I've been rewatching Hidamari Sketch, as well as its sequel Hidamari Sketch x365, the title of which brings up the obvious question of leap years, but I digress. Anyway, even now, I'm not entirely sure what to say about it.

It's a happy series, to be sure. It's the brighter, fluffier side of SHAFT and Shinbo, the part concerned with nothing more earth-shaking than the lives of an Azumanga-esque group of girls, each slightly odd, and the rather odder people around them. It's slice-of-life, a slice of a life none of us live, and yet a life all of us find familiar.

Art with a capital A is the primary impression one gets from the show. It makes use of plenty of clean, simple motifs, the sort which presents itself as being unpretentious: the pieces are there to create an overall feeling that is easily accessible to one and all, and yet each part may be examined in detail at leisure to glean further insights.

Character-wise, I'm not sure which of the four main girls (or the various side characters) to award Favourite Character to. Yuno is arguably the main main girl, the primary protagonist, and the anime is an exploration of how she matures as time goes on (anachronically, it should be said), but she doesn't set off my "main character not as interesting as side characters" biases. Maybe it's because she is one of the purer strains of moe, in the sense that she seems like she should be hugged and cuddled and protected from the big bad world out there.

Miyako is an odd case. In another anime, she would be the annoying, over-loud character whom I'd much prefer would settle down (like Azumanga Daioh's Tomo). But in Hidamari Sketch, she's not only tolerable, but she's close to becoming my favourite character. Part of this, I think, is because despite her actions, she's talented. I think she canonically has the most raw talent and ability of all the Hidamari girls, being able to instinctively work out the most creative way to interpret a subject. Add in a heart as big as a very big thing indeed (the episode with Yuno's fever dream is heartwarming), and Miyako is someone I'd be happy to call a friend, Hiro-annoying aside.

Speaking of whom, Hiro and Sae are kind of… there, I suppose. They're great characters, and I don't dislike them (apart from Sae's transparent claims to be Experienced In Love), but they rank below Yuno and Miyako in the character tiers. Possibly they just need more screentime before I can get used to them.

And yes, Yoshinoya-sensei is hot.

What pushes the series from "well done" to "one of my favourites", I think, is the music. This is a common requirement for series which I consider to be among my top anime: Card Captor Sakura, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Read or Die. In fact, good background music can make up for a lot of series sins; I'm not really impressed by the plot of Read or Die, but the soundtrack I listen to often.

Unfortunately, I'm not exactly trained to critique music, and so I can't say anything substantial apart from "it's good and I like it". How it is good, and why I like it, are mysteries answerable only with "because".

I've mentioned before my love for the opening themes of both seasons, which are cheery and bouncy and happy. The ending themes are more sedate, with a touch of melancholy, but the sort of melancholy that you smile with, as you might smile at a parting: it is a Goodbye, but with the hope of See You Again. The warm, comfortable evening glow, perhaps, compared to the bright promise of dawn of the opening themes, completing the motif of the sunlight of Hidamari Sketch.

Another week, another desperate attempt to come up with something to talk about on this blog of increasingly embarrassing time-wastage. Well, it's not like the blog hasn't been thoroughly embarrassing for all concerned anyway, since I've never made a secret of the inherent Ogling of Cute Girls which remains, to this day, the blog's raison d'etre.

Listening to the new Hidamari Sketch x365 opening reminds me once again how much I loved "Sketch Switch", the first season's opening. I think I first realized what made it so addictive when I listened to the Lantis Nico Nico Medley: the song is great for just belting out without worrying about the minor details like keeping in tune, like the much-remixed "Koi no Mikuru Densetsu". Every time I hear the kumikyoku's robo-voice counting down to the anticipated "ikimasu!", I can't help but grin and sing along.

"Hatena de Wasshoi" is no different; I can sing along to "nobi nobi nobi nobi nonbiri to" without fear of censure, at least if I do it quietly enough that the neighbours don't complain. The song itself even exhorts you "toriaezu WASSHOI de~su", to shout it loud and proud. Try it out; it's actually pretty fun.

As for the show itself, it places itself in the unique position of something I'm watching and liking, and yet have nothing to say about it. It's the further tales of four girls in an art school dormitory. There is nothing more that needs to be detailed, except perhaps a reaffirmation of the proclamation that Oh God, Yoshinoya-sensei Is Hot.

One problem with starting an anime blog with a marked dislike of going through an episode taking and formatting screenshots is that I don't actually have a ready-made source of blog post inspiration with the Brand New anime season, only obtainable through raws, or some such. There's been a few waves of introspection among other anime bloggers (before the merest hint of a twinkle of the existence of this blog, full disclosure requires me to admit) about the very large number of anime blogs doing episode summaries, and the relatively scarce number of blogs doing primarily editorials and thoughts. The problem with doing editorials for me, though, is that I don't exactly have a lot to say about a great many things. Sooner or later, I'm going to run out of opinions, and be reduced to "um, it's nice" or "um, it's not that nice".

But I don't like to do episode summaries. The thought of going through an entire episode and picking which screencaps are good to use and actually screencapping the exact moment for best framing and resizing everything and renaming everything and uploading everything and placing them strategically throughout the post and thinking up of good ALT and TITLE attribute captions and making sure that the entire thing retains a modicum of user readability and doing this all with only a basic understanding of Notepad++ and GIMP because I'm a cheap bastard… it all begins to sap my will to blog. I want to just get on with it and be able to get straight to "OMG anime is so cool" and "moe! hanyaa~n" and all that.

Therefore, full episode summaries only when absolutely necessary. I really respect those who take the trouble to screencap everything, and I can never understand the occasional lament that "everyone's doing episode summaries". For me, episode summaries are hard; random ramblings that can be passed off as "editorials" are easy.

To compound this difficulty, this anime season, I haven't really found a lot of shows that not only catch my interest, but that I can also find things to talk about. For the most part, I end up with Thoughts And Impressions that pretty much read "stuff happened, was interesting". I don't have the same passion for the current season's shows that I had for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya or Zero no Tsukaima or Card Captor Sakura.

This isn't to say that I have burnout on new anime or something, or a call for "the good old days". If anything, I love the current trend towards moe shows (obviously) and harem comedies, and I like many of the newer shows compared to older ones. And it's not that I dislike the current season of shows, as much as I simply can't think of anything to say about them, from episode to episode. I'm watching them, but I may not be blogging them.

I still haven't decided whether I want to blog any of the new season or not on a consistent basis. While I'm trying to decide, I'll just give a very quick run-through of my initial impressions of a few of the shows.

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