Imagine David Lynch writing a high-school coming-of-age series, equal parts 'Peanuts' and 'Achewood.'
Utterly charming and able to break down the resistance of even hardened anime-haters. I went from complete unfamiliarity with the series, to rocketing through the collection of the manga, to devouring the anime within a month. The addiction then spread to my (anime-apathetic) girlfriend; now we even own original production art from the series and a custom-made "Dad hat."
It's my third viewing through the series and my first time watching it in English. The voice acting's pretty good, although it's taking a bit to get used to Osaka's gentle Southern (US) accent. The show's innocent enough to appeal to all ages in almost all demographics. There are some scenes that are a bit frank - the teacher characters are shown to be quite flawed and human - but only Mr. Kimura, a pervy teacher, is likely to raise any objections.
The only reason I didn't rate this a full 10 is because the animation, while clever and expressive, is not quite of the highest quality, and the voice acting and translation in the English dub aren't of the high quality exhibited by the Studio Ghibli feature film imports. Then again, should a limited-run broadcast series set in a high school and not initially meant for export be expected to live up to such standards?
Utterly charming and able to break down the resistance of even hardened anime-haters. I went from complete unfamiliarity with the series, to rocketing through the collection of the manga, to devouring the anime within a month. The addiction then spread to my (anime-apathetic) girlfriend; now we even own original production art from the series and a custom-made "Dad hat."
It's my third viewing through the series and my first time watching it in English. The voice acting's pretty good, although it's taking a bit to get used to Osaka's gentle Southern (US) accent. The show's innocent enough to appeal to all ages in almost all demographics. There are some scenes that are a bit frank - the teacher characters are shown to be quite flawed and human - but only Mr. Kimura, a pervy teacher, is likely to raise any objections.
The only reason I didn't rate this a full 10 is because the animation, while clever and expressive, is not quite of the highest quality, and the voice acting and translation in the English dub aren't of the high quality exhibited by the Studio Ghibli feature film imports. Then again, should a limited-run broadcast series set in a high school and not initially meant for export be expected to live up to such standards?