The terrible secret of the past few weeks is that I haven't had the time to catch up on anime, which means I've forgotten where I left off. Ordinarily this is no big deal, and perhaps even a blessing in disguise, as I can rewatch anime in enjoyment, but when I have a blog to [...]
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Yuno and Miyako are watching the Teli, and this Teli-Tells-Them to visit its website for the answer to a puzzle. Because Yuno and Miyako are such lazy cheaters, they crash Nori’s pad in hopes of using her Internet(s). Nazna is there, too, but nobody cares. After a few clicks away, they find the answer and [...]
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I'm not really a big fan of tomatoes in food, which probably puts me at something of a disadvantage when it comes to enjoying the final episode of Hidamari Sketch Hoshimittsu. Hell, who am I kidding, of course it doesn't!In a departure from most episodes sported by this franchise, this finale sticks to just a single day and a single story to close things out, with the Hidamari Apartments crew
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And so, all good things must come to an end, sadly… And strangely enough, I have fun watching you do nothing, Miyako :3 Where can I get me some wideface goggles like that? She wouldn’t be Miyako if there were actually a food she didn’t like! Miya loves all food~ For once, I was thinking the same thing, Sae. [...]
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This is a brilliant post by Cuchlann of Super Fanicom in which he gets into the bones of Hidamari Sketch's use of symbols to represent characters. If you've seen HidaSketch, you've surely noticed the way that characters will at times entirely disappear from a scene, and be represented only by a symbol, usually on a single-color background, backed by the character's voice. If we take a look at these symbols (as Cuchlann does) we can find all sorts of meaning to their connections with the characters. However, to that end, I have nothing to add. Cuchlann does a wonderful job of exploring those meanings, and I largely agree with what he had to say, and the comments on the post I think round out the discussion quite nicely. So, instead of also talking about what the symbols might mean, I'm going to talk about why the symbols exist, from the standpoint of an Akiyuki Shinbo connoisseur (lol).
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One of the greatest sins of my blogging career has been that I've never properly posted about Hidamari Sketch (and similarly, one of the greatest sins of my anime-watching career has been that I never watched any of it past the first season/read more than 1 volume of the manga) - Both of those in spite of considering it one of my alltime favorite anime, it having formally introduced me to favorite director Akiyuki Shinbo, and it being a large part of re-introducing me to anime. Well, you know what they say, the early bird catches the worm - I kept my mouth closed so long that someone else spoke out before me, and boy, I'm actually glad that I never said anything, because 8c knocked it out of the park!
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The class is cleaning the school bathroom, and Yuno is left with the final task of restocking toilet paper. While flaunting her Air Jordans, she manages to flush down her apartment key and now has no where to go. What’s a little kitten to do than SLUMBER PARTY with her Groovy-Mates! Instead of watching Darker [...]
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Hidamari Sketch Hoshimittsu's eleventh episode couldn't really have started in a more appropriate way, mirroring the rainy and miserable day we've "enjoyed" here in the UK with one of its own - A state of affairs which hampers any plans the girls of Hidamari Apartments might have otherwise had on their day off.When a quiz question crops up on TV which requires you to go online to find the answer,
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  Stretching the limit of the imagination here… Impressions: You know, I’m willing to accept quite a bit for a decent joke, but a bunch of 16-17 year old girls who are confused and shocked by web browsers is a rather difficult premise to swallow. Did we travel backwards in time to 1994 somehow? The entire [...]
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It’s October 14, 2000, and you know what that means?! POKEMON GOLD AND SILVER HIT THE US FOR GAMEBOY COLOR, but unfortunately, Misato and Riri cannot afford the game. Instead, they spend their flashback hanging with Sae and Hiro. Sae is Snorlaxing in class again, and this leaves Hiro as Scottish worried as an Oddish. Because [...]
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The school cafeteria is having a Chinese Dollah Menu, but Yuno and Miyako were too late to buy anything. Lucky for them, Hiro is a master of all fats-man-ship. She bakes them a cake as fast as she can whips up her own Chinese Dollah Menu for the gang, and everyone becomes fatter because of [...]
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Losing the key to your apartment is easy enough at the best of times, but somehow Yunnochi manages to turn it into something of an art form in this tenth episode of Hidamari Sketch x☆☆☆ in a convoluted ballet involving the school toilets.With no key and her spare locked in her own room, Yuno turns to the landlady to help, only to find that she's having quite the struggle finding the additional
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As it were. There's a Japanese place at Cuppage Plaza around the Orchard area (in Singapore, if anyone is still unsure about my current nationality and residence) that my friend introduced to me. It's on the first floor, and for the life of me I cannot remember its name apart from the "Ou" (as in "king" [...]
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  Yuno, you slut. Impressions: What? She flushes her key down the toilet and then spends most of the next week as a hobo, wandering from room to room, trading sex for lodging? Aren’t there things she needs in her room? And nobody thought of (or could smell) the spoiling food? Also, I may have made up the part about trading sex, [...]
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While we're used to Hidamari Sketch jumping back and forth within its timeline from episode to episode (and indeed even between segments of episodes), this ninth episode of Hoshimittsu proves to be something of a first, as we actually travel back to the era before Yunocchi and Miyako were even a part of the proverbial Hidamari Apartments furniture.Thus, the lion's share of this episode gives us a
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I know I'm late (what with realizing only after seven episodes), but it took until now to realize that the common thread for this season is apparently the early morning exercises. Is it a common thing among groups of friends to compare each other to animals? After Lucky Star and now this, I kind of feel [...]
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  Obligatory joke about time travel. Impressions: Well, a lot of this was better than the past few weeks have been, but honestly, now that we’re close to April, I’m starting to think of this like the advent calendar of art shows until we get to the GA OVA. I miss you, Magical Witch Nodamiki. Annnnnnyway, I [...]
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I think it's fair to say that only Hidamari Sketch would even consider dedicating half an episode to crab fried rice, let alone succeeding in pulling it off in the show's usual style of understated comic genius.If nothing else, this particular sub-episode shows us just how well Nori has settled into Hidamari Apartments, as she becomes incredibly passionate about the aforementioned crab fried rice
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We all know the judgment of art is all subjective no matter who the judge is. But when it comes to an experience artist and art teacher, their opinion is interesting and more often than not very helpful for an aspiring artist. So what does Yoshinoya-sensei have to say about Yuno’s work of art? Yoshinoya – [...]
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One day I will be caught up on Hoshimittsu. Unfortunately, today is not that day. It was strangely fascinating to watch the girls of Hidamari Apartments talk about whether or not they're popular with boys. Being in an all-boys school makes for a fairly stunted set of social skills when it comes to talking to girls, [...]
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