Anime Club Continues in 2025!

Last year we met once a month to watch through Katanagatari, Samurai Champloo, and Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran together, in keeping with the original broadcast schema of Katanagatari. People seemed to like this, so I have prepared a new slate of shows for 2025!

Headlining is a harebrained chronological screening of Hidamari Sketch! We'll be checking in with Yunocchi and friends throughout her first year of high school to see what they've been up to that month.

Over the course of the series' four season run, we're treated to a front row seat to both the personal growth of Yuno and friends as they develop their senses of identity, as well as the growth of Studio SHAFT itself, as they developed and refined aspects of their house style they would go on to employ to great effect in later works such as Bakemonogatari, Madoka Magica, and many others.

Backing that up, I've picked out a few other shows to accompany it, following a theme of highly stylized slice of life and teen drama shows:

  • Kare Kano is a personal favorite that I think showcases a lot of what makes both Anno-era and post-Anno Gainax great.
  • SoreMachi shares the talent of director Akiyuki Shinbo and studio SHAFT with Hidamari, and has been on my personal to-watch list for quite a while. It features maids! We love maids, right?
  • Super Gals! is a frenetic dash through youth subculture in early 2000s Shibuya, featuring lots of highly era specific language, fashion, and tech, wrapped up in a psychedelic scrapbook-esque presentation.

Dates will be decided on social media at the beginning of each month (or by my command decision if the schedule is tight) and a flyer will be created about a week in advance. Expect it to happen on a Sunday night at 6:30 PST. You can tune in here if you're interested.

For the month of January, the screening will be on Sunday 1/26 at 6:30pst!

We hope to see you there!

A series of simple geometric shapes forming a pinecone, contrasted against a posterized photo of pine needles. A photograph of a y2k era flip phone draws the eye. Event information is displayed: Hidamari Sketch, Kareshi Kanojyo no Jijyo, Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru, and Super Gals! Kotobuki Ran. Sunday January twenty-sixth, at Cytu.be/r/onthismonthandthisevening. The journey begins anew!
A crossword puzzle. Black and grey shapes continue contours from the pinecone on the previous page. The crossword itself is positioned at a right angle to said shapes. Between the hints and the crossword is a connect the dots using a photo of a figure of Yuno from Hidamari, and behind that is a pseudointellectual ramble about the Heisei era. Gaps in the crossword are filled with posterized photos and flavor text.