Some quick first impressions: Shuffle! Memories, Manabi Straight and Hidamari Sketch

Shuffle! Memories For all the Shuffle-fans who were looking forward to this episode, don’t get your hopes up too high. This first episode was basically a recap episode, in which Rin introduced the different characters yet again. We see fragments of everything which didn’t have anything to do with the main story from the first season, with your occasional fanservice. Seriously, I almost fell asleep while watching this. To this day, I still wonder why I managed to watch Shuffle! till the end. Okay, the latter half was decent, though the first half was just pure garbage. Really, if the next episode doesn’t have anything decent, I’m never going to touch it, no matter how good the rest of the series might end up being. Manabi Straight Whoa, this anime definitely has energy. It takes place in an all-girl-school, and it focuses on five girls who probably are going to bring some kind of revolution with the almost limitless amount of energy they have. Especially the main character. So far, it’s been quite fun, though it has its flaws. I’m especially getting a bit worried when the first episode already starts off with a pool-episode. Also, this anime is supposed to play in 2035, but apart from the flying skateboard, I didn’t see any differences with 2007. Still, those are just minor details. I think I’m going to keep watching this, as long as it doesn’t degrade into a pure slice-of-life series (I want to see some challenges for Manabi). The graphics are also quite interesting. It seems that this show has been granted with a considerable budget in this department, and it fully utilizes that. The animation looks great, and the creators also decided to try out some new things in the graphical department. So far, these really work, apart from one detail. The cat-like mouth of one of the characters just doesn’t work. Also, one final point, the insert song was more annoying than it was interesting. Unlike a show as Red Garden, it hurt the show more than it contributed. Hidamari Sketch Ah, a slice-of-life series. Not exactly my favourite genre, and indeed, the first episode wasn’t bad or anything, but it really bored me to tears. If this were a comedy, it would have been a great one, though instead of that, the show keeps a slow pacing and at times it inserts a small joke, which in the end, isn’t that funny. Miyo could have been an interesting character, but this show is just too slow to bring out the full potential of the character. It tries being cute and funny at a very small pacing, which just doesn’t work for me. It’s ironic that the OP was the best thing of the entire anime. Unless you’re a slice-of-life fan, I wouldn’t recommend this one.]]>