At first, A Channel gave me the feelings that it will have some similarities to K-ON. As the series went on, the show became an enjoyable experience with the girls’ personalities driving the comedy along with great production values.
The story involves a girl named Tooru, whom has recently passed the entrance exam for the high school her childhood friend, Run is attending. During her first days of high school, she meets her other friends, Nagi and Yuuko. After meeting each other, they started to hang out every day. From there, they do some fun activities during the year such as going to the beach, sneaking into the school at night, singing karaoke, playing in the snow and making pancakes. In addition to hanging out with her new friends, she also catches the attention of Yutaka and Miho in her class, who has a liking for her. Sometimes, Tooru finds Yutaka annoying, but not so much when she asks her for help.
I have to say that the characters was the strongest part of the show because the uniqueness of each girls’ personalities as described briefly:
- Run: While she reminded me of Yui because of her ditzy nature, she tends to do some really crazy things such as making deformed zebras and squirrels and forgetting to wear her underwear. Also, she is really clumsy to the point of dropping a whole bowl of pancake mix on top of Yuuko’s head. At least Tooru is around most of the time to prevent that from happening and keep her company.
- Tooru: She is a quiet girl who is also an honor student. She spends time helping her teacher when she is not with her friends. In addition, she also protects Run, which leads to hilarious moments in her attempt to drive away boys who tries to ask Run out. At the same time, I kind of feel sorry for her since she has a small body like a child’s and only wants to grow taller. There is no wonder why she is obsessive over Yuuko… her body is simply perfect!
- Nagi: Since she wears glasses, she is the most knowledgeable out of the group. She is cool, but very self-conscious when it comes to her weight and diet. She also dislikes the extreme cold and hot weather. Nevertheless, she had some amazing moments, especially when she had her hair down and did an impression of Run.
- Yuuko: Resembling Mio in appearance, Yuuko is practically flawless except for one thing. She tends to overreact to everything that happens around her, especially when her friends take advantage of it and humiliate her even further. With the addition of Kotobuki Minako’s voice, it just makes Yuuko’s humiliations/overreactions feel more hilarious. While there are so many scenes where she gets embarassed, the most memorable scene is when she reads an adult manga that has a heroine that resembles her while wearing only a towel. At least she has a lot of self-confidence to shrug off it off rather easily. Otherwise, she would be in a mental breakdown by now.
Lastly, the production values for A Channel were great. The animation was colorful and the character designs looked really cute. This was a bit more noticeable in episode 7 when the girls watched the fireworks that looked really pretty. As for the show’s music, each episode has an insert song to fit a specific mood of the episode, except for episode 7 where each girl sang an individual song. While there is not much to write home about the insert songs, they sounded good and were at least listenable. On the other hand, I liked the opening song, “Morning Arch” since it sounded so pleasurable and happy.
Overall, A Channel was an enjoyable show that cheered me up after several weeks of college exams and homework. There were simply so many enjoyable moments with the girls that it was so easy to enjoy yourself. Then again, it mostly depends on whether or not you enjoy slice of life shows that soothes you with happiness. If so, definitely go for it as you most likely enjoy it like I did!
Overall Rating: 8.8/10, B+, Very Good ¶
I really enjoyed A channel it was a nice show to sit back and chill type of anime! Really good after a long day of fighting, drama and sad anime.
Hard for me to really choose my favorite girl! Because each of them are so much fun, But if I had to choose maybe Nagi? Not sure why but she always seemed fun. I do enjoy Tooru+Run and Tooru+Yuuko when she messes around with her it makes for a few fun laughs.
A Channel was certainly enjoyable, but then again it doesn’t quite reached the level of what K-ON2 had to offer. Friendship was a central theme of the show and I felt that the second season of K-ON definitely handled it better with some drama towards the end, similar to what the later seasons of Aria… It’s not a bad point for A Channel, but it’s definitely something they should work on if they going to work on another season.
Yuuko is still my favorite mainly because of the voice and her personality as she voiced Mugi, another one of my favorite characters from K-ON!
No matter how many “Eh, it’s alright. See it if you get the chance” reviews I’ve seen for this, I can’t get past it. I dunno, it just really bothers me.
Yeah, did not mean to do that last part. >_>
Feel free to edit and remove it.
I don’t really mind, but if you really want to remake your comment, tell me so I can remove the old one.
Also, edited by request.
I meant the link. xD
Still, I can’t get past the look of these girls. They just look really malnourished.
Epic fail, I’ll remove that for you.
Interesting… While it’s something that I didn’t notice while watching the show, I think it has more to do with the art style. Ironically, I didn’t get this feeling with K-ON, considering that the girls have cake and tea on a daily basis… but it’s definitely a point that is worrisome, but not to the point of being a breaking point of the show.
Then again, Nagi’s diet jokes isn’t really helping that fact… :/
A Channel has become, without a doubt, my favorite anime of all time. I love slice of life, it’s such a nice thing to get to look forward to. And the characters just seem to grow on you as you watch, I loved getting attached to these characters, especially Tooru. And although it was bittersweet at the end, seeing Tooru’s smile just warmed my heart. :3
I feel that most of these heartwarming slice of life shows have in a way show this some way in another with the characters, most notably K-ON, Aria, and to some extent, Ikoku Meiro no Croisèe. The strong feeling of friendship simply gives a lot of nostalgia and some cheerful moments. If you haven’t seen it already, I suggest watching Aria as it has a lot of this development… maybe not a lot of comedy, but the themes are similar and the art direction is gorgeous.