Someday’s Dreamers: Natsu no Sora
Short Synopsis: Our lead character who lives on the countryside gets accepted on a magic school in Tokyo.
Highlights: Awesome art direction; warm slice of life; is the first season as good as this?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Usually, I refer to the titles of anime in their romanized form, but in this case I’m going to make an exception, simply because it’s so damn long. In any case, as a fan of experimental anime, I just have to say that I LOVE the art direction in this series. The creators actually used live-action backgrounds, and pasted drawings on top of it. The effect looks great, and it’s a very effective way to save a bit of budget without coming across cheap. The character also looks excellent. This episode was mostly slice-of-life on the countryside, and the real meat of this series is probably going to take place somewhere entirely different (a magic school in Tokyo, it seems), but I think that we can expect some great things from this series. It’s already been episode one, and it already introduced a charming love-story between two side-characters.
Hidamari Sketch x356
Short Synopsis: Our lead character enlists on an art school and meets her new neighbours.
Highlights: Energy; better than what I saw of the first season.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7/10
I only lasted for 3 episodes on the original Hidamari Sketch. It wasn’t bad; it just… didn’t catch my attention. I checked out this episode to test whether it had improved since the first season, and surprisingly, it has. For this episode at least. It feels more energetic than the first season, and I actually laughed a bit here and there. I do want to note, however, that Shinbou’s style of direction is getting a bit old. I first noticed this with Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei, but his way of adding random nonsensical shots or texts does tend to distract from what’s really important. Especially in a series that’s supposed to be slice-of-life (ie, relaxing), this works rather distracting. It would be interesting if the guy would try to evolve his own style a bit.
Antique Bakery
Short Synopsis: Our lead character gets employed by a gay baker.
Highlights: Cheese, but knows fully well that it’s cheese.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
I’ve been purposefully keeping my expectations for this series low, since it unites the godly Nippon Animation with the Noitamina-timeslot, so I just expected this series would turn into a gay bishie-series. The scary thing is that I turned out to be right, and yet laughed my ass off in this episode. It’s been a while since I watched some good cheese, and this one seems a darn fine example of it. The entire mood is so depressing, with organ-music, and yet the characters are discussing cakes. The only gay character in this series is also portrayed in a pretty realistic way for anime, and his banter with the straight characters was just priceless. Now let’s hope that the creators can keep this interesting for 11 more episodes.
You know, you shouldn’t expect Hidamari x365 to be better than the first season. It’ll just be more of the same – girls talking around a table and heart-warming stuff, not much more. It’s not boring by any means (not to me at least), but obviously not the kind of thing you’re looking for. You’re just not into slice-of-life comedy, like some people are not into romance, mecha or whatever other genre. I can’t recommend you enough not to force yourself to watch more of a show that can’t be good by your standards from the start, just like a fanservice/harem comedy has little chance to be good by your standards (and mine too, by the way). Horrible things happen when you try – see your Lucky Star review. You’ll just end up wasting your time, save it to watch older shows you’ll like instead.
love the lush backgrounds of Natsu no Sora
zuvichi I don’t think that’s it. I couldn’t stand watching more than one episode of hidamari sketch. Does it mean I don’t like the genre? Hell no. I LOVED kamichu!, I liked minami-ke, I haven’t finished Lucky star (watching HxH) but don’t mind it at all.
Some people have different taste is all but it doesn’t mean they don’t like the genre. You’re generalizing things too much. If I say I don’t like naruto does that mean I automatically don’t like shounen fighters? See what I mean?
Oh…my…God Someday’s Dreamers: Natsu no Sora is out? I absolutely loved the first season when I was younger, one of my first if not the first slice of life anime that got me into the slower paced shows than others. The beautiful soundtrack and warm and refreshing slice of life feel were incredible in the first series and this new series looks like it is better in every way, I can’t wait to check it out.
cody : I know what you mean, but that was the only way I could find to make my point. What I meant was, psgels gives every new show a try, and until now he’s always been disappointed by every single slice-of-life/school comedy (as in Minami-ke, Lucky Star, Hidamari…) he watched, so I don’t expect him to find one he likes anytime soon. I’d be pleasantly surprised if he ever did, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen…
Can I watch Natsu no Sora if I haven’t seen the first series?
Denizen: I’m not sure, as I haven’t watched the first season either, but this seems to be a spin-off, and not a direct sequel, so I think you’re fine if you haven’t watched the first.
Zuvichi: Interesting observation, and you’re indeed right. There’s been one slice-of-life comedy I liked, though: Ichigo Mashimaro. I watched it before starting this blog, but I enjoyed it until the end.
Oh, my bad then. Consider me pleasantly surprised 🙂 Hope to hear your opinion on the upcoming OVA when they’re released !
Fumi Yoshinaga, the author of the “Antique Bakery” writes plenty gay stories and they are all “josei” type of stories, ie much more realistic than the usual yaoi smut and incredibly witty at that, so you end up reading them for the plot and not the sex.
Agreed with Candyloop: Antique is definately more mature than a lot of whats circulating in the market which is either very cutsy or just smut. I gotta say I winced at the music and the art looks terrible so far– but unlike the drama they’re keeping pretty real to the manga (save all the depression smacking you at once). Be prepared to laugh more though. As was mentioned its gonna get wittier and Fumi Yoshinaga has a -great- sense of humour. The more the characters interact? It only gets better.
I just watched the first episode of Natsu no Sora. I feel like I just watched an art clip show with no emotion behind it.
Every time they panned away from the talking characters (which was 90% of the time), it felt like the directors were saying, “This conversation is unimportant, but look at the BACKGROUNDS!”
It all felt kinda pretentious and snooty to me. If it can veer away from that with the second episode, I might stick with it, but other than that it just wasn’t entertaining.