sketch covers the lives of four girls that live in a small apartment building located right in front of the school. (Yes, that is freakin’ convenient, gawd I wish my house was right next to the polytechnic.)

The main characters are as follows:

• Yuno, the girl with the “>.<” expression in the above pic.
• Miyako, Yuno’s blond, playful, and downright silly best friend.
• Hiro, the near anorexic girl who probably is related to Medusa in some way, hence the snake-like hair. (not in picture above)
• Sae, the (self-proclaimed) mature one of the four, as well as a writer of fiction (which stresses her to no end when the deadline draws near).
• Yoshinoya, Yuno’s and Miyako’s unbelievably childish homeroom and art teacher.
• “The Principal”, a constantly shivering guy who apparently has no name (though he’s referred to as “Moi” in one episode with uncertainty). Oh, and he’s the school principal, and is a lot like Kimura from Azumanga Daioh without the creepiness factor and more along the lines of just plain silly. A picture of him for reference:

Oh, and he constantly is shooting off at Yoshinoya for setting a bad example for the students, but I don’t blame him though. I mean, a cosplaying teacher who posts the results of the worst student on the school gates? Cool, but not really the norm these days.

And one character I don’t get at all: a Metapod-like thing that appears randomly doing or saying something random:

For the entire series, I always wondered who the hell this thing was, since all I knew was that its name is Ume-sensei from the intro, and a lookup on Wikipedia returned this:

Ume (うめ, Ume^?)

Voiced by: Ume Aoki

Ume is a mysterious green creature that represents the manga’s author, Ume Aoki. The character does not actually play any significant role in the story.

Okay… A random cameo role. Let’s move on then. >.>

One thing prominent in this anime that it makes use of imagery. Here are some examples:

• Horizontal lines moving up or down represent one or more character(s) going down or up the stairs respectively.
• Instead of a car moving along the road, a blank screen is shown with the word “CAR” moving across it.
• The background is usually drawn with dots, probably trying to tie the art style to the 4-panel comic it originated from, though I wouldn’t know, since I’ve never actually seen it before.
• The girls are sometimes represented by their “trademarks”, e.g. Yuno with her X-like hairclips, Hiro with her snake-like hair, and Sae with her glasses.

Oh, and real-world objects are also used as props, like Yuno’s signature alarm clock:

I’m not sure if this is part of the whole “imagery” thing or just another way to advertise (or both), but seeing a packet of McDonald’s fries in the middle of an episode is an eyebrow-raiser. o.-

The anime is mostly based on comedy, and the episodes aren’t ordered chronologically, though the specific dates of each episode are clearly shown, and some points covered in earlier episodes apply to later ones as well.

Occasionally, though, some episodes look like they’re about to pull some drama into the simple lives of this girls, but before you know it, it’s the end of the episode and nothing really big has actually occurred, and I have to say I’m half-disappointed, though it wouldn’t make sense for the anime to turn all depressing and such, making it an even bigger disappointment (for me, at least).

Overall, this anime has been enjoyable for me, and honestly speaking, I can’t be watching action-based anime all the freaking time. The OVA doesn’t disappoint as well, merely improving some graphical elements yet keeping the original style of the anime series. The Principal suddenly acting all ‘gar’ and jumping over the school gate was just WOW.

The OP is pretty catchy, but the ED is a perfect marriage of good music and style. I LOVE it. OP and ED below (ED extremely high quality, so long loading time is to be expected):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jznc645X8Nc]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpP7iX1er1Q]

And surprise, surprise, parodies have been made from it too! Didn’t see this coming O.o

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8slmPhi3I0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKRzWZC1-Ik]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HknkrH8bMwI]

The second season, Hidamari Sketch x365, has already started, and I might watch it as well if it fits into my bloated schedule. Heck, I watched this while carrying out my duties at the Clementi Student Service Centre, since there wasn’t really much to do anyway besides babysitting, and the auntie in charge of the place didn’t mind. ^.^

I’m hoping the 2nd season won’t disappoint, and judging by the reviews (and screengrabs) so far, it probably won’t.

And yes, there’ll be other anime to review as well, though I probably won’t have the time to do it in a per-episode style like other anime bloggers do.

Till next time!