……seems legit.
Anime comedies never seem to tickle my “funny bone” the way The Simpsons did in its heyday (circa 1991-1999). While there are notable exceptions (i.e. One Punch Man and Gintama), the vast majority fall under the zany category of school-aged hijinks. To distinguish itself from the heard, Hinamatsuri throws in girls with psychic powers, who, for the most part, use them to generate obscure situations for the purposes of setting up the proverbial punch line. And while a handful of the joke’s secure a half-smile-to-a-grin, nothing resonates enough with the viewer to burst out into laughter over. In fact, I would wager that my expression resembled Hina’s blank face when I watch this particular anime.
The funniest jokes, in my estimation, are the one’s that have a modicum of relevance to one’s own life experiences. In animation, this begins by creating a character that embodies a distinguishable characteristic that is shared by most people (e.g. laziness), allowing the audience to live vicariously through them. If the audience feels disconnected from the experiences of the character’s on the screen, their actions come off as being ridiculous, and, god forbid, “cartoonish.” To exemplify this point, juxtapose a typical Adam Sandler movie with a comedy classic, The Big Lebowski. In the former’s case, we have situational character’s who fit a particular mold to tell a particular joke, usually to the point of exhaustion. Whereas, with Lebowski, we have three character’s who epitomize the human condition, that being: laziness, anger, and awkwardness. Thus, allowing the comedy to sprout naturally from the essence of the character’s themselves, rather than being forced through nonsensical happenstances — as is the case for Hinamatsuri.
Hina, to the detriment of the series, is a vacuous character with little-to-no remorse for her discourteousness, and only the slightest inclination of empathy. She doesn’t sound like a typical school girl to me, she sounds more like a sociopath, but that’s none of my business (slurps Lipton tea). Her unassuming lifestyle parallels that of an annoying, adolescent child, making her behavior all the more irksome; consequently, her immaturity extinguishes the impact of her “comedic” moments. The singular moment where her deadpan personality did serve a purpose, was to set up the final joke in episode 8 (when Nitta celebrates being a “free” man again — now that was hilarious!). That aside, her monotonous, imbecilic behavior was simply excessive to the point of infuriating the viewer. We get it, she’s ceaselessly hungry, it’s not cute when a three-year-old says it, and it’s certainly not cute or funny when Hina says it.
I’m not really sure what to make of the homeless scenes with Anzu (there’s some feels there, I suppose) and the bar scenes with Hitomi. They, you know, happen, because……the anime staff’s gotta fill 12 episodes? Also, how come Anzu’s hair/appearance never looked disheveled when she was homeless? It literally takes a day for anyone to look like utter garbage without the proper bathroom “essentials.” Just saying.
Despite my “harsh” criticisms, its not an awful anime, its just not really good, either. It offers a specific brand of comedy that may appeal to a cohort of the anime community; nevertheless, its staying power is substantially limited, due to the inane nature of the show. If you have roughly 4.5 hours to kill (who am I kidding, I know you do) then give it a go, it may be a source of great enjoyment and copious laughter — but, if you’re like me, it will be fairly jejune.
