Hanayamata

Jersey Girls aren't trash, trash gets picked up.

That should be the description for Hanayamata. When I first heard that this show would feature a character from the greatest state in union I was incredibly excited. However, that was short lived. I soon realized that like with many shows, the Japanese depiction of a foreign land is far from accurate. Seeing a blonde haired girl who speaks fluent Japanese in Princeton, NJ is rarer than finding one in Japan. Luckily the depiction was not along the lines of a Jersey Shore parody, but at the same time I felt that it would have been a more ... entertaining depiction of the first New Jersey native depicted in anime. What is even more strange is this New Jersey resident's love of “yosakoi”. Now you may be asking: “Ayyy yo Tony – what the hell's a yosakoi”, yet after a dozen episodes I still do not know the answer to it. Is it singing, is it dancing, or is it some weird mix of both that only a small minority of Japanese would even understand or care about? I am guessing it is the last option. It truly is a baffling subject matter for a foreign resident to be infatuated with which only leads to the overall mediocrity of this show. Let me straight with you, Hanayamata is the biggest disappointment of the season for me. A show that could have had terrible, but charming “engrish”, funny character interactions, and a pleasing story failed on all three fronts. If you are a fan of Kiniro Mosaic and were expecting more of the same, you will be in for quite a disappointment. Frankly, this show just comes off as being rather dull. It does not stand out among the many other “cute girls doing X” shows. If anything, it seems to be a cash grab by Madhouse on this popular genre. They have not cashed in on it and had to pump something out in hopes that it will break sales records like the many other shows that have used this formula.

In regards to story, Hanayamata is only unique due to the subject matter. As I have previously stated, the whole idea of Yosakoi is something that isn't explained well in the show and since they hardly focused on it for 12 episodes, I am not sure if the viewer is even supposed to know what it is. The show's formula where several girls do a certain activity has been done and redone dozens of times. For someone to create a story about girls creating a club about some obscure Japanese organized dancing; it really shows that the industry is scraping the bottom of the barrel. Then again, I don't think anything can top girls in a tank driving club so everything else really does pale in comparison. In addition, the show suffered from absolutely terrible pacing. While you cannot expect and you do not really want a show to rush the story along, it has to move at a pace in which the viewer remains entertained. I felt that the pacing for Hanayamata really made the show feel dragged out which added to my overall dissatisfaction. Regardless of the subject matter or pacing, the story itself is rather cut and paste – the girls have issues creating their club, there's drama involving some of the members, and they spend little to no time each episode practicing and instead do other various activities. This is not particularly a problem since this same formula has worked well in many other shows, it's just that Hanayamata lacked the magic of character cohesion. While the characters in the show were not any less generic and cookie cutter than any others, they just lacked chemistry with each other for some reason. There were many cheap attempts at making the viewer feel emotion towards the characters, but since they were not charming enough that ended up being a failure. Even New Jersey's pride and joy could not carry the weight of the show on her back. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely like “cute girls doing X shows” and I mainly watch them for the character interactions since they can be amusing and relaxing, unfortunately for Hanayamata they just either felt forced or just plain boring. I am not sure if it was poor direction or just poor writing, but it did not feel up to par in terms of either story or character interaction.

In regards to art and music, I found yet another problem. Style over substance is common theme in many shows, which can work if properly executed, but unfortunately for Hanayamata this is not the case. The art itself is put through a myriad of filters, much like No Game No Life which aired in Spring 2014. Hanayamata shares a director and she likes doing that to her work so I am not going to really fault her for it, but at the same time it felt off putting for a show like this. It was very out of place for a slow paced slice of life type show. It almost seemed like a distraction so that the viewer would focus on the vibrant colors instead of the dull plot. In regards to music and sound, it was nothing extraordinary. The voice acting was adequate and the singing was also typical and unremarkable. I will repeat my gripes over the lack of English used in the show since it did feature an American main character. They could have done something similar to Kiniro Mosaic was both entertaining and charming with the poorly done English. It could have been a bright spot in a show that was lackluster in many other aspects, but unfortunately I wasted my time watching 12 episodes for nothing.

If I could sum up my entire experience of Hanayamata in one word, it would be “disappointing”. I expected an enjoyable and fun slice of life show. Instead, I got a dull and boring show that quickly became a chore to watch. The cause of this was many different factors which all ended up working against this show. I would personally put the subject matter at the forefront of my disappointment. The actual subject of yosakoi was not thoroughly explained and it seemed to be somewhat of a joke with the characters who were just as baffled by the activity as the viewer. If anything, this show does prove that the “cute girls doing X” formula does have its limits. They have to either be mundane enough to bring a sense of familiarity to the viewer or outlandish enough that you just can't help but want to watch it. Unfortunately, Hanayamata falls in between that and comes off as a half baked and lackluster product that has to be a cash grab by the declining Madhouse. It feels like they had to make something to fit this current trend and went with whatever they could find, which unfortunately turned out to be this show. I expect more out of Madhouse and I expect more out of the staff behind it since their other works have been relatively good for the most part. Hopefully Madhouse either quits attempting this formula if it is going to be mediocre like this or at least picks a subject matter that is interesting and entertaining to the viewer the next time they try it.

So i'm Dion and i have a condition.I swear a lot and i can't hold back my sarcastic,nihilistic side.So if you're not old enough to know what your willy is for then i suggest you read something else for a bedtime story.

And onto Hanayamata which is just another "cute girls doing cute things" type of anime...Cause we needed one in 5 minutes,right?But then i'm a soulless fuck so what do i know.

The story is about a girl who one day while walking past a shrine at night while on the influence of LSD,she heard rhythmic clacking coming from the shrine grounds.Curious,Naru follows the sounds and ... finds a ferce dragon.The dragon started chasing her and then a fairy came to her aid and with might and a tazer she fought off the bad dragon and then Khaleesi came and some shit went down and the rest is history.What i don't understand is how they took this fantastic premise and made it all about something called yosakoi.

Yosakoi for those of you who don't know is an orgy that takes place every year in China...Nah i'm fucking with you.Yosakoi,is a type of Japanese dance,involving girls wearing yukatas or happy coats while synchronizing the playing of small wooden clappers known as naruko.It's a large event in Japan,with some teams consisting of hundreds of members!An annual festival called the Yosakoi Matsuri even attracts as many as 200.000 participants.In other words it attracts more people than a Bieber concert..And that's good cause we have enough braindead people walking around as it is.

So not to waste your time with many many details,the fairy aka Hana Fontainestand who,to my surprise is American and not German invites the crack addict to the yosakoi club so they can start dancing and clapping the wooden clappers and of course on the way gather more members like Naru's best friend Yaya,Naru's upperclassman Tami and Tami's best friend Machi..

Everything sounds normal so far.You have moe girls,you have yosakoi,you also have a first episode which is as stunning to look at as Jenna Jameson.Honestly when i saw the first episode i was left with my jaw hanging like an 80yrs old testicles.And we have Madhouse to thank for that visual excellence.But all of that was in vain cause what happened next beggars belief.

The whole show somehow became a bad clone of K-On! and Love Live.I mean look at the characters or even the plots that are lifted straight off the aformentioned animes.And it's not like they did such a good job ripping them off,either.And to make matters worse remember the first ep's animation i praised?After the 1st one the quality becomes...Lesser..Don't get me wrong it's not like it's unwatchable it's just that quality drop is noticable.And it's a show about dance so the animation should have been absolutely amasing but every time we are about to see any actual dancing the camera veers off and shows some fluffy kittens instead or it shows stills of dancing.As for the characters themselves they looked kinda weird to me,they had minimal facial characteristics and the eyes were like a monk's bald head....And just as huge.

And if the animation is bad wait till i get to the characters as characters.Well to be honest with ya they're not characters they're a collection of stereotypes.Naru is pretty much spiritless,Hana is an energetic American blonde who reminded me of Barbie before detox,Yaya is the tsundere best friend of Naru's,Tami is the big sister and Machi is a grouch.Then we have Seiri,their woman adviser who's is a rip off of Sawako from K-on! in every way possible..She even has a thing for animal ears...The only character that wasn't in the mix bag is Masaru Oofuna the scary-looking but harmless owner of a yosakoi shop who teaches Naru and Hana the basics of yosakoi.But as a character sadly he's not being used as much as i might have wanted.

So ok,you might think,some stereotypical characters and some not so good animation..That doesn't sound terrible..AHA but wait,i haven't finished.You see it's also how you present the characters as well,it's how you handle the delivery of each plot.And trust me on that the show does nothing at all to seperate itself from the other similar shows.It also fails miserably to make us connect with the girls.It's ok and dandy making us watch every girl's backstory but the way it's done doesn't float my boat.And there's no balance.One minute it's all laughs and this and that and then for no reason at all they switch to drama mode.Every new episode a new "problem" that makes the previous problem look unecessary and childish.It was drama for the shake of drama.It had no real substance to it,it felt totally out of place and ruined whatever good experience i had with it.

Now for the next paragraph i shall go berserk with spoilers so skip to the part where i write with big bold letters "end of spoilers".

START OF SPOILERS

So you see,Yaya is already in another club.A girls only rock group,and if that sounds familiar it's because it is familiar..But nevertheless she is chased around by Naru and Hana and after much following she joins the yosakoi club while still a part of the band.The band later enters a contest but they don't qualify and disband immediately and Yaya has fallen into depression.Naru tries to talk Yaya which ends up in Yaya telling Naru and Hana she hates them and never wants to talk to them again...Ok?!...The next day Naru and Hana start shouting on the rooftop that Yaya is a bakaaaaaa,which gets her to chase them upstairs.Then Naru and Yaya jump at her apologizing and then everyone cries and friendship wins the day.Now Yaya can permanently join the drug addict's club and forgot everything that had to do with a project she spent months on working..Sound legit!

Machi's plotline is just as stupid.Machi and her sister Seiri don't get along because Seiri broke a promise with her when they were little girls.But the whole thing isn't addressed in any way until about episode 9.And another thing.Later on in the series Seiri must step down as the girls' adviser because she isn't a full-time teacher.As for the reason she never spoke of this to anyone?It's a fucking mystery not to be ever solved.

And after that we have the special Love Live rip off plot where Hana has to go back to America to spent more time with her mother and father.Here's the thing though.Hana's father still has some things that need to be done before he leaves as well.And for reasons other than the one "we are out of ideas" her mother wants Hana to leave right before the big festival Naru and the others have been getting ready for all this time.Hana like Seiri didn't bother telling her mother of the yosakoi club she's in or about the festival until she was fucking back to 'Murica.But thank god for capitalistic pigs her mother sent her back in time for her to go to the festival..The moral is that having a big bank account trumps all.

END OF SPOILERS

And now i must conclude this review by saying that i was deeply disappointed by this show.First episode aside it's value drops faster than a pair of drawers falling down a cliff.The characters are walking-breathing cliches,it looks like a war wound,the music's aaaahhhh cheesy there's next to no dancing or even exploring anything to do with it,there's abso-fuckin-lutely nothing going for it and it's a damn shame cause i wanted to like it.

Dazzling artwork ✓
Incredible animation ✓
Great voice acting ✓
Enjoyable setting/focus ✓
Excellent characters ✓

What's not to love?

Well, there's a huge lump of coal in my anime stocking and it's that Hanayamata is just a series of melodramatic setbacks that constantly get in the way of all those positives. About halfway in I was shrugging off the negativity because I really enjoy CGDCT and I figured the series would follow a typical pattern in that around episode 8-9 the roadbumps would be done and everything would cap out with a good vibe. Well...that doesn't happen until the last four minutes of the last episode. In fact, it's around ... episode 8-9 where more and more melodramatic setbacks are introduced, all the way up until the aforementioned finale.

Just...why? What's the point? What kind of sadist writes up characters who finally get over a block and are then immediately shackled by a new one? Again and again and again...and again. That's not and enjoyable experience, that's depressing. Melodrama belongs in daytime soap operas produced on $1.75, half a stick of gum, a Big Gulp, and royalty checks from the lead actress' old sex tape. It doesn't belong in my CGDCT. I don't know about anyone else, but I love this pseudo-genre because it sets my mind at ease with a cheery, breezy atmosphere. I don't so much care about the setting, narrative, and so on as I primarily require the anime be happy so I can relax and let my mind float. Hanayamata is perfect in every part except it doesn't ease off the pointless sadness...ever.

It's a real waste. Ymmv but if you even have the slightest intolerance for melodrama like me, just give it a pass.