OP Sequence:

OP: “Nisemono” 「ニセモノ」 by Friends: Kobayashi Yuu (小林 ゆう), Shimoda Asami (下田 麻美), MAKO, Akesaka Satomi (明坂 聡美),
          Honda Youko (本多 陽子), Asumi Kana (阿澄 佳奈)
Watch the OP!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Show Streaming ▼

ED Sequence:

ED: “secret base ~Kimi ga Kureta Mono~” 「secret base ~君がくれたもの~」 by Friends: Kobayashi Yuu (小林 ゆう), Shimoda Asami (下田 麻美), MAKO,
          Akesaka Satomi (明坂 聡美), Honda Youko (本多 陽子), Asumi Kana (阿澄 佳奈)
Watch the ED!: Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Show Streaming ▼

「グラグラ、スーパーボール、ノリノリ、アメフリ」 (Guruguru, Suupaa Booru, Norinori, Ame Furi)
“Loose, Super Ball, In High Spirits, Rainy Weather”

First Glance:
If you’ve been looking for a chapter-based slice of life comedy to fill the void Azumanga Daioh left a long time ago, Kyou no 5 no 2 (Today in Class 5-2) might just fit the bill. Being a huge fan of the Azumanga, I really like the seemingly irrelevant short skits in this series whether they be about pulling loose teeth, having a “super ball” bouncing contest, slacking off during cleaning duty to play air (broom) guitar, or sharing umbrellas in the rain. The whole idea of super laid-back slice of life comedy is prevalent throughout, which I absolutely love, except this time it focuses on a bunch of fifth graders instead. This actually puts a pretty interesting perspective on things, as even the most trivial stuff in a fifth grader’s life can turn out to be really amusing when they put the right spin on it.

Despite some earlier concerns about production quality compared to the OVA that came before it, I have to say that Xebec‘s done a pretty good job, so I don’t have any major complaints there. While the characters look relatively plain in accordance to their designs, the animation is clean and sharp overall, which is more than enough for a series of this genre. Under a new director as well, it’ll be interesting to see where Nagasawa Tsuyoshi takes this series, but it’s reassuring to see Kouno Takamitsu onboard in charge of screenplay. With Takamitsu having worked on Comic Party Revolution and Minami-ke season one (which I felt was funnier), I’m hoping he’ll have a bunch of laughs in store of us here. Judging from the first episode though, things seem to be well on their track for an enjoyable season.

For this television series remake, a completely new cast has been used, which on initial inspection seemed like a drastic downgrade from the OVA’s. Having lost the likes of Kuwashima Houko, Kadowaki Mai, Takahashi Mikako, Noto Mamiko, Ueda Kana, Asakawa Yuu, and Chihara Minori, I was left screaming, “Why oh why!?”, since it’s not everyday you see seven of your favorite seiyuus dropped from a series. As they aren’t easy names to replace, I was even more shocked to find out that they’ve opted to do so with a relatively “green” cast. Leading the way as Satou Ryouta is a more experienced seiyuu though, Kobayashi Yuu, whose roles as male characters I’m not a big fan of, but actually does an awesome job here much to my surprise. Aside from the addition of Asumi Kana (Yuno in Hidamari no Sketch), Takagaki Ayahi (Isurugi Noe in true tears), and Hadzuki Erino (Mizunashi Akari in ARIA), the rest of the new cast is out of my usual “seiyuu radar”. Seeing as Erino has been barely cast in anything outside of ARIA, I was actually quite happy to see her use her Akari voice here. Kana on the other hand is another good addition, since she has the kind of voice that just fits a fifth grader. As for the rest of the newcomers, I actually don’t have any complaints, but I’d really like to hear how the original cast sounded, so I’ll probably be watching the OVA soon just to get a taste.

Long seiyuu rant short, the series shows a lot of promise under the new studio and cast, so I’m quite looking forward to this series. It’s not something that requires a lot of attention to enjoy, so I’d recommend it if you need soemthing to sit back and enjoy opposite of your Gundam 00 on Sundays, or if you’re simply a fan of Azumanga Daioh, in which case it’d be hard to ignore this one. These slice of life series are never something I wait eagerly for every week, but when I’m watching them, time just seems to fly by really quickly. Music-wise, the opening and ending theme are performed by six of the female cast members, both of which actually sound really good for seiyuu songs. As such, I’m finding it hard to decide which I like better out of the two, but I think the ending theme “secret base ~Kimi ga Kureta Mono~” comes out on top, being one of the few good slow-paced songs I’ve heard this season.

Chapter-based slice of life comedy with a bunch cute, loud, silly fifth-graders. What more can you ask for?

 

Notable Cast:
– Satou Ryouta (佐藤 リョータ) : Kobayashi Yuu (小林 ゆう)
– Koizumi Chika (小泉 チカ) : Shimoda Asami (下田 麻美)
– Asano Yuuki (浅野 ユウキ) : Akesaka Satomi (明坂 聡美)
– Aihara Kazumi (相原 カズミ) : MAKO
– Hirakawa Natsumi (平川 ナツミ) : Asumi Kana (阿澄 佳奈)
– Hidaka Megumi (日高 メグミ) : Honda Youko (本多 陽子)
– Imai Kouji (今井 コウジ) : Yamato Megumi (山戸 恵)
– Kawai Tsubasa (河合 ツバサ) : Takagaki Ayahi (高垣 彩陽)
– Tanaka Haruka (田中 ハルカ) : Hadzuki Erino (葉月 絵理乃)
– Tamura-sensei (田村先生) : Hiyama Nobuyuki (檜山 修之)

26 Comments

  1. Waa, this is really-really different from the OVAs, the OVAs were made in 2006, but the quality is way better than this one. Wahh, I really missed Ryota doing his ugly oldman’s face, but it will not look that good compared to the ova. But I’ll watch this anyways, since I, myself is a fan of this series.

    Hirai San Hachi Go
  2. @AznCoffee

    no, I don’t think so! Kanokon’s character is wayy cuter than this, and the art is soo differnt. (kanokon’s quality is great)

    the quality of this one is more like “Crayon Shin-Chan” to me, o well a little bit better.

    PoinPoinPoinggg
  3. Wow, I actually have read this manga. It was pretty short. I’m assuming this is a only a 12-13 episode run? I probably won’t watch it, but it was reasonably funny in manga form. It’s the kind of thing that you can easily devote 2 hours to reading the whole manga, but 4 hours over several months to watch it seems like it might be a waste of time. I don’t mean to discourage people or anything. If I hadn’t read the manga, I think it’d be on my “maybe” list.

    Whim
  4. Do you seriously believe this is sharp and clean? Even if I don’t compare it to the OVA, there’s just not enough substance to keep this going. I had high hopes for this anime, and it failed on every level, its animation, the voices(except Ryouta) esp Aihara, and its new story. Not only that, 3 of the 4 sub-eps were bad rehashes of the OVA >:[

    frubam
  5. frubam:
    Well, that particular shot is just sharp and jaggedly, but still clean image quality-wise. For a comedy though, I don’t see why people are so focused on the art on every single shot (with that being one of the bad ones) as I have absolutely no qualms with this, but to each his/her own.

  6. I know that a lot of people already said this but the animation/character design really sux. The OVA was awesome. Plus they changed the seiyus to. The perfect example for this kind of quick change is Minami-ke/Okawari. Minami-ke was okay. Nice animation,cool char design,but they screwed that to with Okawari. I know that Kyou no Go no Ni and Minami-ke are two different anime,but still. Why they have to change something that was awesome and the peoples liked it? After i watched the 1st ep i decided that i ain’t gonna watch this.

    yomax
  7. The “normal” character artwork looks really spotty. I dunno, the animation quality doesnt really look that good. Its like a mix of computer cell animation and hand-drawn cells, but not really done too well.

    Mechwarrior
  8. I agree with most people here. I hated the characters design.
    I’ve read a dew chapters of the manga and it will be definitively be funny, but after having the amazing OVA, this simply sucks visually.

    There is not appeal at all from the normal looking characters going into the sexy/mature mode.

    Khrno
  9. For those who haven’t seen the OVA of this anime, avoid watching it if you plan to follow this new series… you’ll probably appreciate the anime better if you didn’t know what you’re missing in terms of animation quality and seiyuu performances 😉

    – T

    tolitz
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