Hidamari Sketch x365: How I Missed You, Hidamari

Please proceed to berate me for not waiting three weeks for the wideface version. I was UNAWARE that there was going to be a not-wideface and a wideface. That’s okay, though, you can get your fill of wideface from the manga (now at a bookstore near you!)

IMPORTANT THINGS ABOUT HIDAMARI SKETCH x365:

• The best part of the first season was its lack of budget, as kransom always explained it to me. The best part of x365 is its budget. It’s full-blown Shinbo, coming at your face in 4:3 unless you’re patient enough to wait for the probably lethal doses of Shinbo in the wideface version. It was a little jarring at first (Yuno seemed to be hyper-animated a la that traumatizing scene in Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha s1-01 where we suddenly forgot that the last 10 years had happened. We didn’t do a time warp (again) of course, but it was still jarring, but I think he settled down after that.
• HIDAMARI SCKEOT (what) (it’s a reference I am sure, but to WHAT)
• Given the fact that Shinbo probably spent 5% of the budget for the entire series on this totally symbolic and totally unnecessary scene right after Miyako gives Yuno the legendary nickname of “Yunocchi” (and placed in Yuno’s symbolic screen-filling X a tiny “cchi” (in place of the x365 that was there initially), it is safe to say that my suspicions are confirmed and that Shinbo has a predeliction for lesbians and yuri parings, as this is probably as close to canon Yuno x Miyako is going to get with Aoki Ume’s permission. Not that I actually track pairings or anything…although the two of them are the best characters in the show, so it’s all good. Somewhat.
• New marble song! Mebae Drive was the perfect cap to the s1 episodes, and the x365 ED (Ryuusei Record) did not fail to deliver strangely satisfactory chills up the spine. I don’t know, but whenever I listen to a song like that, I sometimes get chills there–it happened with Utatane and Dango Daikazoku (I love you, Chata), it’s happened with Chain (Shigofumi), and it happened with Mebae Drive and Ryuusei Rocket. I don’t know why it happens to these kinds of songs, but I love it when it does.

After reading the manga (which I bought last night, for no other reason other than to maybe hopefully send the message to anime licensors that I would like the anime, please, thank you very much) and then watching the first episode of x365, I am reminded why I like Hidamari Sketch: it’s just fun. In the manga (which I had heard was terrible and horrible and was very bad so you shouldn’t get it!), it’s even more evident: it’s not necessarily a laugh-a-minute kind of thing, it’s just a pleasurable experience. I’m not even going to try to re-open that huge can of worms Owen S opened a while back (and I will demonstrate that I don’t want to reopen it by not linking to it, therefore he won’t find out about it! I am clever!) so I won’t even go into that whole mind-breaking construct. It’s not necessarily something to make you die of laughter (as Potemayo or Minami-ke might), but the humor is effective nevertheless, even if you aren’t rolling on the proverbial floor, you are entertained and amused. Of course, I noted today that things billed to me as “comedies” rarely leave me in fits of laughter, but there’s still plenty of them I like, so I don’t think “chuckles per minute” is a good indicator of comedy quality.

In short (this was kind of a short post anyway, I think), I am immeasurably glad to have Hidamari Sketch back in my life. I wasn’t entirely sure I would like the second season after the hiatus (second seasons seem to have trouble these days, whether planned or unplanned from the start; the last second season I remember getting near-universal positive reception from fans of the first season was Maria-sama ga Miteru ~Haru~, and that was years ago, but I might have forgotten something along the way), but that doesn’t seem to be an issue at the moment. And it’s kind of amusing that a series that started off as a low-budget and possibly secondary priority for SHAFT and Shinbo ended up getting a second season that had an actual budget for actual animation. It’s nicer to see more animation, with the same distinctive stylism and esoteric symbology, with the new addition of random quotes interspersed in the episode that may or may not have anything to do with the events preceding or following them!

Now to wait a month or so for wideface version. I may crumble.

(P.S.: Dear Yen Press, how did you manage to mess up the “Brutus, omae mo kaaaaa” joke? It’s so easy. But, then agian, I don’t know what the original Japanese says there, so it might actually say “Brutus, omae wa uragirimono!”, in which case I will not blame Yen Press but rather Aoki Ume for not being well-read on Shakespeare. How dare you, foreign person, not read classics that weren’t even written in a language you speak! Unforgivable!