Haganai complete collection[DVD/Blu Ray]
Studio: AIC Build
Licensor: Funimation
No. of Episodes: 12 + 1 OVA
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Friendship is an easy premise to understand, but when it comes to actually making friends, some people have an easier time than others, for some it will come from out of nowhere and from an unlikely source, is this series one that will make a lasting friendship or will it always be forever alone.
Kodaka Hasegawa is a high school transfer student who because of his hair and scary looking face has not got any friends as everyone thinks hes a violent delinquent, no matter how hard he tries no one wants to become his friend and he normally makes things worse for himself. One evening he returns to class after forgetting his gym clothes, on returning to the classroom he overhears one of his classmates talking, upon entering he finds she is on her own, when he enquires about who she was talking to she boldly declares she was talking to her air friend. As you can imagine she also isnt good at making friends however she and Kodaka seem to have mutual understanding of how hard it can be, Kodaka gives the girl called Yozora the idea of forming a new club dedicated to making friends, the neighbors club, shortly after establishing the club a girl called Sena Kawasashi who is the perfect daughter of the academy director tries to join but Yozora rejects her without a second thought, however Sena was able to decipher the secret message in their recruitment poster which gives her the right to join under Yozoras own rules for joining the club. Thus the Neighbors club is formed and with a few new members maybe they can make some friends after all, but could the friends they so wanted actually be right in front of them?
This show is a typical slice of life series with a cast of zany and mentally warped individuals, in a series where the characters personalities come to the forefront of whether you enjoy the series or not they dont disappoint, youll be sure to find a favorite and maybe even find one you cant stand, this wasnt a problem for me as I enjoyed all of them, some more than others though and one or two members do get pushed into the background what with how strong Yozora and Senas personalities and relationship are, but then they are the two main heroines so its to be expected. They generally mess around in the clubroom but sometimes they end up doing things to try and improve their social skills, varying from playing a dating sim to trips to the water park, mainly standard fare stuff but it introduces a situation or two more unique to the series. So while structure isnt a main feature of the plot, if you like the characters youll like the series basically, however I have 1 big gripe with this series, that is the fact they basically give away the big plot device only 4 episodes in which kinda ruins the ending in a way, not that you wouldnt figure it out sooner or later but it just soured what was otherwise a very enjoyable series for me.
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A face only Yozora would shoot down.
Where animation is concerned, the series has a lot going for it, the character designs are really nice, despite me disliking the use of lower lips in anime I felt this series looked nice enough for me to disregard it, because they really did look nice, not generic at all, however that said there was a time or two I noticed one or two facial expressions looked a little awkward. The backgrounds are very nice as well, some parts on the academy grounds are quite unique and striking and they went into some fine detail on them, from the water park to Senas mansion home they kept a high level of detail which is always good to see, they did well because at times there were lots of people and they didnt really cut any corners animating them, very impressive.
The soundtrack to the series is a pretty decent collection of music as well, nothing truly groundbreaking though as nothing really stood out in my mind, but they did all they needed to do in accompanying the series to add a little bit of atmosphere. The Intro theme Zannenki Rinjinbu is a lighthearted pop song thats nothing special, it kinda grew on me as the series progressed but was nothing memorable, the Outro theme however is a different ball game, now its not often I prefer Outros to intros but this is an exception, the rock tune of Watashi no Kimochi was really cool. The dub of this series is one of the better ones Ive watched, I felt each VA did a good job of fitting the characters personalities, none really felt out of place which is all you can ask for.
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Beware of lesbian stalkers
Overall Haganai is a pretty fun series to watch, whilst its more episodic than plot focused it does a good job of entertaining you with its eccentric characters, the animation for the most part is top notch with pretty character designs and background work, with a fairly solid sountrack and a higher end dub to go with it Haganai is a series I can recommend confidently knowing a good 80% will enjoy it, Im gonna go and slap a seal of approval to this series.
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Overall is not an average, but my own personal enjoyment of the series
Heres the Limited edition box I bought:
Very good box, both sides have artwork from the show, Yozora and Sena on the front and the whole Neighbors club on the back on top of a simple yet very pretty background, the spine has Yozora and Sena on it having a gaming conteston a checkered background. Th DVD box has Yozora, Sena and Yukimura on it whilst the blu ray has Maria, Kobato and Rika on it, both have chibi versions in the bottom corner and both have the same backgrounds as the limited edition box, its all very nice.
It has a good deal of extra content as well, mainly on the second disk, disk 1 has episode commentary on 2 of the episodes, the meat of it is in disk 2 where we are treated to DVD and Blu Ray spots, original Japanese commercials and promotional videos, textless intro and outroand the lanch trailer for the US release and a selection of trailers for new series, already pre-ordered one or two of them so look forward to the reviews.
