A-Channel: The Animation Complete Collection

Tohru is an introverted girl who has had one best friend for as long as she can remember. Her friend, Run-chan, is older than her and went to middle school a little sooner. When the series begins, they are finally reunited, but Tohru finds out that Run as become close to two other girls. Now Tohru is faced with a difficult decision. Become part of a larger social clique, or chase Mugi and Yuko off with a baseball bat.

This is funny and cute. It sometimes flows like a number of newspaper strip panels forming a loosely connected story. I'd say it's good for fans of K-on, Azumanga Daioh, and Charlie Brown.

Tohru is a quiet loll with a dark sense of humour. What redeems her dark streak is her obvious affection for Run (It's so obvious, the creators might be trying to bait fan fiction writers.) Tohru looks young for her actual age. Sometimes Tohru becomes depressed, thinking the the slightly older Run will eventually outgrow her. This is the closest the show has to a main conflict. Whenever this gets too serious we are reminded that Run is a ditzy character bound to mature far slower than Tohru anyway.

Mugi is the glasses wearing, girl who thinks she's plain, and constantly worries about her weight. Yoku is the hot girl who doesn't know she's hot. She plays off Mugi well. Yoku is also a scaredy cat, think Mio from K-on.

Overall it's a moe series that will make you laugh a few times every episode.

A Channel is just a great Anime. Its hard to pin down what really makes you like, but you'll like it if you enjoy having fun. Sometimes the comedy will run dry, but it all made up with some sort of cute scene. If you like Slice-of-Life and Cute-girls-Doing-cute-things then it'd be a great buy. If your not into that kind of stuff then I says its okay if you wanna burn 6 hours watching an anime that you may be able to relate to your own high school experience.

I thoroughly enjoyed this series; it is kind of like a cross between K-On and Azumanga Daioh, except that the characters are not musicians!

The series follows the life and friendship of four high-school girls; Run, Toru, Nagi and Yuko (as seen from left to right in the cover picture). Run and Toru have been best friends since forever, and Toru thinks of Run as her big sister; Toru is one year behind the other three, and very small for her age (she is 15, and describes herself as 'scrawny'; indeed, she is so skinny, her thigh-highs regularly fall down), but she is feisty, cute as a button (she even has a 'fan club', set up without her knowledge by her classmates, who all want to take turns hugging her!), and a top student in academic terms. She also has a cute kitten called 'Carbonation' (Lit. 'Tansan'; Japanese for 'carbonic acid', used in fizzy drinks); you'll have to watch the series to find out why he is called that. Run is totally bonkers, but cute and harmless - she comes across as being a mixture of Yui and Ritsu from K-On. She is so scatter-brained, she even manages to forget to put on her underwear and one sock one day! One episode includes Run's attempts to find a suitable swim-suit for Toru, so they can go to the beach, but even the smallest are too big for her, so she winds up with a child's one. Next is Nagi, who is bespectacled, red-headed and cute; she is also a good student, but has a hang-up about her weight, although she is not fat at all; she feels guilty whenever she eats cake or desserts. She is envious of Toru, who eats like a horse but never gains any weight. Lastly is Yuko, who is a dead ringer for Mio from K-On; she looks like her, sounds like her, and is even a scaredy-cat like Mio. She is beautiful, has a great figure (much to the envy of the other three; indeed, Toru (who is flat-chested) is so fascinated with Yuko's E-cup boobs, she is known to occasionally bounce them, much to Yuko's dismay!) Yuko is also the token 'Kansai'-accented character (a southern accent, generally portrayed in Japanese stories as country folk or 'hicks').

There is no magic, no special powers, time travel, or big battles (unless you count Toru fighting boys off with a baseball bat, when she thinks they are harassing Run!); just day-to-day, slice of life stuff, but it is charming, cute, funny and totally good fun. There is also not a single panty-shot in the whole series (unless you count the inevitable swim-suits, and sports shorts known as 'bloomers'!). If you look at the 'Extras' (which are on a separate disc) you will see that the character actors who voice the four girls are even more bonkers and crazy (in a nice way!) than the characters they portray! Overall, I loved this set!

The Amazon description is wrong in that it says the aspect ratio is 4:3 (1.333-1); it isn't - it is 16:9 (1.78-1).