Hidamari Sketch – Episodes 1-3 – Cuteness Overload

As COVID-19 rages on and affects most anime productions, it’s time to watch more shows that are on my list. Recently, I have compiled a list of shows I plan to cover. I probably won’t be able to finish everything by the time everything starts to go back to the new normal. At least this will give me some things to cover during the next few seasons. After all, the next several months will be pretty barren with all the delays.

With that, we continue the trend of watching all the Manga Time Kirara adaptations I haven’t seen yet. This time we head back to 2007. Yes, we are finally watching the timeless schoolgirl slice of life filled with diabetes induced cuteness. That show is Hidamari Sketch. Yes, I orginally intended to review this show last year. However, my big move for a new job kind of distracted me from actually watching the whole first season.

You might be wondering, what took you so long to watch this show? When I got back into anime, I didn’t know too much about this show or even Manga Time Kirara. After all, besides the well-known anime that aired on broadcast television. Also, the first several titles I watched are titles from Kyoto Animation.

But of course, if you haven’t watch Hidamari Sketch before, but watched Madoka Magica or any of the movies or spinoffs, you might realize something very familiar. No, it’s not because Madoka has some resemblance of Yuno or Miyako and Yuno having the same voice actresses as Mami and Nagisa respectively.

Believe it or not, Aoki Ume, who created Hidamari Sketch also worked on the character designs for Madoka Magica, some characters in Magia Record, especially the main characters, and Kirara, the main protagonist of Kirara Fantasia. I have to admit that her character designs are really cute. Still, the new redesigns of the Hidamari Sketch characters for Kirara Fantasia are even cuter than the anime version.

But aside from that, the story focuses on Yuno attending Yamabuki High Art School and living in an apartment building nearby. Believe it or not, the apartment building name is Hidamari Apartments. The episodes tend to skip around in the timeline to the likes of Suzumiya Haruhi. This is evident with the first episode. The new apartment signage was already there in January. Yuno and her friends didn’t actually create the signs until the second episode when Yuno sees a note requesting someone to make a new nameplate from the landlord.

In the first episode, it’s obvious that Yuno is best friends with Miyako. As expected, Miyako doesn’t seem to have money even for a new phone. It shows when her unit is half remodeled but stopped due to the landlord having no more money to complete it. This can explain why her ceiling leaks during a big rainstorm in the third episode. She also got into the school with a scholarship. It’s not too surprising since she is talented, which can explain why Sae became jealous.

Still, I guess with all that hunger, she is surprisingly a big eater besides being ditzy. I find it hilarious when she eats all the slices of bread Yuno is trying to use as an eraser. Even so, I can’t get enough of her interactions with Yuno. Yes, besides her and Yuno playing in the snow and misspelling “peace” as “piece,” there is the Brutus statue sketch. Yuno coughed and cause a droplet of coffee hit the forehead of her sketch. While Yuno freaks out, Miyako proceeds to put a dot using the safe coffee on her own sketch. That way, Yuno’s picture won’t look out of place. What I find hilarious is that Yoshinoya interprets it as a statue of buddha instead of Brutus. Not only that, when Yuno wake up from a nap, her face covered with charcoal. Miyako imitates the same appearance on purpose, which is hilarious.

Besides that, there is Hiro and Sae. They are second year students and of course very close to each other. I think of their pairing being close to an actual couple. Still, Miyako has a tendency to bring up Hiro’s weight woes since she is on a diet. Yep, this doesn’t go well as Miyako gets a bump on the head. Still, when Sae brings up Hiro’s liking for sweets and her diet, she becomes upset. Thankfully, Hiro didn’t punish her since Sae is her soulmate after all.

Still, I find Sae find the mystery behind Miyako’s apartment quite fascinating. It’s funny how Hiro have heard that Hidamari Apartments used have the reputation of being Chidamari Apartments, which basically means an apartment filled with a pool of blood. This is quite ironic since in 2007, we didn’t know that Shaft and Aoki Ume would work on a magical girl anime filled with lots of death and despair. Thanks, Kyubey!

That said, there is the teacher, Yoshinoya, Miyako’s and Yuno’s homeroom teacher. While she is cute and attractive, she is obviously into cosplay. I find it funny how she compliments Yuno for using the postcards containing photos of their teacher wearing cosplay in the collage. This obviously shows what her hobbies are when she is not teaching.

Of course, she is not hiding it like some teachers are. In fact, she is very open about it. When Yoshinoya modeled, she wore a pink dress, a maid outfit, and eventually a wedding dress after Miyako complained about it being too difficult to draw. As expected, Yoshinoya gets into trouble with the principal. This makes me wonder how he puts up with her. I guess it’s because of her talents.

Overall, Hidamari Sketch is a fun and cute show so far. As always, I look forward to seeing more funny and cute moments with Yuno and Miyako as I continue watching the first season. Also, we can’t forget about those wide faces as well. ¶