Hyakko 01 – Your typical let’s throw a bunch of random girls who have nothing in common together show

I’ve been seeing some Hyakko stuff on display in anime stores around here, but mostly of the manga which has absolutely horrid designs if you ask me. Kinda reminds me how I find the artwork plain in Zetsubou Sensei’s manga but I enjoy the designs used in the anime. Anywho, from this first episode I really got a large impression that this show is just a mix of Azumanga Daioh, and Minabi Straight. I mean, yeah you know the drill if you’ve been into anime for the past five years. Your typical geared toward young men show where they take a bunch of random girls each with their own various interests and personality types and have them do wacky things together.

What? Our show is just like the many others before this one. ;_;

Although, in cases with these kinds of shows it really comes down to how things come together, and I liked this first episode. My first reaction was automatically, “OMG IS THIS AYA HIRANO?” *checks ANN* “Shit! It is I don’t believe it.” If you know me, for certain reasons I just don’t like Aya Hirano because I believe she gets too much credit even though she is only known for her two big roles (Haruhi and Konata) and she severely lacks experience, but she still gets a ton of praise. Oddly enough, I liked Aya Hirano’s voice for the shy, lacking confidence, pantyhose wearing Ayumi. This is my first time hearing her do a shy girl voice and I like it actually I am really used to her being a bossy bitch and having some high pitched nasal voice.

Although, on the whole, the four main girls are still your standard stuff. Shy girl who lacks confidence and looks up to the outgoing one, the silent girl, the stuck up princess one, and the outgoing leader of the group. Reminds me of the girls from Manabi Straight for the most part but without Aya Hirano doing the stuck up girl role. How far these girls fit into these niche traits have yet to be seen, but it looks like Ayumi has some kind of interesting back story from her middle school days so I am interested in finding out about that. Apparently their teacher is voiced by Keiji Fujiwara who is one of my favorite male voices. I wonder what is the role of his character other than just yelling at the girls and ranting to them?

Some of the facial expressions used in Hyakko are pretty amusing.

I personally relate well to characters like Ayumi and Mikan (Manabi Straight) because I struggle a lot with my own issues on wanting to break out of my shell, excepting the kind of person I am and to become the kind of person that I want to be. Seeing how the viewer gets to listen to Ayumi’s thoughts it kind of just makes me regret being born a male because maybe my life would just be a whole lot more simple because the feelings that confuse me, like Ayumi, might be justified in some weird way.

I liked this episode and found some of the parts humorous mostly the reaction facial expressions, and how the 4 characters came together as they all seemly got lost on their first day to class. Looking forward (MASSUGU!) to seeing how things will progress. Yay for slice of life shows.