STORY: Basically my little intro thing up right about sums up what is most of the story. Young(ish) girl trying to help a shun in fix his life. Well there's more to it than that. The plot follows a kind of activity of the week setup or a two to three episode "adventure" of trying to cure Satou of his shun in life. It's really hard to explain the story without getting heavy into spoiler territory, but let me say this... if you are looking for a happy go lucky slice-of-life comedy with a little bit of romance, Welcome to the NHK! has all of that but the happiness. This show is quiet honestly to me, a very depressing show. It tackles a lot of the social issues that were happening in Japan back in 2006 when the show was created. Thankful there is a lot of comedy in the series that keeps it from being extremely depressing. It is an interesting story to say the least, better than the usually copy-pasted method of storytelling. Original is the word.
CHARACTERS: Oh my are these characters messed up in their own special way. The main lead Satou can be described as one lazy MF. At the start of the series we learn that he has been a hikkomori for around 4 years. He realizes that he was setup by the evil NHK. Satou learned this by talking with his refrigerator... need I say more? Misaki is the sweet little girl trying to save Satou, who is also kinda shall we say... well she doesn't have all her cups in the cupboard. Oh and then there is Yamazaki, who is probably one of the funniest characters I have ever seen. I don't even know why he just was hilarious. The cast really shines when they were all working together, and they way they interacted together made them all seem very real and life like. Which is something I like to see.
SOUND: Ugh... the opening was okay. The first ending was okay, the second ending I didn't care for. I ended up skipping both after watching each once so you can say that they aren't particularly impressing. I didn't really notice any insert tracks, but there are a few that really helped set the tone of the show... except Purin.... which still haunts me in my sleep. Trust me when you watch this anime you'll understand. I watched this show dubbed because that's how I role. Chris Patton does an amazing job as Satou and Greg Ayres does a great job of making Yamazaki sound like a, well, loser. Steohanie Wittels was unknown to me until now and I have to say that she deserves more work. She was great as Misaki, her voice is perfect for her.
ART: Typical Gonzo, half of the show is good and the other was drawn by a blind fish. I wasn't impressed even with the good parts of the art. I liked the character designs, but all to often the art and animation was just plan ugly. There was an entire episode that looked likes some three year old drew it with some coloring pencils. I will give them credit for not making all the girls eyes as big as their palms.
ENDING: I always talk about the ending because to me THE ENDING IS PARAMOUNT!!! Don't worry no spoilers. To me the ending wasn't all that bad. It was satisfying, but it seemed a bit... fast. Not forced, but just fast. I wish they made the last episode a few minutes longer, but it still did a nice job ending the show (even though there is more in the novel but don't get me started) So don't worry the show doesn't just stop it ends and it its fairly well wrapped up.
OVERALL: As you can probably tell I had a very hard time writing this review. There was a lot I wanted to talk about but it was all just spoilers really. I guess the the show was insubstantial, there just isn't really that much to say about it. I finished an episode and I would say, "Really nice episode there." but nothing really jumped out at me and say "MARATHON ALL OF IT" even though I did because I had all of break to do nothing. In the end Welcome to the NHK is a good series, but it isn't the greatest slice-of-life ever nor is it bad. It's very different show and I give it a recommendation to anyone that wants to see a different take on the slice-of-life comedy series.
