SUPERIOR INTERNET CONTENT! X2

I surprisingly like this anime.

The period of late autumn to winter of 2008 saw the airing of two of the most ballyhooed animes of the season: Kannagi and Toradora. One features the very same people behind Lucky Star rhinoplastering their planned Season Two with different set of noses while the other features Rie Kugumiya in more of the same overused flat-chested loli tsundere archetype. Very much an expected Royal London Circus of a reception, forum discussions, imageboard discussions and blog entries ejaculates a skyrocketting amount of topics, threads and entries on a daily basis. I mean, Jesus Balls, just look at the amount of Google search results I got for the two animes:

Being the proud owner of a license to prick, I was generally unamused and ignored the whole fanfare circlejerk among the mainstream anime community. Currently, both animes sits grounded in my external hardrive begging for my merciful glance, but I tell them to fuck off and wait until the next shipment of CARE arrives. As I was browsing the anime lineup of that season, Hyakko immediately catches my attention not necessarily because it was a slice of life/comedy anime that will surely hook its anchors upon my dead ancestor’s left nipple, but due to the constant negative replies and showers of “WORST ANIMU EVAR” it received, which is funny for me considering the presence of all the popular marketable archetypes that would make for a perfect, imageboard spamming anime.

I never expected Hyakko to hit this amount on Google search.

I don’t go with mainstream opinions and I often favour less popular animes that are forced to compete against the bigger players of the season. Thus, I see a justification to execute the compassion protocol which authorizes small supply drops of CARE packages onto few episodes for humanitarian assessment. My expectations weren’t running high, but three episodes later, Hyakko gets my general approval stamp even though it fell short of receiving my official Seal of Awesome™.

Hyakko is a comedy slice of life focusing on the life of several girls attending Kamizono Private School, a large academic institution that combines elementary, middle, and high school into one. Here you have your generic shy happy girl, rich princess girl, atheletic but IQ-lacking girl, happy-go-lucky comedy relief girl and the list of generic archetypes and what to commonly expect goes on. So yeah, it’s nothing original, but since when was anime original anyway? Animes have forfeited their “original” status eversince American basement dwellers took them in as a successor to old Star Trek reruns. Anime these days are seldom defined by their content and instead by the amount of fanboyism and hype it generates (think consolefags). Have I mentioned Kannagi and Toradora just now? *TROLLAN FACE*

Although the audience was first introduced to Nonomura Ayumi and Iizuka Tatsuki, the real protagonist and driving force behind the stories and events that occur in the anime is Kageyama Torako. Despite the major spotlight on female characters, Hyakko is not a yuri anime, but I couldn’t help shake the feeling that Torako is an experimental product of reverse-gendering a male protagonist of a harem anime boosted with a likeable personality, evidenced by her coincidentially built non-implied all-female harem as the episodes progressed, with every single one having different reasons behind their interactions with Torako.

While the anime’s main genre is comedy and slice of life, the former is given a stronger emphasis. The comedy aspect does on occassions go with the obscure otaku reference that some new-schoolers won’t get, but always few and far in between and never overtaking the general slapstick humor of the anime. The sudden extinction* of otaku jokes past episode five made the dialogue script seemed a tad erratic, but whatever dude, it’s better that way. Cool story bro.

*I have only up to episode ten as of the time of this entry.

At times, it serioused up slightly whenever slice of life decided not to walk hand-in-hand with comedy, taking itself to the center stage. It’s not NICE BOAT serious or Kyouran Kazoku Nikki’s undecided seriousness, but sufficiently serious in a manner recommended by the genre. This is where more character development occur in the anime and I genuinely like Hyakko whenever it pulled it off. Episode six made my nutbladder swell when it executed that slice of life moment effectively, while Episode ten made me aaawwww’d at the chick-with-glasses’ past connections to Torako. I wish Hyakko would dedicate a few more episodes or segments for slice of life to balance out the comedy, keeping the latter theme from becoming too redundant.

Nene showcasing her rape tendencies.

Some say Hyakko’s humor doesn’t quite hit them, but I on the other hand absorbed a radiation ray’s worth and responded enthusiastically to it. Maybe because I took one too many look at Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei’s Shakespearean-esque comedy literature that once in awhile, I need to give that DEEP stuff a rest and trace my footsteps back to the old familiar territory of Excel Saga slapstick comedy anime and relate to commoners around me something that’s easy to digest across varrying spectrum of audiences.

In terms of animation quality, the first episode shows signs of overbudget (40% LOL), evidenced by the lush sceneries, vibrant colours and more varieties in backgrounds, environments, and movement, with very few inconsistencies. This, I believe, is what consequently turned episode two into a QC trainwreck and almost threw me off from watching the series. From episode three to the next, the animation quality recovered to a more consistent level though largely mixed bag. If there’s a word that I’ll use to compress all comments, thoughts and criticisms of the overall animation quality, I’d go with the word “seesaw”. In layman’s term, it’s a constant juggling of up and down between good, average, and an occasional trip to Pyongyang. Then again, what’s so wrong about QUALITY? It’s very common with anime these days and I don’t hear you double-standard twats crossing off Macross Frontier from your watchlist whenever Satelight animates an episode out of crayons and excreta.

The OP and ED music is hardly memorable; not that I care considering the budget for this anime. And yes, there’s Aya Hirano voicing a moeblob and she sang the unremarkable ED. Really, Aya Hirano’s presence is more a flashbang than fireworks: her presence may distract your attention, but she’s not the raison d’etre of this anime’s existence. Knowing this isn’t animated by KyoAni, I’m glad she’s not aggressively marketed for the sake of making a generic anime appear larger than life. Otherwise, Hyakko might become the pseudo-Lucky Star of late 2008 starring Aya “I’m a Hype Magnet” Hirano… and chocolate cornets, and balsamic fucking vinegar.

Overall, I like Hyakko. I wouldn’t call the anime great, but neither was it awful enough for me. It acknowledges itself as an anime that doesn’t bring anything new to the table, but it does what it was suppose to do with its given genre, and does it with predictable yet competent linearity. Best of all, it doesn’t attempt to wow the audience with short-lived gimmicks. If only Hyakko was aired on a less competitive season, it would’ve garnered better reception and more fans. If you’re looking for a time filler to watch after you’re done watching last season’s overhyped animes, or if you’re looking for a decent, if rather simplistic laugh, Hyakko might go down well with you. Give it a chance, but I won’t stop you if you feel like blasting it off to the edge of Alpha Centauri.

CHARACTERS (WIKIPASTA)

From Right to Left: Suzume, Torako, Tatsuki and Ayumi

Kageyama Torako
Outgoing and usually the instigator of the pack, she is identifiable by the fact that she does not wear a blazer over her shirt and tie like most other characters. She’s a typical trouble-maker, who likes to achieve her objectives in a straight-forward and intuitive manner and doesn’t really seem to mind other people’s circumstances. Because she was absent during the first few days of school, she was unwittingly assigned as a member of the discipline committee.
COMMENT: Why do female characters make the best harem lead? Sorry, what I meant to say is female lead are often better than a male lead in animes of this particular genre.

Saotome Suzume
Suzume has been Torako’s close friend since the middle school. She is usually very quiet but possesses monstrous strength and immense appetite. She is in distress for looking child-like and not feminine enough. In fact, she does not wear a bra and does admire Tatsuki for wearing underwears for grown-ups. She also cannot swim. She seems to have no sense of shame and her behavior is very unpredictable, which often throws her friends off balance.
COMMENT: Best character of this animu.

Nonomura Ayumi
Popular among boys for having a large bust and a naive personality, her photos are always in high demand. Due to her extreme shyness, she has had trouble making friends ever since the middle school and is most often the victim of practical jokes and mischief by others. Her three sizes are 90-56-85.
COMMENT: Moeblob. Her nervous and innocent demeanor could almost put an ‘X’ on her hair. Voiced by Aya Hirano BTW. Quite surprising as my seiyuu radar registered a Kana Asumi signature early on.

Iizuka Tatsuki
Daughter to the corporate president of E-lectra, one of the biggest electronics companies in Japan. She lives in a modest-looking house with a housemaid, separate from her parents due to her father’s work. Ever the classy one, she tends to use honorific speech even towards her closest friends and is often annoyed by Torako’s mischief. Nonetheless, she has the tendency of ending up being taken along, forcefully or otherwise, with the other main heroines over the resulting shenanigans.
COMMENT: Your standard-issued rich princess. Her story in episode 6 made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

There are more characters in this anime, but I believe you can all look for it on your own.

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YOUTUBE

Hyakko OP.

Hyakko ED.

Tatsuki baka!

Mecha Torako.

BROTHERHOOD OF HIVEMIND

A few blogs with something nice to say about Hyakko.

Animatic Figmation
Kurogane
The Abyss