RTMI: Not Another Lucky Star Clone… thingie?

Posted on May 15th, 2011 by The Mistress

Welcome to RTMI! It is I, Sieglark, returning with something RELEVANT TO YOUR INTERESTS! In this issue of RTMI, I’m going personal with one of this season’s anime treats: A Channel. Adapted into anime, A Channel is a 4-panel manga written by bb Kuroda, the manga was serialized in the seinen manga Manga Time Kirara Carat on October 28, 2008, published by Houbunsha. The anime was first broadcasted last April 28, 2011 and is slated to run for 10-12 episodes.

The series revolves around 4 girls: Run, Tooru, Yuko, and Nagi. Basically, the premise of the series is how the four girls waste their day away in many different school, extra-curricular and after-school activities. It also shows the dynamics between the four characters in a repetitive series of running gags and moe, straight, or dojikko tendencies. Suffice to say, Run is the dojikko, Tooru is the silent and overprotective kohai/best friend, Yuko is the well-endowed/scaredy-cat (albeit Mio Akiyama clone), and Nagi is the straight man/woman of the group.

The first episode drags along with recalling past events. Tooru gets to visit Run-chan and break the news of having accepted into the same school as the latter’s. After some “expected” events, Tooru and Yuko gets into the first running gag of the episode (and probably the series as well). For such a small kid, Tooru could easily overpower the larger Yuko. It’s questionable though as to how Yuko has constantly been unable to defend herself against the small adversary. As the episode drudges along, uneventful stuff happen in school. Yuko gets clumsier and stupider than the baka-dojikko Run-chan by falling off her seat. Lunch happens, and… that’s it. The whole lunch scene was totally uneventful, except for the second tussle between Yuko and Tooru. I’d say Tooru is overly jealous of anyone approaching Run-chan (yeah… that’s been established ever since the first few minutes of the episode). And yes, we did skip the introductory part where Tooru happened to threaten with a baseball bat the boys approaching Run-chan.

The second half of the episode drags along with the four girls’ trivial problems, like Run-chan waving at Tooru to the point of falling. I had hoped that Run-chan WOULD ACTUALLY FALL for a change of pace in the first episode. But hey, it was expected that the others would save her. Oh look, a candy-sharing scene! Wanting to share the last piece, Run-chan attempted to chop a hard candy in half for Tooru. Guess how well that went. Yeah… You got it. The rest of the scenes up until the end is mostly the same as what happened the previous day (which filled up the whole 20+ minutes of the episode). Same dialogue, same Yuko-Tooru gag, and same baseball bat scene.

The running gag of the series... probably

The saving grace of A Channel comes in the form of an insert song every episode sung by the VAs of the four girls. Typical lyrics, typical beat, and typical pop / slice-of-life appropriateness for the episode make up the insert song. Think of it as an MTV inside an episode. Though initially interesting, it’s easy enough to skip the insert song and proceed to the end of the episode, ending credits and the next episode preview.

Personally, the format of A Channel is boring, overused and repetitive. We’ve had our fair share of Lucky Stars, Azumanga Daiohs, K-Ons and other anime/manga with the same format. A series of girls, boys, classmates, teachers and the sleepy events of high school life has nothing else to offer except a guilty pleasure of ogling at pretty, cute, moe, and kawaii 2D characters. In A Channel, perhaps only Tooru is the show’s saving grace for eye candy. Viewing just one episode is enough for A Channel. If you’re still interested, then go read the 4-panel manga instead. It takes up less time than watching a full 30 minutes of this yawn-fest. I’d say, in this case, first impressions really do last. Or heck, what you see (in this first episode) is what you get (for the rest of the season).

Upon first impression, A Channel is one series this season that’s best kept shelved.

Rasen Rating: 2/5