Harukanaru Toki no Naka de: Hachiyou Shou

I watched Harukanaru Toki no Naka de. Specifically, the Hachiyou Shou series, associated OVAs and specials (including prequels and sequels), and the Maihitoyo movie. These various anime are related to otome visual novels which have the same title. These media may also be known by the titles Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time, or In a Distant Time. Here are my thoughts on the anime content:

Harukanaru is a reverse harem but don't judge it based solely on this fact. It is a reverse harem but without cheap trashy fanservice. It actually has lots of nice romantic scenes. The show has artistic merit.

Large cast, most of ... whom are well developed and decently characterized. Unlike so many others, this anime takes advantage of its length by developing its characters. Character development augments romance so well, so in this case it is of particular importance. Similarly, despite the large cast, within the harem there is a diverse variety of personalities; each character is distinctly unique from the others. Takamichi, Yasuaki, and Eisen are my favourite characters. The female MC is a comparatively bland character relative to the male cast, which is regrettable but not surprising since this is a reverse harem series.

Romance, lust, love, envy, teamwork, prejudice, duty and various other themes are explored in an emotionally engaging manner.

Really nice soundtrack which uses traditional Japanese instruments extensively. Although the number of songs in the OST is relatively low, especially when the length of the anime (26 episodes) is taken into account. Consequently, some tracks are repeated quite frequently. The quality of the music is high but I simply wish they produced more of it. Regardless, the OST was enjoyable enough to be placed on my portable music device. The voice acting is decent as well.

Nice traditional Japanese outfits. Character designs in general are attractive despite the production year. The animation is serviceable. The character animations are generally crude but they did an okay job at animating facial expressions, which to me is far more important than any action scene (Note: this aired around early 2000s).

The historical setting felt genuine and immersive. After the credits they even have these cute short "guide to traditional japan" segments. Sometimes there are old Japanese poems displayed at the end of episodes as well. Supposedly the story takes place in and around the coetaneous capital city during the Heian period of Japanese history (and the sequels take place progressively further in time).

The pacing is slow but I was fine with it because it allowed for richer characters and setting. That said, much of the actual plot I found kind of dull. Specifically, the demons-versus-guardians plot device felt repetitive and boring after a while. This is my most significant issue with the anime. The show was at its best when it focused on character development and character interaction, instead of the boring unengaging plot.

In terms of direction, again this was most flawed in regard to the plot. Specifically, I was sometimes confused by what was happening and why the characters were doing what they were doing.


My overall rating: 7/10

I think it's worth mentioning that I was forced to suffer the indignity of streaming this because the one torrent I managed to download only had french subs (unbeknownst to me beforehand). Anyway, my point is that this anime has a high probability of being lost in the sands of time (pun intended -- see anime title harhar), and for this reason you might want to watch it soon if it sounds appealing.

I'd also like to make some comments that are specific to the 2006 "Maihitoyo" movie:
- the tone/atmosphere was notably darker than the original TV series.
- comparatively better animation, unsurprisingly. Furthermore, a lot more care was put into lighting, cinematography, and artistic detail. Overall visuals were definitely much stronger than the TV show.
- entirely fresh soundtrack which was just as great as the original TV series.
- I liked the demon love interest more in this than in the TV series.
- the focus was mainly on the female MC and her character arc during this movie. However, this comes at the cost of not using the usual male characters for anything more than trivial plot advancement. Which is unfortunate because this series is good at using the males for character-driven story arcs. That said, I actually thought the movie's story was excellent, even though the usual male characters of the TV series weren't used in any meaningful way. In fact I might even rewatch this movie because of how much I liked the story (or perhaps read the VN it's based upon if I can find it).

The sequel OVAs are all kind of bad and my enjoyment of them was at best lukewarm (although the music is quite good). These OVAs were probably meant to be paired with the visual novels, as opposed to the TV anime and Maihitoyo movie, both of which can be enjoyed by a viewer otherwise unacquainted with the franchise. I dropped the second of the animated sequels (Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 3), mainly because all of the characters and backstory had presumably been explained in other franchise media, making the viewing experience incomprehensible from my anime-only perspective.

Finally, here's a list of the animated franchise content with my corresponding numerical ratings.
Ajisai Yumegatari: 5/10
Hachiyou Shou: 7/10
Maihitoyo: 7/10
Shiroki Ryuu no Miko: 5/10
Kurenai no Tsuki: dropped ~30 minutes in.

In short: If you're a fan of reverse harems you might get some enjoyment out of this, but I warn you it's fairly mediocre, everything about it is mediocre, from simple characters, to simple story, to its sort of episodic structure to it's art and its sound. If you're not a fan I don't think this will blow your mind in the least and might result in a painful experience.

I recently started going on a journey to watch and read all reverse harems I manage to come across and this is one of the first I started with. Am I disappointed? Sort of. Do ... I regret putting my time into it? Actually... not really.
Hear me out.

My overall main issue with this show is that the story isn't very fleshed out and everything appears to be inconsequential even if it pretends it isn't. It's a very character driven story, as otome game adaptations often are, and unfortunately most of the characters aren't interesting enough in my opinion to manage to make up for the lack of overarching plot (besides defeat the demons, purify the town, bring peace), safe for few exceptions such as Yasuaki and Tomomasa which offer some sort of character complexity, but even here would be stretching it since their arcs (and those of the others) are usually dealt with in one episode almost as if they were swept under a rug for how easy it was for all of their issues to disappear. There are also a couple characters defined by their flaws such as Inori and Tenma which provided some interesting episodes, but again, in Inori's case the resolution is so easy that his character being centered on hating demons seemed basically inconsequential in the end and Tenma started as a control freak and remained a control freak making him one of the most dislikeable characters of the show, which I doubt was actually the intent. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Honorable mention to Yorihisa and Eisen being, while still pretty average in execution, probably some of the most likeable, despite their lack of character building.

The heroine doesn't provide a much different experience either, since she tends to be the typical average highschooler whose only purpose is to get protected by her guardians. She does get a level up in the end and becomes more active, but unfortunately it was too late for me to manage to find any sort of interest in her struggles. It's also sort of unforgivable how her crush on the villain of the show is forgotten for like more than 15 episodes only to be suddenly brought back at the end. lol It's also amazing how the show basically got a "choose your own ending" feature with different ending clips. Not sure how much of a spoiler that is but if you expect a canon end romance, you might once again be disappointed...

That said though, the anime is FINE. Like really, it's just fine! I might have sounded like I tore it to pieces but, while simple and not ground-breaking (even for the time it got released in since we already had stuff like Angelique and Fuushigi Yugi released a bit earlier), there's nothing wrong in being mediocre. I think the anime can be enjoyed just fine if you like more of the cheesy, dramatical, sorta cliché experience of the genre (which is typical of the 90ties, early 2000s overall). Personally, i really would like playing the otome game for this and it makes me sad there's no English release of it or any translation to be found online. But eh, so be it.

Surprisingly daring anime, considering that even at the beginning it copies horribly Fushigi Yuugi. The girl is naïve and stupid. The story is predictable andboring. And to top it all off every single man in the anime seems to be in love with the “heroine”. All in all, something that will probably only make you angry as you watch it. Better not then…