There really isn't much of a story. Handa thinks the entire school hates him. In reality everyone loves him. How they tell the story is what made it fun to watch imo. Handa is the main character but the handa force (Kondou, Nikaidou, Tsutsui, and Aizawa) are the tellers and focus of the story. The misconceptions surrounding Handa bring these characters together to create the "Handa force" in which they spread false truths around as they misunderstand Handa's actions.
I'm not sure what people wanted to be honest. Each review brings up that they had wanted a legitimate prequel to Barakamon, but what would that be? To me the warmth of the characters and the enjoyment of discovery of new things and oneself was something you cant just transfer to another show without it seeming forced or lackluster. This show chooses focus more on the comedy. What people are calling strange or bad is also an interesting way of tackling the show in general. Overall I'm happy they didn't go for a "Barakamon 2 lost in high school" type show.
The art was pretty standard, and so was the soundtrack.
The characters as eluded to make this really enjoyable. They each had a corrosive or main character centered personality(the intelligent class president, the handsome model, the brutish delinquent, the normal Joe). Handa however is nothing really special, he is great at calligraphy and he is well known. This makes the misunderstandings really enjoyable to watch and not follow in the footsteps of a show mentioned in others reviews a lot(Sakamoto desu ga?). Where as Sakamoto uses the main character to drive change directly and rather boringly this show uses misunderstanding and side characters to drive change.
I enjoyed this show a lot. It was a simple comedy show which so happened to be happening around Handa. I think the hate received is a bit to broad and muddled. This show wasn't as "brilliant" or heartwarming perhaps as Barakamon. However it follows in the same light. Handa is this man who has a strange and odd view on things. The world around him shifts and changes do to his actions, but more importantly, the actions of the people around him change who he is.
The comedy was rather straight forward, and though the underlying theme of misunderstanding was present it felt like each situation was new and fun. As comedy is subjective its hard to make this the focal point of an argument. The reason its the focal point of mine is that this show was doomed to fail from the start. You will never have a Barakamon clone. So they have to decide how to handle the material. They decided to bank everything on this strange perspective comedy and imo they nailed it on the head.
TLDR: Don't go into this with Barakamon 2 in mind. Relax and enjoy what the show presents.
