Reviews

Stop! Hibari-kun has a great premise revolving around an LGBT character (a crossdresser), and that aspect of it works out great. Unfortunately, pretty much everything else works against the show's premise. Disregarding the low-quality art style of the series, Hibari and Kosaku are great characters, and it would've been fine to leave it at just that; however, instead, Hibari is given three sisters and a variety of token cast members which seek to insert "funny" jokes. Unfortunately, the jokes and even plots rarely ever make sense. There's a continuous "running gag" about Hibari's father seeing a white alligator in his dreams and many jokes seem to feature cutaway fantasies so poorly constructed it's sometimes hard to tell what's actually happening, or how it was even meant to be a joke. For instance, in episode 9, the coach is talking to some kids about respecting nature, and out of nowhere, they become Native American caricatures speaking gibberish for a few seconds and revert to the scene afterward. Many jokes are also about guns, violence, Kosaku not liking Hibari (which oddly, only occasionally works to the show's benefit), and Hibari's dad almost dying/having a serious medical condition after overreacting. However, this isn't what does the show in, at least for me: all of these things, while not passable, would ordinarily not be a deal-breaker. No, instead it's the fact that the series relies on stereotypes to progress not only its characters, but the episodes themselves. At least one episode is dedicated to finding a way to make Hibari more manly, and he almost gets sexually assaulted by the end of the episode. Another example would be Hibari emotionally manipulating his own sister and bribing a little boy to go on a date with him...without even telling the boy of his true identity. Sadly, despite the show's great LGBT lead, I can only give it a 3/10. It's a shame, this type of show had great potential, especially for its era.