3rd G-View: Hidamari Sketch Trilogy

This review will cover the first three seasons of Hidamari Sketch. Since the plot doesn’t change much from season to season, I’ll just review them as a whole and focus on the entire series in general.

Oh and here’s the review of the fourth season.

179th G-View: Hidamari Sketch X Honeycomb

• Hidamari Sketch (1st season) 12 episodes + 2 specials
  Hidamari Sketch X 365 (2nd season). 13 episodes + 1 EX episode and 2 specials
  Hidamari Sketch Hoshimittsu (3rd season). 12 episodes + 2 specials
• Hidamari Sketch × SP. 2 OVAs
• Hidamari Sketch Honeycomb (4th season). 12 episodes
• Hidamari Sketch Sae & Hiro’s Graduation Arc. 2 OVAs

Genres: comedy, slice of life
Themes: art
Rating: 9/10

Plot Summary: Yuno has been accepted to her dream school: Yamabuki Arts High School. To attend the school, Yuno moves and starts to live in a small apartment building named the Hidamari Apartments located near the school. Once there, she starts making new friends like her classmate Miyako and the second year students, Hiro and Sae. Surrounded by good friends, Yuno starts moving towards her dream of being an artist. In the 3rd seaon, an entire year has passed with our original four heroines having passed their respective school years and two newcomers move into the dorms, Nori and Nazuna.

Yuno (ゆの?)
Voiced by: Kana Asumi
Yuno, sometimes called “Yuno-tchi” by Miyako, is a young girl and main character in the story. She lives in the Hidamari Apartments, along with her close friends and neighbors Miyako, Hiro, and Sae. Her friends think of her as a very nice person. Yuno dreams of being a great artist someday. Although she is a skilled artist overall, she considers painting and drawing her specialties. She rarely takes off a pair of X-shaped black hairpins.

Miyako (宮子?)
Voiced by: Kaori Mizuhashi
Miyako is Yuno’s close friend, classmate, and next door neighbor in the apartment building where they live. Yuno refers to her as Miya-chan. She has an active personality and is always trying to have fun with her friends. Her exuberance frequently borders on the childlike, but she is undeniably creative. She is very spontaneous and claims the word “plan” does not exist in her dictionary. She loves to eat and has frequently asked for Hiro’s leftovers when she is on one of her diets. She sometimes points out that Hiro may be gaining weight, which earns her a punch on the head by Hiro. Miyako’s energy is frequently excessive and misplaced.

Hiro (ヒロ?)
Voiced by: Yuko Goto
Hiro is a year older than Yuno and Miyako, living directly under Yuno’s apartment. Although she tries to be a supportive senior to the girls, she tends to worry excessively about her weight, causing her to go on diets for periods while occasionally binging on sweets. A close friend of Sae, she is one of her neighbor’s principal sources of support when she is involved with a deadline or other crisis. She is left handed.

Sae (沙英?)
Voiced by: Ryoko Shintani
Sae is an upperclassman and good friends with Hiro. Her artistic specialties are photography and fiction writing; she writes fiction professionally under the pseudonym “Aya Tachibana” (橘 文, Tachibana Aya?) and enrolled at the school specifically so she could learn how to illustrate her own work. Sae, who is tall, athletic, and generally mature, has a playful side that can be at the same time enigmatic and cunning; she has a habit of giving Yuno just enough warning about potential problems for the younger girl to fail to avoid them. She also has a fondness for playing detective when faced with such anomalies as Miyako’s apartment. She tends to get upset when Miyako refers to her as having masculine qualities. She also gets very uncomfortable when asked about her love life, frequently inventing a history for herself that even cursory examination would show to be absurd, while blushing furiously.

Nazuna (なずな?)
Voiced by: Chiaki Omigawa
Nazuna is a freshman introduced in the third series of the anime. She lives in room 203. She has sandy blonde hair, braids, and large side bangs. She used to live in the neighborhood, but after entering Yamabuki Art High School her father was transferred somewhere for work and her mother followed with him. She appears very quiet and reserved, but has an inferiority complex. She is not in the art department, but she shows interest in it.

Stop drooling, she doesn’t wear this often.

Nori (乃莉?)
Voiced by: Hitomi Harada
Nori is another freshman introduced with Nazuna. She lives in room 103. She has lighter blue hair with pigtails. She is in the art department and likes to play with computers. She is honest and straightforward. She is generally the most level-headed one out of the main characters and is usually pointing out the others’ weird ways. She can speak in a Kansai dialect.

Yoshinoya (吉野屋?)
Voiced by: Miyu Matsuki
Yoshinoya is Yuno and Miyako’s homeroom teacher and art instructor. She is buxom, exuberant, and a cosplay maniac. So much so, in fact, that she will frequently wear incredibly complicated things that are at times truly inappropriate. She has a fondness for modeling for her class, displaying her latest outfits whenever she can, and showing off in general. Moreover, she is shown wearing a pair of squeaking sandals. When asked her age, she will answer “eternally seventeen”.

The Principal (校長, Kōchō?)
Voiced by: Yūichi Nagashima
The Principal is a thin, aging and balding man whose teeth are almost always chattering. Although he sometimes exhibits inexplicable behavior, when he appears it is most frequently to chastise Yoshinoya over her latest excess. Miyako can do a frightening effective imitation of him. His name is unknown, but in one episode of the anime, Yuno was writing the names of people on pictures on a paper. When she got to the Principal, the whole class thought his name was “Moai”.

The Landlady (大家, Ōya?)
Voiced by: Miyuki Sawashiro
The Landlady is the female owner of Hidamari Apartments. She has quite a few masculine characteristics as she often wears baseball cap, goes out for a fishing in her spare time, and is a heavy smoker. Although she has a very laid-back personality, she is often seen very busy doing various part-time jobs.

Natsume (夏目?)
Voiced by: Misato Fukuen
Natsume is a rival of Sae’s from class D. She later develops feelings for Sae while still maintaining her generally antagonistic attitude. The origin of her feelings for Sae, revealed in the season 3 specials is also a must see. She sadly makes less appearances with each season.

Natsume’s dream

Chika (智花?)
Voiced by: Rie Kugimiya
Chika is Sae’s 13-year-old younger sister, and is an anime-original character. She is more spontaneous and energetic than her older sister. She enjoys cooking and has an infatuation with a kabuki actor. She has no artistic talent and prefers music and home economics to art.

For those who plan to watch this show, there are a few things you must know.

Episode Timeline: 1st of all, this show has what I’d like to call, the Haruhi Suzumiya Episodic Tramlines Syndrome (HSETS) which basically means that most of the episodes in the 1st 2 seasons, take place in a non-chronological order. Allow me to explain with an example.
The very 1st day Yuno arrives at the Hidamari Dorms. This episode that should actually the very first episode in the trilogy, is actually the 1st episode of the 2nd season.

Yuno in the bath, this is what you’ll usually see at the end.

Bathtime summaries: Nothing major, but just to inform you that at the end of each episode, there’s a sort of short summary of the episodes’ events conducted by Yuno while relaxing in the bathtub with her rubber ducky. In season 2: The other characters also get their own bathtime summaries.

An oddly shaped being dressed in a Metapod costume, that acts as the show’s “Rooster”, who appears in almost every single countdown timer. What is his purpose? Why is he there? Noone knows, but he’s there and he’s cool in his own way.

Hmm, how to describe why I like this show…here goes.
This is your basic Slice of Life comedy with added cuteness that doesn’t really shove it into your face, it keeps it at just the right level.
This show in a nutshell, is basically about 4, later six high school students who go through simple events during their lives and all the common hardships of students who are living on their own, but of course they help each other out in their own ways and go forth, together kicking tooshies.

Think of it like K-ON! except not as wacky or moe, yet still extremely awesome goodness.

Each character has their own special trait that make them awesome.
Yuno is the classic cutie who’s fun, helpful, clumsy, apologetic and you want to hug her till she can no longer breathe.

Miyako, although she has a carefree personality and is a gourmet who is always hungry and will eat almost any food placed before her, she is actually extremely gifted and talented. Whether she herself knows how talented she is…is unknown. Just to name a few examples.

The landlady’s trademark is her voice. My word, she has the most awesome voice of the entire cast. I consider her a MILF.

And now, the character you’ve all been waiting for: Yoshinoya-sensei.
A sexy, Wii playing, cosplaying maniac, romance novel reading, Principal evading, allergic to desk jobs, nude model volunteering, squeaky sandal wearing, procrastinating, student loving, nurse stalking/bothering teacher. Originator of the popular fansubbing catchphrase “Oh God, Yoshinoya is hot” Every time this bootylicious beauty makes an appearance, you know something big is going to happen. I WANT HER SANDALS SO BADLY! They are her international trademark.

To conclude my review I’ll say this. This show is amazing and truly worth watching for both Slice of Life and anime fans alike who enjoy watching shows that don’t exactly require insanity or action packed madness to have a good time. All you need is a good laugh, feel good moments, lovable characters…and an oddly shaped being dressed in a Metapod costume.

Yup, Sae’s a pimp.

Thank you for your time and have a nice day.