Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken (The Case of Hana & Alice)

Add to My List

Add to Favorites

Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Hana & Alice: The Murder Case

Japanese: 花とアリス殺人事件

More titles

Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 1

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Feb 20, 2015

Producers: Pony Canyon, Nippon Television Network, Shogakukan

Licensors: GKIDS

Studios: Steve N' Steven, Rockwell Eyes

Source: Original

Genres: Award Winning, Drama, Mystery

Duration: 1 hr. 38 min.

Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older

Statistics

Score: 7.28¹ (scored by 13,308 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #2966²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #3319

Members: 44,567

Favorites: 224

Available At

Official Site

Resources

AniDB

ANN

Synopsis

After transferring to Ishinomori Middle School, Tetsuko "Alice" Arisugawa overhears her classmates discussing a strange rumor. The previous occupant of her seat, a nondescript "Judas," is missing and presumed murdered—poisoned by one of his four wives. Amidst dealing with her mother's undesired meddling in her affairs and warding off her classmates' bullying, the troubled Alice starts to investigate the mystery surrounding Judas' disappearance.

The trail of clues leads her to the house of her next-door neighbor, the quirky and reclusive Hana Arai. After an awkward introduction, Hana agrees to help Alice and formulates a plan that may lead them to the answers they seek. The two girls embark on a journey to uncover what happened to Judas, and perhaps a friendship may start to blossom between the two along the way.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Edit

Background

Winner of the Excellence Award at the 19th Japan Media Arts Festival.

Edit

Related Anime

Adaptation:

Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Arisugawa, Tetsuko

Main

Aoi, Yuu
Japanese

Arai, Hana

Main

Suzuki, Anne
Japanese

Mutsu, Mutsumi

Supporting

Suzuki, Ranran
Japanese

Tomonaga

Supporting

Kaku, Tomohiro
Japanese

Arai, Tomomi

Supporting

Kimura, Midoriko
Japanese

Arisugawa, Kayo

Supporting

Aida, Shoko
Japanese

Kuroyanagi, Kenji

Supporting

Hiraizumi, Sei
Japanese

Ogino, Satomi

Supporting

Kuroki, Haru
Japanese

Tsutsumi, Yuki

Supporting

Kimura, Tae
Japanese

Yuda, Koutarou

Supporting

Katsuji, Ryou
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Ishii, Tomohiko

Producer, Planning

Iwasa, Naoki

Producer

Iwai, Shunji

Director, Script, Theme Song Lyrics, Planning, Music, Original Creator, Editing

Shiina, Kotone

Theme Song Performance

Edit

Opening Theme

No opening themes have been added to this title. Help improve our database by adding an opening theme here.

Edit

Ending Theme

"Fish in the Pool" by Hec and Pascal (ヘクとパスカル)

Reviews

Mar 14, 2023

Arrokoth

Recommended

Hana and Alice isn't a great work in terms of animation, looking jarring at times, but it literally makes up for it so much for what else it has, basically just the atmosphere. It's just something really unique for anime, something about how it's presented doesn't feel like it's animated at times (which for context, this is the prequel to a live-action film, so it sort of does make sense). The characters are really just fun to watch, it kind of just feels more real, I couldn't get tired of anything in this movie. There's quite a decent section of this film of Alice eating ...

Open

Gift

Jan 14, 2016

Flawfinder

Mixed Feelings

The animated prequel to the 2004 Japanese film, Hana and Alice, never got much buzz around the anime community to the point that I'm surprised it ever got subbed at all. And even then, the subs flew past my attention given how it came out around the ending weeks of the last summer season and I spent nearly four months ignorant of its existence. I checked my MAL friends' stats and neither of them have seen it either (well one guy did, but you don't know him). Since I enjoy dabbling in the obscure from time to time, especially given this film's pedigree, I figured ... I'd give this thing some attention, so Noragami Aragoto can wait another week to get reviewed.

So The Case of Hana & Alice reunites the director and the two actresses who play our leads, now diving into the rotoscoped animation field in order to tell the story of how our title characters first met each other and grew into bitchy high school students that nearly split apart over a guy thanks to, well, a guy funnily enough. Investment in the first film isn't necessary, as I barely remember anything about it apart from the fact that Alice likes to do ballet and I could still easily follow what was going on. Now I haven't seen much of Shunji Iwai's stuff, but if his Hana & Alice films are anything to go by, he loves to focus on everyday life quite a bit. Whilst that's not always a bad thing, the good everyday life stories use the mundane setting as a template for all sorts of complex issues whilst the bad ones wallow in nostalgia like a crappy fanmade sequel. What side does The Case of Hana & Alice lay on? Well let's look at the plot, shall we?

The film starts with Alice moving into a new neighborhood thanks to her mother's divorce and having to adjust to a few things that are standard for transferring schools such as getting a new uniform and having to deal with the City Council for a student ID. Although that stuff is only mentioned briefly, as the real conflict comes from how Alice's class treats her like an outsider thanks to sitting at a desk that belonged to a former student who was said to have died in her very chair, as well as having four wives to boot. Sick of having to deal with everyone's bullshit, Alice confronts her assaulters and discovers that they were just cashing in on a rumor in order to act like big men around the new kids because teens are stupid like that. During her interrogation, Alice realizes that the guy who died lived in her current house before she moved in and in an attempt to dispel the "ghost" rumors, asks next-door neighbor and local shut-in Hana to help her find out if the guy is still alive. Although reluctant to help, Hana eventually concedes and the two go on a modern-day Whisper of the Heart-esque adventure across the city in order to discover the truth whilst forming the friendship that would make up the basis for their first movie along the way.

The Case of Hana & Alice is best summed up as a movie version of those light-hearted slice of life stories that anime fans who wallow in nostalgia tend to bust a nut over, except rotoscoped. But the movie is no Aku no Hana in terms of tone, because whilst it portrays the struggles of a teenage girl more realistically than most slice-of-life stories, said portrayal is hampered by a lack of forward momentum along with the fact that it's very safe execution-wise. Alice and Hana don't even meet, let alone go on that "whimsical" adventure I referenced in my summary, until the halfway point, so you have to put up with Alice going through every day struggles for no other reason than she's a Japanese girl trying to fit in and do ballet as a motivation for wanting to watch her. Some of the scenes in the first half are cute, such as Alice punching a bully when he threw a chicken bone at her and him crying like a baby whilst doing so, but they don't add up to anything resembling an actual story with actually engaging drama, especially considering Alice is too capable a character to let teasing get her down forever.

Things get more interesting when Hana shows up because of her shut-in nature, along with the reveal of the reason for why she's a shut-in in the first place and how it ties in with everything that transpired previously, but it never results in anything as grand as Whisper of the Heart's ultimate message regarding the right way to follow your dreams. In fact, the only time the film truly stands out is when it uses its rotoscoped nature for some dynamic movement like when Alice runs up some stairs or when she and Hana dance in the moonlight (you'll understand once you see it). Ultimately, this movie just wants to be a light-hearted origin story for its main duo, keeping things accessible to a general audience whilst not really giving them any more substance than the Peanuts movie. If you're into that sort of thing, I'd recommend The Case of Hana & Alice for one watch because as I've said before, whilst the film is ultimately good-natured and never really delves into the hilarious ribbing you'd see in a Western sitcom, its non-saccharine approach to what teenage girls go through along with the number of moderately funny jokes did a fair enough job in terms of entertaining me at points, so you should enjoy the movie more than I did.

All in all, not a bad attempt in terms of a live-action director switching to animation for the first time. It's just a shame that unless his other movies are wildly different from the Hana & Alice stuff, he hasn't picked up much storytelling ambition in the decade between films. But then again, we can't all be Martin Scorsese now can we?

Open

Gift

Mar 10, 2019

otakuboy291997

Not Recommended

this is gurbgege
it looks like shit
and I hate it

and about the story I could just go fuckin read for the tenth the damn manga
which looks more intersting
an all over a better experince

I never felt more disappointed in my damn life

...

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

yuri 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👭

by grrrlsrevolution

46 Entries · 18 Restacks

Stand-Alone & Non-Ghibli Movies Part. 2

by madiandi

50 Entries · 83 Restacks

underrated movies

by boguda

28 Entries · 2 Restacks

More recommendations

Recommendations

More news

Recent News

North American Anime & Manga Releases for September

Here are the North American anime & manga releases for September Week 1: September 3 - 9 Anime Releases Boku no Hero Academia 3rd Season Part 2 DVD Boku no Hero ...read more

Sep 2, 2019 7:49 AM by Sakana-san | Discuss (6 comments)

Q2 2019 Anime & Manga Licenses [Update 6/13]

In this thread, you'll find a comprehensive list of anime and manga licensed in the first quarter (April-June) of 2019. Spring 2019 anime which were licensed be...read more

Apr 2, 2019 10:30 AM by Snow | Discuss (21 comments)

More discussions

Recent Forum Discussion

Poll: Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Sep 13, 2015	57 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Feb 26, 11:00 AM
anime movie recommendations that has similar tone to this one? Kayzzle - Jul 12, 2021	4 replies	by iiKrina »» Jan 30, 2023 8:09 AM
Why does every 14 year old got to be whiny? Angry_Anime_Nerd - Mar 27, 2016	27 replies	by Angry_Anime_Nerd »» Jul 12, 2021 9:48 AM
Preview & Cast Stark700 - Dec 11, 2014	8 replies	by Lemon »» Jun 21, 2015 12:40 PM

Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Synopsis

Background

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Arisugawa, Tetsuko

Arai, Hana

Mutsu, Mutsumi

Tomonaga

Arai, Tomomi

Arisugawa, Kayo

Kuroyanagi, Kenji

Ogino, Satomi

Tsutsumi, Yuki

Yuda, Koutarou

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Hana to Alice: Satsujin Jiken

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Synopsis

Background

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Related Anime

Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-