Hanako Kun was an anticipated show for 2020, I started this anime with high expectations, because lerche studio has been my favourite for quite a while now, and whenever lerche comes up with a fresh original anime, I can’t help but be excited for it.
Right off the bat, I was hooked with it’s art style and animation. The art comes off as a full coloured manga, with each shots as manga panels. This creative art style immediately alerts fans of the anime community who crave something original rather than some generic isekai of the season. The chibi character designs are adorable and creepy when it needs to be and the creators clearly don’t have any intentions of ripping off of other shows and lets us know they are thriving for something original right away with that amazing art style. Unfortunately not everyone will be able to appreciate this kind of art and it may take people some time to get used to it, since the characters may have weirdly drawn arms or legs. However, the anime also makes fun of it’s own art style, in fact one of the running gags of this show has to do with how a character’s legs look.
The comedy of this show also lands most of the time for me. The humour of Hanako Kun is quite self aware, and I often found myself laughing quite a bit watching this show. This anime isn’t scared of taking dark turns, however the dark moments don’t last very long because the show will switch to it’s light hearted side the next frame. At times it does feel like this anime is just confused of what it wants to be. It’s constantly switching back and forth from cutesy to dark, which doesn’t really establish a certain tone for the series to stick with.
I really loved the characters of Hanako Kun, the main cast is very likeable and their interactions are just heart warming. The supporting cast is also great, including the antagonists of the show. Every character has a very lovable personality, including the villains. It’s just a blast to watch these characters simply do things. There is also enough character development and backstory given to the characters. Although I would have liked Nene’s character to be explored a little more, since all we know about Nene is the fact that she wants a boyfriend, and that’s about it with her character. I am not saying Nene is a bad character, because she is very complex and a fantastic character. I would just like to see more of her past.
A major attraction of this anime is it’s story line. Hanako Kun features an amazing story, that’s original and creative. It feels like a breath of fresh air and the story truly makes me want to see more of what the yokai genre has to offer.
This anime has an amazing opening song and just as amazing ending song. The songs don’t feel out of place, and fits in really well with the anime, while also providing quality music for the audience to listen to. I never wanted to skip these songs at any points of the show.
When it comes to the flaws, this anime can feel very rushed. In fact, the very important episode that is supposed to tell us the rules of the world and give us a good exposition to start off the story felt incredibly rushed. I am talking about the first episode, the first episode felt very rushed to me and it felt like a lot of exposition was crammed into this one small episode.
Throughout this anime we see the main characters take on various challenges of fighting a variety of different wonders of the school, and to be completely honest, although a lot of these wonders were highly creative, while others felt like they were just there to fill up the 12 episodes. The first few episodes featuring these wonders, really felt like they didn’t help move the plot along at all. They just felt like random obstacles for our main characters to go through while the actual story took motion near the end of the anime.
This anime also decides to become a lot more serious towards the last few episodes, it almost takes itself too seriously, all while creating several unnecessary plot points in the process, which not only creates a lot of confusion and head scratching for the audience, it also feels like a drag to watch. The only thing I liked about this arc is the villain, who was quite entertaining in personality. However, overall I really didn’t like the turn that this show decided to take with it’s story.
Overall, Hanako Kun excels at delivering a unique experience brimming with charming and memorable characters. It features a very cute art style that brings even more charm to the it and a story that remains original and creative. Unfortunately this anime loses it’s momentum in the pacing department, creating various unnecessary plot points to further confuse it’s audience and the story of Hanako Kun doesn’t really go anywhere whatsoever until the main villain arrives somewhere around the last few episodes.
