I, I know, super late on this one, plus Impz already did a little writeup on it. However, I will be picking this up for the season, and I wanted to say a few small things about it before episode 2 gets subbed. Best not to fall behind at the beginning! So, I’m sure that most have seen this already, and Impz already did a brief summary, so I’ll leave that out and jump right in!

Well, the plot of this first episode was a bit generic, it was the main cast meeting for the first time and generally just meandering around the school, trying to find their way into class. Done before, yes, but if you were waiting on the plot to decide whether or not to watch this show, then you kind of missed the boat. There were a few things that made this show stand out to me, enough to make me want to commit to it for the whole season, so let’s talk about that for a bit.

The first thing that caught my attention was the promo image released several months ago. I absolutely love the color scheme of the outfits. I never really knew I liked orange and black so much till I saw it on a school uniform, I guess. The sharp design of the characters also stood out, and I was instantly curious about the look of the show. I was quite impressed with the animation on this first episode; I thought the scenes with the sky and the other backgrounds were especially well done. The animation can get a bit sparse around the characters themselves, but the clean, simple lines of the faces gave it a look of minimalism, not really low-budgetry.

There wasn’t quite as much music as I would have liked, several scenes being almost entirely silent. That being said, when they did throw in some music, the effect was much more evident and jarring – the scene where Ayumi is trying to decide whether or not to ask Tatsui if she is lost was scored by a classical tune that is the personification of Tatsui’s snobby, frigid demeanor. So hurried and cold, it sent a shiver down my spine and I fully empathized with Ayumi at that moment. (it was the first movement of Winter, fittingly enough, from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.)

Each girl seemed to follow a pretty standard archetype, and this grouping is as standard as fighter-thief-white mage-black mage, but you gotta go with what works. The girls fit their archetypes to a T:

The sweet, clueless new girl, Ayumi Nonomura

The queen bee, Tatsui Iizuka

The wacky one, Torako Kageyama

The Wild Card, Suzume Saotome

I laughed quite a few times in this episode; it’s just quirky enough to catch my attention, while different enough from the shows like this that I’ve seen before to keep me interested. I have heard a lot of people talk about turning the show off after the seemingly endless hallway scene at the beginning, but I honestly didn’t think it was too long – at least, not long enough to really bother me. Some scenes were quite funny – I was so surprised by the scene where Torako gut-punches the teacher that I spit beer all over the place.

This was a really neat slice-of-life, and I’m glad that it didn’t stray into parody or over-the-top annoying slapstick. I was genuinely surprised when the girls jumped out of the 2nd story window, and I found myself enjoying the ride along with Ayumi, which is exactly what I wanted from this show. I knew what I was getting into, and I’m glad to say that Hyakko delivered exactly what it promised. The next episodes is already out, so that’s all I’ll say for now, but I am looking forward to blogging this show. I think that this is going to be a fun little comedy, and I’m not expecting anything major or groundbreaking in the plot department. All I really want is some light-hearted fun, and think Hyakko has a lot to offer.

The first of many lectures, I’m sure