Sakamoto desu ga?

Haven’t you Heard? I’m Sakamoto

The other day I finished watching Haven’t you Heard? I’m Sakamoto which came out this year in 2016. I don’t try to keep up with what anime is out in the current season really and since I struggle to endure the painful week to weekness of the one episode at a time kinda deal, I tend to wait until it’s all out and then gouge myself lol. This anime I could cope with going week to week because it is episodic and isn’t the type to leave me on a cliffhanger or any such thing. Besides I think if I tried to binge watch this one I would have gotten bored part way through. It’s only a short 12 episode anime but personally I feel that if it had gone on any longer it would have really outstayed its welcome.

In small doses this anime was quirky and fun. I enjoyed its randomness and bizarre moments, its impossible scenarios or really weird WTF situations. It was an enjoyable 20min a week where I could zone out and have a giggle.

Most of the episodes are broken up into 2-3 short stories and revolve around Sakamoto and the friends in his class throughout their first year of highschool. Sakamoto is really eccentric but it seems like he’s barely aware of this trait which makes things all the more amusing. During the first episode it becomes very clear that Sakamoto is very popular with the girls who all think he’s that perfect blend of cool, handsome, and smart. He seems to be able to find his way out of situations in the most bizarre of ways. The boys hate him because he’s popular and set about trying to find ways to humiliate him to bring him down a peg or two. Sakamoto always ends up coming out looking even cooler though, and in the most effortless way possible. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s popular but at the same time dodges all the girls as needed, he will stand up for the weak and bullied people, and generally just achieves impossible feats while looking absolutely cool and flawless haha. The scariest thing in this anime is Sakamoto’s friend’s mum who is in love/stalking him. I have no idea what she plans to do if she catches him though but my imagination was going to a very bad place, it was actually a really creepy episode.

Amusement is very much the reason I kept watching this show, it offers no more than that. So if you need more than that to keep you watching an anime this one may not hold your attention long. I think you will pretty much know if you are going to like this anime after the first episode or two.

Enjoy

 

Lucky Star

Lucky Star is an interesting anime. It has no plot really. No conflict. No bad guy. No point. What it does have though is relatability to a degree. The little conversations that they have that we may have thought about too, or things that happen to them that we snigger along with because they’ve happened to us too.

It took me three attempts to watch Lucky Star despite the fact that I own it on DVD. I bought it because I liked the first couple of episodes and was so determined to watch and like the show. I always ended up distracted away from it though or wouldn’t feel like watching it and I think it’s for the sole reason that not enough happens to keep me engaged with it.

I liked the characters and I loved the conversations they had. We have four quite different personalities going on in this group and I liked seeing how they interacted. But even though listening to a great discussion is all very well and good, 24 episodes is a lot of time to fill and have your audience wanting to come back for more. Because this show didn’t have much more to it than making normal life seem a bit more humorous and interesting I thought there was a slight imbalance. Ultimately though I personally liked the show.

My favourite character,and probably most people’s as well, was Konata Izumi. She is a gaming, anime and manga loving Otaku and throughout the show she references various anime including Yu-Gi-Oh, Dragonball Z, Pokemon, Sgt Frog, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (both characters are actually voiced by the same voice actress). She is an easy-going girl who hates to study, often copying her friends notes for tests. Despite being on the lazy side she is good at athletics but will not join any of the athletic teams because it would interfere with watching her favourite anime. She plays online games right up until she has to study and will cram for exams by pulling all-nighters. Even though she can come across as being a selfish individual she really does care for her friends.

Kagami Hiiragi is Konata’s opposite in some ways. She is a hard worker and studies well to get good grades. She gets annoyed at Konata quite a lot when she will cram for tests and still get good marks or when she will talk about her lazy habits, gaming, or anime interests. Having said that though Kagami likes gaming too. She likes to eat snacks but then complains she needs to lose weight, and she likes to read light novels. Guess she just has a way better work ethic and is good at time management. She can seem intolerant of others and talk to them in a quite matter-of-fact way but she genuinely does care for her friends and joins in with their antics all the time.

 Tsukasa Hiiragi is a clutz and an airhead. She is very sweet, cute, innocent, quiet, friendly, and is also Kagami’s twin sister. She doesn’t understand complicated conversations so doesn’t really follow a lot of what’s going on but she tries her best. She doesn’t retain information very well so isn’t that great at homework or academically gifted at all and she will often ask for help with homework from her sister. She finds it hard to get up at a set time, doesn’t have a great sense of humor, hates conflict, and is quite shy too. However, she excels at home skills unlike Kagami, and tries her best in what ever she does. I find her very cute and relatable in some ways as well.

Miyuki Takara is an intelligent girl and is known for being a walking encyclopedia with whom you can ask anything and she will know the answer. She has terrible eyesight and has a fear of putting things in her eyes. Miyuki is clumsy, she will often walk into things or fall over. She is forgetful, for example she will heat up a drink and put it down only to have it go cold so she will have to heat it up again, repeating this over and over. She hates dentists but seems to need to go quite often because of her naturally bad teeth. She is a very well-mannered, smart, pretty girl and often gets asked to help her friends out with their homework.

At the end of an episode is a show called the Lucky Channel. A short two minute segment where the child idol Akira and her assistant Minoru discuss the episode and the characters in the main show. Mostly though, the show becomes a shambles as the two end up arguing. Akira puts on a front of being a cute young girl but in reality as soon as she feels threatened or annoyed she reveals her trueself to be a horrible mean-spirited person and in no way wants Minoru taking any of the spotlight from herself. A line from her Wiki entry described her perfectly as being a “deep voiced, violent, chain-smoking, selfish-cynic of a burnt-out entertainer on the brink of becoming a has-been.”, wow, they really nailed her in one sentence. I think she is meant to represent how Japanese idols feel who’s popularity is always threatened by the next cute thing coming along.

In all honesty, it isn’t the most riveting anime around but I quite enjoyed it for a change of pace. I did cry in one episode though that I thought was really sweet so it definitely has its moments. So I obviously felt engaged enough with the characters to feel empathy and cry. It comes down to if you simply want to see an anime that pretty much only has interactions between four people based in a school and home life situation. That’s all it is.

Enjoy