Just a little something before I get into this review; a little history, if you will. Going back to 2011, when SHAFT’s Puella Magi Madoka Magica came out and turned the magical girl genre on its head. Not going to go into my opinions of that show right now, but this was also around the time when I began looking into other shows that SHAFT had done, and one of them was the Hidamari Sketch franchise. I was drawn to its simple and distinctive art style and the constant family-friendly and non-cringe gags that just kept on coming. Then I noticed that the show’s creator, Ume Aoki, was also on the team responsible for Madoka Magica. This was the very same person who was behind character design for the one magical show I loved at that time, and here she was, with a show (a manga adaptation, I’ll add) of her own. There was no way I couldn’t check this out. I think it’s also safe to say that, in my original watch of this this may well have been the one show that swayed my opinion on slice-of-life shows in general.
Now I know that many school slice-of-life shows have come out since Hidamari Sketch was released; too many for us to even keep count of, probably. Nearly all of them have stuck to a very similar style of character design, comedy, and animation style, as well. So maybe it was because Hidamari Sketch had such a unique and distinctive art style that turned my head. I had only really known SHAFT for Madoka Magica and Bakemonogatari (both of which came out after this), and was just curious at what else this innovative studio dished out. And I’m glad I did, as I since followed the franchise right up to the very end. So, if you aren’t familiar with the show, or only know it because of the “We Need To Go Wider” meme, here’s a little rundown.
Our main protagonist (of sorts) is Yuno, who attends a high school that specializes in arts. Because she lives so far away from school, she decides to move to an apartment block (Hidamarisou) literally opposite the school. Joining her in the apartment block is the carefree and tomboyish Miyako, the responsible yet impulsive Hiro, and calm and caring Sae. All four of them grow to develop a close bond with each other, due to them all being neighbors. Sounds rather unoriginal, right? Well, in Hidamari Sketch, it is all the little things we notice that makes it stand out; little things that grow on us as we watch each episode.
The main one is the art style. After so many released shows, we can look at this now and perhaps see this as a ‘quintessential’ SHAFT show, but at the time, most anime followers hadn’t really seen this kind of animation before. The show has a mixture of minimal backgrounds, frequent character close-up shots, single frames of text flashing on-screen, props that look more realistic than drawn (like alarm clocks and teddy bears), unmoving plaid, color changes to reflect mood…I could go on. This style of animation would certainly be something that we’d see in a lot of future SHAFT shows; fans can easily play SHAFT bingo while watching a show like this.
What’s also interesting is that the show is not told in any chronological order, either. We are shown instances like field trips, class outdoor sketching, shopping trips, karaoke nights, inflatable pool parties in the summer, typhoon warnings and so on, all in an order that matches the general mood of the episode instead of moving from season to season. Our main protagonist may be Yuno, but we also get to see a lot of what happens with the other main characters of Miyako, Hiro and Sae. We get to see how carefree and insane Miyako is, who ends up becoming very attached to Yuno. We get to see Hiro play the ‘mother’ of the group, but also see her worry when she can’t find any real direction for the future once she graduates. And we get to see Sae be the other senpai of the group, as well as see her get embarrassed when the group find out about her novel writing and her pen name. She isn’t quite the tsundere type of girl, but still…
A lot of slice-of-life shows, whether they’re set in school or not, sometimes like to add a lot of things to get the viewer interested; in the case of Hidamari Sketch, it’s a case of ‘less is more’. Animation in sequel seasons gets better as time goes by, of course, but even with this, I really like the very minimal animation style used in this first season. While that particular style might not suit other show styles (such as action or fantasy shows), it works here because of how little the show has to keep us entertained. Right from the very first episode, set after the New Year where Yuno panics over an overdue assignment, the scene is set on how the rest of the show will be like. Sure enough, some anime followers like to see a lot of action going on in the shows they love, but this ‘less is more’ ideal that the Hidamari Sketch franchise as a whole keeps is something I love dearly, purely because it suits this show so perfectly. We don’t need to see all the great details of Yuno getting ready for school each morning, we don’t need to see all the great details of each school day, and we don’t need to see all the great details of every activity they have. If this all comes across as me putting down the show a lot, I assure you I’m not – quite the opposite, in fact. It’s a show like Hidamari Sketch that has the capability of showing some anime followers who love their greatly-detailed shows how ‘less is more’ sometimes.
It was a mixture of offbeat art style, upbeat soundtrack, and jokes that weren’t cringe-worthy in any way that has made Hidamari Sketch (along with its sequel seasons) a highlight show for me in my long tenure as an anime follower. I didn’t expect a show like this to come along either. I had been riding the Madoka Magica wave, like a lot of us were, and then this appeared on my doorstep, and I ended up liking this much more than watching a surreal and dark magical girl show. This first season is definitely a show I recommend to those who are not just curious about SHAFT’s back catalog, but are also curious about how positive school/slice-of-life shows can be.