A-Channel

 

What do the following anime have in common? Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star and K-On! ? Other than a character who is always struggling to maintain their weight that is. Give up yet? Well the answer is that they are all comedy anime developed from yonkoma (4 koma, meaning four cell) manga. Now we can add A-Channel to that list, and its easy to see the the influence of these series in A-Channel. Personally I’d say that A-Channel is Azumanga for the K-On! generation. Back when Azumanga was going, the four panel aspect easily showed, The episodes seemed like 5 five minute skits tacked together. Though this was because back then it was shown in that format, 5 skits, with a compelation episode at the end of the week.
By the time Lucky Star came round, they had managed to fine tune how to make a 4 koma show without having to release the episodes in this format. Not that it was a bad format, just made the compilation episodes seem a little disjointed at times. Lucky Star flowed a little more naturally as it was released as a single episode instead of a set of skits that are just compiled at the end of the week. However, to do this it had to throw in Lucky Channel skit at the end of the ep as filler. Again, not a bad format, and it was just as popular as Azumanga.

You could probably put this screenshot into the Opening of K-On! and not notice the difference.
K-On! brought about a new direction. Though the other series had cute characters, K-On was released in the 2010, a year that had developed a new anime style. Namely the moéblob style. Instead of one or two aspects of moé being added to the characters, they were packed full of moé and drawn in a cutesy style too. The story also began to fill the length of the episode and felt less skit based and actually flowed like an episode. The delivery of the comedy remained though, the standard ‘set up, pause, pause, punchline’ of the 4 koma set up remains though.
A-Channel is best described as Azumanga Daioh for the K-On! Generation, care of Lucky Star. Whilst Lucky Star and Azumanga had a similar setting, of just skit based comedy in a school, Lucky Star went for pop culture references and parody, though not to the degree of a series like Pani Poni Dash or Nichijou. A-Channel is more like Azumanga in this respect, however it takes the ‘four man team’ set up that has become common since Lucky Star, sure you get recurring characters, but the core of the series is just the main four.
Okay, I’ve gone on long enough talking about this series spiritual predecessor, but in all honesty, I was having difficulty trying to find out best to describe the show. And I felt I needed to explain why I came to describe it that way. So I’ll get to work on the characters and the plot.
Like K-On!, Lucky Star and to a lesser degree Sasameki Koto, the series uses the four man team dynamic, which effectively does away with a primary protagonist, instead using all four characters equally giving them all the protagonist role, with only the fanbase chosing their prefered protagonist. Though this series seems to me more in the vein of Lucky Star in that the preferred protagonist is preferred by a significant portion of the fanbase.

That position goes to Tooru, who shares quite a few traits with Taiga from Toradora. Mainly that of thigh high socks, small and petite stature and a bit of a violent temperament, however unlike Taiga the violence is played more for laughs and is rarely shown on screen or if shown is done purely for its comedy value. She also has what could be called a bit of a schoolgirl crush on her best friend. Gee where have I seen that before *cough*everyromanticcomedyanimeever*cough*. Something that comes to a surprise to the others in her group of friends is that she is an honour student. In many ways she is a hybrid of Chiyo-chan from Azumanga with shades of Konota and Kagami from Lucky Star.

A Brief History of Violence

 

 

 *Cue screams of pain offscreen*

Her best friend is Run, who for lack of a better description is what you get when you put Tsukasa from Lucky Star, Yui from K-On! and Osaka from Azumanga in a blender and mix thoroughly. Yeah, I kid you not, she gives all three a run for their money in the ‘cloud cuckoolander’ stakes. I mean even those three didn’t manage to leave their house half asleep and forget to put panties on. I believe she just took Osaka’s crown for her ditziness.
A New Level of Ditziness

 

 

 

 

 

Next up is Yom…sorry, I mean next up we have Nagi. Who, if I’m honest is just Yomi from Azumanga Daioh. A Meganekko who is smart, has brown hair, a thing with her weight and dieting, and plays the straight man most of the time. Hell if it wasn’t for the pigtails, and the lack of thigh high knee socks I’d swear it was Yomi. Sure they have their differences, but the similarities definitely outweigh the differences.

Reading Between The Lines

 

 

 

And the last of the four man team is Yuuko. Who is completely unique and a breath of fresh air to the anime charac…..Okay, jokes over. Whilst Nagi is Yomi-esque, Yuuko takes the cake for being an Expy of an existing character. Who is she like? Mio from K-On!. Tall, attractive, popular, long black hair, easily scared, the focus of a lot of the series fanservice. In fact, throw a bass in front of her and you’d swear you were looking at Mio.
Mio….Yuuko Fan Club

Even the teachers have some parallels to those of Azumnaga. The school nurse is a guy with a bit of an unnatural attraction to a specific student in the main cast (in this case Run), which easily makes you think of Kimura. Then we have the two female teachers who are friends and have a straight man, funny man partnership, much like Nyamo and Yukari. Though as they have a much lower importance to the series than those in Azumanga the characters are toned down enough for them to not seem as similar but you can tell that on some level Azumnaga seems to have been an influence.

 

 

 

 

 

As for plot, the series doesnt have any really. Its a slice of life, its just showing the lives of these four girls, with quite a bit of comedy and fanservice. So basically good clean fun. You have the age old tropes too. The beach episode, the pool cleaning episode, the ‘fight’ between friends, the festival episode. Given its slice of life nature it really is a given that you get these kinds of episodes cause they always need some external setting for the whole thing to not seem repetative, however as its been a staple for nearly a decade now its begining to become repetitive in itself, maybe someone will soon find a new setting. Unfortunately A-Channel didnt manage to give us that, but its till enjoyable enough.

 

 

 

 

Like Lucky Star it has its own unique way of padding out the episode. To make up the timing, a slight montage is put in the episode, all animated to the same standard, but instead its just a filler that is played along to a character song. Though its obvious that the song is there for padding the episode to its full length it doesn’t feel like its just forced into the episode it usually takes the place of the tedious stuff that some anime keep in, like train journeys where little is said, or the old anime standard of walking to school. The stuff that seems forced when comedy is thrown into the situation. The songs are pretty good too.

Well that’s all I have to say about this show. Bye for now. The next review shall be slightly different as I can talk more about plot than the characters as for once it isn’t a slice of life series.