Story: 8/10
So our protagonist Yuno and her fellow dorm mates have all advanced a year in their highschool. What does that mean for us? Two new roommates for the gals staying at Hidamari Apartments! Now, to be honest, that's about how in-depth the plot line for Hoshimittsu gets. It's a slice-of-life telling of the lives of the girls at Hidamari Apartments.
"What's different episodically about this season that's better than the previous two, then," you might be asking? It's that unlike the prequels, this season brings our cast to different locations than before. The first two seasons (especially season one) confined the characters to either Hidamari Apartments or to Yamabuki High. Contrarily in Hoshimittsu the characters visit places not yet traversed (i.e. the Hair Salon, Hardware Store, etc). While you might ask why that matters, let me just say that seeing the bumbling cast of Hidamari in these places produces the most hilarious results I've ever yet seen. If you enjoy a wholesome comedy (this jewel is rated G), Hidamari Sketch will be sure to please.
Art: 10/10
Haters gonna hate. It's a SHAFT anime.
If you dislike the cut-aways, nutbladders, or polka dots all over your screen, that's your own taste right there, but for myself personally these touches enhanced every moment. That's not all though - the best thing to talk about with this is the vibrancy in color. Nearly every single pixel on your screen will be a brightly colored pastel. Watching shades of sky blues and pretty pinks for twenty three minutes at a time greatly increased my overall happiness. I can vouch that if the art weren't exactly the way it is, then a great amount of value in this show would be lost.
Sound: 10/10
SHUWA SHUWA!
Catchy beats, fabulous seiyuus, and great background music galore. The opening (Dekirukanatte), a loud and flashy song, starts each episode in a manner that initiates a smile, lasting the whole episode. Then there's the background music. If you have not yet had the fortune to listen to this show's soundtrack, you're really missing out. It actually consists of mostly whistles and humming (my favorite piece being Waku Waku Hidamari Sou). These upbeat tunes make me feel gooey and happy inside every time I hear them (and getting gooey and happy for such a hardcore badass such as myself is extremely intense). Listening to the ending song "Sakura Sakura Saku" may seem a bit out of place, because it sounds a little depressing, but I think it was the genius of the directors at SHAFT explaining to the viewer "you just had so much fun watching this show you should calm down now - here's some sad music." That SHAFT is just so smart. On a related note, the band who sings the ending song, marble, does the acoustic version of Dekirukanatte and it's pretty awesome. So check that out too.
And those seiyuu's? There's a lot of them. My two personal favorites that I thought need some of their own space in this review are Asumi Kana (Yuno) who also voiced Taneshima Poplar in Working!! and Omgigawa Chiaki (Nazuna) who is best known as Maka from Soul Eater. They do such great work...
Character: 10/10
The jokes are so funny in this show because the characters make them funny. Placing Yuno in a room with Nazuna, both notorious for being awkward folk, and you have the most ridicuolous situations that can take place in a normal setting and environment. Then we have Miyako, who can be described best as simple. She's best known for making even the most normal situations weird (often at her own expense). Hiro and Sae are the upperclassmen at the Hidamari Apartments, Hiro being the "motherly" figure and Sae being like "big brother" to all the underclassmen. While their characters come across as a bit stereotyped during previous seasons, I think their role in Hoshimittsu dispels all former accusations. Nori and Nazuna are the two new members by the way. Nori is techie and Nazuna is a girl who isn't in the art department. I'd say that's all necessary to say to briefly summarize the two. Lastly we have Yoshinoya-sensei and the Principal. I consider the two of them the true mascot characters for this show. Just watch and see why. They do such great work, too...
Enjoyment: 10/10
I bet you didn't see this score coming.
Overall: 10/10
I find Hidamari Sketch Hoshimittsu as the best slice-of-life comedy anime out there, and I say that with full confidence that I can argue it better than titles such as Aria or K-ON! That is strictly me though. I seriously recommend picking up Hidamari Sketch from season one, and watch all the way through to this point. That may be a factor in as to why this season felt so great to me. Every episode was fun though. I looked forward to this show every week, and not a single episode failed to make me happy. It's pure artistic bliss that brings out the big grin inside of you.
Hidamari Sketch Hoshimittsu is worth more than three stars in my opinion. Hell, I'd give it four or even five of them.
