Anime Review: GA Gejitsuka Art Design Class

Wohoo, I finally managed to post an anime review on a Monday again! Then again I really want to tell people about this under-appreciated series whose title might look a little familiar since I actually reviewed the first two volumes of the manga back in the fall. For the manga I felt like it was pretty cute but just couldn't quite get into it and I wasn't sure if that's because I was reading it in really odd, brief snatches of time thanks to my schedule or because the material just didn't quite click. I'd known the anime was on Crunchyroll and decided one night to start going through all the stuff I had queued and this looked like as good a place to start as any (also because I'm not currently watching comedies so I didn't have to worry about confusing it with anything). After the first episode I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to continue so I watched a second, wasn't still sure but as I found myself reaching for the third I realized that I must be at least a little hooked by it.

GA Gejitsuka Art Design Class

Summary: Kisaragi, Miyabi, Namiko, Tomokane, and Nodamiki are all first year students in the GA Art Design course and like many art students are quite strange. They agonize over homework, come up with strange hotpot things to eat, get lost in the school buildings, and generally just have fun while working hard.

The Good: For me the humor clicked more here than it did in the manga and I really adored this show. The episodes managed to string together a bunch of little plots (my biggest concern since it's based on a 4koma manga) rather well, with some being a little more coherent than others, and it even covered beyond what I had read before, another concern of mine. They even gave the "second group" (how I referred to the Fine Art Club in my mind while watching it) screen time which made me happy since they had really grown on me in the manga, I was delighted when they popped up since I had completely forgotten about them. But I think the show's best strength, to both new fans and fans of the manga, is the humor, it fits, it flows, sometimes they drag out skits a bit too long but more often than not the writers really understood comedic timing and I would spend the entire episode giggling madly.

The Bad: I would have liked a little bit of character development even if it had been just for some of the characters like Kisaragi (who is more or less the main character). The characters did change a bit, and since this is based off of a gag 4koma manga to start with I can't say I was surprised by this (lack of) development but it reminded me that even though I really didn't like Azumanga Diaoh it did have a bit more character development and did better in that respect. I also wish the show had managed to give itself a slightly more concrete ending (in either the 12 episode or the OVA, which Crunchryoll has listed as episode 13) or at least a sense of wrap-up, both ended just a bit too suddenly for me. But, given that there is more manga out there to read I'm not terribly heartbroken over this.

The Audio/Visuals: On an odd note, I saw Star Cross Anime Blog praise the art but for some reason crunchyroll was streaming all except two or three of the episodes in only 480 so I can't really speak to how crisp the lines or colors were. To me a lot of the show looked simple and like it had a relatively modest budget, nothing looked off and it illustrated all the art concepts that came up perfectly but this wasn't a show that showed off any technical or artistic prowess. I don't think that hurt the show but it's not one I would recommend if you wanted just eye candy. It did however have a rather additively cute opening song so if you want ear candy you might want to give that one a listen.


So I'm giving this 4 out of 5 stars and a hearty recommendation to get your butt over to crunchyroll and try it out. It never got picked up for a physical release in the US (although I just noticed that it's listed on AnimeSols' survey for "what titles would you pledge at least $40 for a physical release" question, the only one I answered yes for actually) so if you like it, and can access AnimeSols, then make sure to go over there and vote for it too! And if anyone is interested in the manga then go hit up your local retailer of choice, Yen Press has the R1 license for it and judging by the release dates there should be stuff in some of the later volumes that the anime never covered!

Manga Review: GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class (volumes one and two)

So I'm back in school and near two different library systems now that, while they do have manga, after using browsing them almost weekly for three years don't have much I haven't already looked at. Thankfully they still have some things (such as last week's Wandering Son) and I've also moved in with some other nerdy people who are happy to let me read the comics they brought. So that's how I came across the first two volumes in this series, it's one I've been curious about for a while (and browsed a little in bookstores) but since 4-koma style comics aren't usually my thing I hadn't gone out and bought any of them. So, have I finally found a 4-koma comic I like or is it a good thing I didn't buy them after all?

 GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class by Satoko Kiyuduki

Summary: This series follows five girls at the GA School of Design as they navigate art classes, do weird things, and generally have a good time.

The Good: This story is less "cute girls doing cute things" and more of "art students do weird things" which I think makes it much more interesting. Sure some of the characters do sterotypically "cute" things, but then they grab the strangest food they can for a hotpot, grab pieces to eat with their eyes closed, and then draw an image to represent their mood about what they just ate, while amusing "cute" isn't the first word I'd use to describe that. I was also surprised at how, while every strip has a punchline, most of them are part of a series all leading up to a larger joke*. The characters also got a bit more fleshed out than I was expecting, it still wasn't a lot (is it just me or do comedies rarely fully flesh out their characters?) but it was nice to have some insight into some of them and it all fit in rather well. 

The Bad: The second volume introduces a new group of characters (in addition the original cast) and I'd love to see the two groups interact more since they're both rather amusing (so yes, I do like them, I'd just like them to be a little more connected). Other than that, I suspect that some of the humor will make more sense if you have some experience with art although honestly I can see people who don't know much about art at all enjoying it anyway. There really isn't a lot here that I didn't like, I did have a bit of a hard time getting into it at first (probably because I was reading in small chunks and, while I think it reads better in chunks, I was just reading too little at a time to settle in) but I thought it was a really funny and surprisingly well put together comic.

The Art: The art is on the simple side (not surprising considering how small the panels for 4-koma  comics are)but it's not bad and it's far from being a collection of talking heads. I like that Yen Press went ahead and put a number of the pages in color (it would have been odd to read a page about the properties of say the color green and have everything printed in black and white) although I suspect this is why the book costs more despite the fact that it's only 120 pages, not the usual 180 (the book is also a little larger which might have also contributed to the costs but regardless it's a good size). Sometimes the panels do feel too busy and cluttered but by and large they worked fine.


Now, would I buy this? I'm not sure, I'd like to read more (YP has two more volumes out, no idea if it's still running in Japan) but it is a bit pricey considering the volumes are smaller and I don't feel like rereading it anytime soon (although I think a number of my friends would get a kick out of it). So I suppose if I feel like rereading them, and have some extra money, I'll pick them all up but for the moment I'm fine not having my own copies. 



*so while both newspaper comics and some webcomics are also comedies told in strip form they're actually a bit different from 4-koma which, unless I'm mistaken, is released in chapters, not individual strips, so there's a lot more continuity between individual strips. My observation anyway. 

Manga Review: Genkaku Picasso (volumes 1 and 2)

Some more manga that I checked out from the local library near my school, they only had the first two volumes sadly, I much prefer to review short series like this all in one go, and I had heard rather good things about this series so of course I had to pick it up and try it. I had actually come across the first volume a few months earlier in a local bookstore and thought about getting it but decided that I wanted to check it out first which in retrospect seems like it was a pretty good idea.
  

Genkaku Picasso by Usamaru Furuya

 Summary: Hikaru Himaru, called Picasso by his classmates for his drawing ability, and his friend Chiaki died one day in a freak accident. Chiaki makes a deal with god however and Picasso can keep on living, with her as a shoulder angel of sorts, if he uses his amazing drawing skills to see the darkness within people and help them change. The problem is that Picasso hates helping others and he isn’t very good at it, at this rate will he be able to keep living on his borrowed time?

The Good: The second volume is a bit longer than a normal manga volume which is because this series knows how to pace itself and doesn't drag out or stuff in more information than it can handle into a chapter. Most arcs are only one chapter long but some are two chapters and each time that occurs it feels like a smart choice by the manga-ka, not like their editor told them to draw something out. The inner problems the characters face are interesting, some of them made me roll my eyes but most of them seemed like realist(-ish*) problems.

The Bad: Each chapter (or two chapter arc) follows a very basic and easy to predict formula which started boring me by the end of the first volume. And, while being formulaic isn’t necessarily a bad thing being boring is. There doesn’t seem to be an overarching plot and each story seems to be resolved too quickly and neatly, in short it barely feels like there’s even a conflict in this series. Since there is just one more volume in the series I would be willing to read that to see how it ended but if there were say, at least another three more volumes then I would simply drop it instead.

The Art: The art is what I see praised about this series the most and it is very different from what you normally find in a shonen manga. Super detailed and it evokes the feeling of pencil sketches (probably intentional since the main character does all his drawings in pencil) it’s interesting to look at. The artistic representations of people’s inner selves were a bit too gruesome for my taste but regardless it was nicely done.

I started reading the final volume in a local bookstore, I believe I got through the first arc, and I am a big concerned since that seemed like the exact same thing as the previous two volumes, maybe it pulls a surprise, quick ending out of the last chapter or two? I'll try to read the rest of the series since I am genuinely curious about it but I won't be heartbroken if I don't get a chance either. 

*I say "ish" because a lot of the characters problems felt like very Japanese problems (concerning how you view/react to society and such) and I don't think like or really empathize with that viewpoint much.