GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class

Yes it's another slice of life / comedy anime. But for those of us that really enjoy these types it was great. Though I already own the dvd series I'm happy to see it come on Crunchyroll as it shows they are trying to appeal to other than the hack and slash, mega droid crowds. I enjoy this series almost as much as Hidamari Sketch. This one is a bit more chaotic, but I felt the characters were fleshed out well enough to stand on their own and not require a backstory. However, just as with Hidamari I feel a little cheated because I may never get the chance to see these characters develop over time as I was able to do with Azumanga Daioh. I would like to know what happens to them and how they grow through the years to graduation. Guess I'm greedy, don't want just the slice, give me the whole loaf.

I haven't laughed this hard since Lucky Star, and as regular readers know by now, I am a huge Lucky Star fan.

To begin:
I went into this anime with reservations. From the screenshots I saw it looked like Shugo Chara or yumiero patisiere. both great shows, but a genra I grow easily bored with. So I was surprised to find little to no magical elements. Its just a fun little romp into the lives of 5 art students. I must say I laughed particularly hard at the power rangers knock off they did halfway through the episode.

However, a lot of the comedy does seem to rely on puns or gags. Personally I love this kind of comedy (Bobobo has a lot of this for instance) so I laughed almost the entire episode.

While this one kinda snuck up on my I can't help but fall in love, so well was it handled. The characters are all archetypes that remind us of other characters we've fallen in love with.

I don't really know what else to say. The problem with reviewing these is that their hard really talk about for awhile. I mean I can't go and attack the storyline and the characters are perfect. The animation is good all around, with some moments being better than others. The art style changes a couple times, but in a show about art students I'd expect nothing less.

AHA! I know what to talk about! Until recently I ignored opening until a fellow critic pointed out some good ones to me and now I keep my eyes open for more of the same. GA's op and ed are both quite simple, but by no means bad. The opening fully expresses the show in its own way. As you watch you know exactly what your getting into, and in its own way it tells a story. Now I probably wouldn't put it in a top ten, maybe a top 20, but it is good.

The ed on the other hand is far too simple. The music is good (a rarity for ed in my opinion) but the animation used is far too simple, almost like they weren't even really trying. Did they run out of budget? Spend too much on the show? I wouldn't mind that, but it just seemed weird that everything else was so hyper and constantly moving and then we end with this really poorly animated ed.


For more reviews by me go to my new website Lakewatcher.com