[Yokai]

Speaking of people who don't like chibi art styles, I am usually one of these people. This show isn't the case for me, I loved it a lot. It really opened my eyes to not judging a show just by it's visual choices.

The first episodes I was a bit worried about the way it was going, it seemed that the jokes were limited, but it moved on at quite a great pace after the director switch. It wasn't necessarily that the show started out horribly, it just didn't have enough content and the jokes kept repeating all the time. It wasn't a good formula, even though comedy formula is to often times repeat jokes, because there wasn't enough spacing between segments and it wasn't always random enough to warrant a return of that joke. For example, often times shows like southpark will repeat a joke but take it a step further. This show would repeat too soon, and wouldn't take it any further. That is, until later in the series.

The art style is great, especially for this type of show. Looking at the thick lines used on eyelashes really reminded me of school-esque doodle drawings, where the thick line is just a flat headed marker stroke across the page. It was symplistic, which gave a very school esque vibe, but was also well animated. Things were all in all smooth, and were pretty stylized when heavy movement was taking place.

I am not a major otaku, but I still liked the jokes and how Kagami always gave the Konata otaku joke a twist back into the real world, stating how it is kind of stupid and unrealistic and really shows how motivation can be directed at the wrong place. The only problem I had really with the jokes was when they were edited or bleeped out, which got annoying especially at the gundam reference. I didn't know you could get into legal trouble for just mentioning a show, but I guess it could happen. Other than that, there was little to hate about the show. It had it's slower moments, but also kept a nice pace and kept you entertained with what the characters are doing.

I've heard a lot of bad rep when it comes to the Lucky Channel segment, but I found it alright the first episode, and then the other few episodes it just felt too much of the same. The idea wasn't poor, but I felt like they should have done what happened to lucky channel later in the show earlier, to keep things fresh and creative. There were moments that were genuinely funny, and other moments where it felt like the last 2 pages of a manga where it give a somewhat witty background about a character but doesn't really keep you that interested. The problem was also that when it did those boring character descriptions, it would take about 5 to 7 minutes of a episode, which is far too much wasted time.

This may be out of place here, but the English dub of the show wasn't too bad either. Did a good job keeping characters similar. The only voice in the English version I didn't like was the person who played Patricia, only because her voice didn't sound foreign but instead sounded poorly mic'd. The Japanese dub was great aswell, but I just thought it was worth noting that the English dub team did well enough that I felt like it was localized but also true to the original.

It isn't the best show in the world, but it was better than I expected going into it. I was recommended it by my Japanese teacher (of all people) and she said that at times it can be kinda of girly and cute but at the same time really tackles the otaku or anime fan audience. I didn't really get what she meant by that fully, but after a long while of hesitation, I watched the show and after that I really understood what she meant before. It is a series worth trying atleast the first 5 episodes or so, and then deciding completely how you feel about it. It's definitely a show that is better in one sitting, segment at a time. Like 4 episodes, stop, 4 episodes, stop.

I think the total rating would be 8 out of 10, just because there were those few annoying tendencies in the writing and the progression, however in no way is this meant to be a "poor" mark. I tend to rate things literally and something getting a 10/10 would be nearly impossible for me.

Looking that the rating, I feel like there may have been way too many 10s for this show, but to each their own I suppose. I just don't think it can be called perfect when it has quite a few flaws in progression.