OP Sequence

OP: 「Morning Arch」 by 河野マリナ (Kawano Marina)
Watch the OP!: Download, Streaming ▼

「好き, An April Day」 (Suki)
“Love, An April Day”

A-Channel isn’t your average, run of the mill slice of life. It’s more of your real life situation, feelings of doubt and rejection; totally serious yet totally not serious at the same time, slice of life. I know that you readers were comparing A-Channel to Nichijou a while back, and I’m glad to see that A-Channel feels completely different in nearly every aspect — something which makes me happy.

The reason I say this show makes me happy, is that it doesn’t seem to focus on comedy all the time. Sure, there are some funny moments, but the feeling the show exerts is something deeper than just corny jokes. Take Tooru (Yuuki Aoi) who I feel extremely bad for. Being the youngest one in a group of friends usually never ends well and unlike a certain guitar prodigy, I felt strongly attached to Tooru as I watched her struggle to deal with change (more so since I can relate). I can only imagine just how close she was to Run (Fukuhara Kaori) before she became a High School student and the amount of mixed joy she felt when she saw Nagi (Uchiyama Yumi) and Yuuko (Kotobuki Minako) standing beside her beloved Run. It’s these kinds of moments that really grab me since it’s easy to understand right where Tooru is coming from — it’s the feeling of jealously and a bit of betrayal when the truth that you’re not the only person in someone’s world smacks you right in the face.

But pushing past all the negativity, the first episode managed to overcome all of that and set the stage for a group of four friends to learn more about each other. When everyone noticed that Tooru had been struggling with her mixed feelings, it was an amazing moment went Run went and hugged Tooru. Even better was when Yuuko and Nagi followed up and announced just how much they want to become Tooru’s friend — friendship building moments all around!

With a general introduction episode, I was happy to find that I really enjoyed A-Channel. With a handful of boob slapping-ly funny jokes, I can honestly say that I was surprised how well the subtle humor got me. Besides that, I’m really excited to see just how well we get to know each character. With all their unique personality traits, it’s fun to watch everyone butt heads over the simplest things. From Run’s air headedness to Nagi’s concrete sense of judgment, all the way to Tooru swinging that metal baseball bat, I’m expecting good things from this show. Combine that with a near stellar cast of seiyuu behind the faces, and I’m all smiles.

P.S. If I’m the only one who thought Tooru’s long sleeves were extremely cute, I’m going to hurl something heavy over a large ledge.

INS1: 「はるかぜの化学」 (Harukaze no Kagaku) by るん, トオル, ナギ, ユー子 (Run, Tohru, Nagi, Yuuko)
Watch the 1st INS: Streaming ▼

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「ハミングガール」 (Humming Girl) by 福原香織, 悠木碧, 内山夕実, 美菜子寿 (Fukuhara Kaori, Yuuki Aoi, Uchiyama Yumi, Kotobuki Minako)
Watch the ED!: Download, Streaming ▼

Preview

123 Comments

    1. This is really more boring than K-ON! Nothing happened. Just girls doing mundane activities. In K-ON! they formed a band and a club, composed music, had a lot of misadventures. I guess it’s the first episode but using up the whole episode doing nothing doesn’t help at all!

      conyo985
  1. I’m disappointed in seeing a lot of negative reactions to this show, a lot seem to think that K-On was apparently the first slice of life with high school girls and everything must be compared to it.

    The episode introduced and set up the character dynamics well and I’m looking forward to the future episodes. And you aren’t the only one that found Tooru exceptionally cute with her sleeves.

    Ys10
    1. Yes, very unfortunate that somehow k-on has to be brought up and compared to all all-girls slice of life anime in at least next two years. It didn’t even cross my mind until someone had to say it – like I lost the game. At any rate it’s probably more lucky star than k-on.

      KJacket
      1. The funny thing is everyone compared K-ON to Lucky Star when it first came out as well. Maybe in a year or two, the new all girl slice-of-life will be compared to A-Channel. The circle of life…

        Skizzit
    2. Not to mention people now comparing A-Channel to Nichijou. I find both of them funny and worth watching but Nichijou is just a little over the edge, in my opinion. While A-Channel has a more tender atmosphere to it.

      And yes, I agree this is more of Lucky Star than K-ON.

      Serapita
    3. A-Chan looks to be fun. Tooru is unbelievably kawaii. Long sleeves are a huge plus.

      I personally compare these girl slice-of-life shows to my ultimate fave slice-of-life comedy Azumanga. A-Chan certainly is entertaining so far. Boobie upper-cut attacks lol… poor Yuuko. That BBQ ringtone joke was so rofl. And made me want kalbee and Yakiniku too.

      kira-kun
    1. I’ve been waiting for A Channel since the PV came out in January. I’ll be following it. It’s a cute 4-koma manga.

      I don’t grok the hate. How can you hate Tooru? She’s so cute when she’s feeling murderous rage… like a dangerous hamster or something.

      sarcastic_weasel
    2. To me it kinda looks like an exaggerated version of Lucky Star with the personality of the girls switched with one another…which is exactly why I’m gonna watch this to the end~! I’ve been looking for this kind of show since forever!

      gawrshness
    3. *Raises hand.* And I wasn’t even planning on following anything outside of Steins Gate, Hanasaku Iroha, and Yugioh ZeXal. But this is so cute (Tooru and her long sleeves, Yuuko, etc.) I just fell in love with it.

      Jason
    4. Late but I’m joining the ranks 🙂

      I don’t even see the point of comparing, for me these shows are meant for pure enjoyment, and this episode delivered – BBQ ringtone ftw, how could I as a fellow meat lover never have thought of that ???

      Kit-A-Ron-Ron-Kat
  2. Tooru is like 90 percent of the reason why I watch this.

    The flow of this first episode didn’t quite feel right thought. Not being overloaded with jokes is perfectly fine, but spacing them out evenly and having some weirdly long pauses just threw me off.

    Well seeing Tooru makes up for it, especially knowing that she just gets more awesome as time goes on.

    Kaosu
  3. Boring so boring, i guess i just can’t get into “slice of life” shows that try to emulate “real life” while at the same time using cutesy,quirky supposedly high school age girls. if i wanted that i would watch “Dawson’s creek, 90210, gillmore girls” etc, etc. well..maybe those are bad examples, but for the life of me i can’t recollect any subject subject matter that is as tame as this for comparison, maybe that’s the appeal of this kind of show, the slooow lull effect, kinda like if there was such a thing as a G-rated soap opera.It’ll be Nichijou for me, that’s a nice far out and exaggerated imagination inducing trip i don’t mind taking.
    Of course I’ll give it another 1-2 ep’s,but…
    to each his/her own.

    BROOKLYN otaku
  4. I like this waaaaaaaaaaay more entertaining than Nichijou and I usually don’t like or stay away from moe’d up anime.

    Boob slaps and baseball bats, where could it ever go wrong?

    anishuma
  5. It’s only the first episode…remember how boring the first episode of K-on was. I’m saying, this anime is good. It felt more natural than K-on by the way. And I am a K-on fan (can’t live without it). However, I’ve got to admit, this anime is way better than K-on. Boring? No, you just don’t get it. The jokes are quite clever…I’m not saying all of them, just some of them.

    Riddle
  6. Screw everyone comparing this to nichijou. I feel like its an insult to compare nichijou with this cus at least nichijou has an ambition. This reeks of anything can be moe. Moe still has a bit of prestige you know.

  7. Just on a first episode comparison, I find A-Channel much stronger than K-On and Lucky Star, and about tied with Nichijou (if you don’t count episode 0).

    K-On: Light character introduction; band formed.

    Lucky Star: Literally half of the episode droned on about. . .food. How is this supposed to be riveting?

    Nichijou: Episode 1 was good, but in a purely comedic sense, many of the jokes were hit or miss.

    A-Channel, for me, had a strong hook, providing a combination of drama, comedy, and moe. Everything was just sorta balanced (Okay, moe was ahead but still :x).

    People here seem to be trying to compare 1 episode of an anime that just came out (from a relatively new company) to three 2+ cour series, two of which have been established, and one with precedence, due to the company in question (aka, KyoAni). That’s just unreasonable on so many levels.

    Soiyeruda
  8. 😛 Great show, was waiting for it to come out all this time… love the empty headedness of Run-chan… and also the art style… especially when the eyes are drawn like this –> 0.0

    SleepyOtaku
  9. At first I struggle to figure out who Run reminded me off, because she is unlike my beloved Yui, yet she is also what you call “the moe-blob” in a slice-of-life show. Then I saw that she’s voiced by Fukuhara Kaori, then did I remember, Run reminds me of Tsukasa, except a slightly more mature version of Tsukasa, since Run is the senpai here.

    Besides Kaorin and Minako, I’m not too familiar with the other two girls’ seiyuu, though Tohru has that Azu-nyan vibes with her.

    That said, I see Chihara Minori and Sawashiro Miyuki doing the voices for their teachers. This should be fun.

    Kinny Riddle
  10. it may have been a bit segmented, but the boob jokes…xD (do hope that it would appear less often…)

    …and for a minute (or 5), I thought I heard Mugi instead of Yuuko; and it doesn’t help that they both travel to school by train.

    info600
  11. Loved the first episode, this anime is for me.
    “With a handful of boob slapping-ly funny jokes…” This is called “scooping.” I’m a girl. This has happened to me. It’s hilarious. 😀

    innerchihiro
  12. This was a good first episode. It made a lot of good impressions on me. And I already love Tooru! She is so cute!! My favorite moment of this episode is where Tooru is swinging the bat to get away the guys around Run

    Pera
  13. I thought this would be pure comedy like Mitsudomoe or Ika Musume, but it isn’t. It actually doesn’t make me want to turn my back to this show either. I kind of like the sort of peace in every scene. I’ll continue watching as long as there are enough comedic moments (I thought WTF at the boob slapping) and cute moments (Tooru at the end) to keep me entertained. Though I still want to find a pure comedic anime.

    Kevin
    1. Nichijou for all your comedy slice-of-life needs. I found it to be extremely funny. Very much in the same vein as Azumanga, Ika Musume, and Ichigo Mashimaro. I also heard that Softenni is pretty funny, but I have not watched the first episode yet.

      Skizzit
  14. Frame 32 looked like Sawa-chan with round glasses. LOL

    Looks like I underestimated the Spring Anime. The shows here hold more potential than I thought. Maybe I’ll give this a try, since I’m starting to lose some confidence in Dog Days.

    Razgriz
    1. Nagi is… YOMI from Azumanga! When she´s not having her hair in girlish pigtails is an perfect expy!

      And for me:

      Azumanga Daioh != K-on! != A-Channel != Nichijou

      Who cares about rankings… I love them all!! Yeay for the cute girls doing cute things sub-genre!

      Rincewind
  15. When I watch a movie, some of my friends or family ask where did that particular actor appeared other than in that movie, I use to reply: Don’t know and don´t care. I’m watching this movie and don’t think about other movies for as long as it lasts. Why can’t anyone watch and decide over the merits of the show? Why is it that you must compare a show to other in the past? It’s as if I said: “Look! the first bits of the intro strongly resemble a videoclip from Michel Gondry’s Star Guitar” Does it matter?

    1. It’s just expressing opinions. I could say the same thing to you, does saying what you just said really matter? It’s not like people are going to stop comparing anime because of what you just said. Just because people are comparing a show to another doesn’t make them enjoy it any less.

      dxb_blackwolf

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