Hanayamata

At the tender age of 14, high school student Naru Sekiya finds that she pales in comparison to the fairy tale princesses she adores so much, not to mention the ideal girl she wants to be in contrast to her peers. Her childhood friend Yaya Sasame is enjoying herself with her school rock band, while her other childhood friend Tami Nishimikado is a member of the student council. Desiring the strength to take the next step forward, Naru has wanted a magic key to open her timid heart since the start of high school.

During one moonlit night, Naru encounters what she believes is a cute fairy standing atop a torii gate who shortly invites her to dance with her. The next day, she discovers that the "fairy" was not only just an ordinary girl, but also a transfer high school student from America! Excited to meet Naru again, Hana N. Fountainstand encourages her to help her start a club for yosakoi, a festive type of Japanese dance that Hana has been entranced by since childhood.

Though initially terrified of Hana's enthusiasm and the thought of being seen dancing, Naru slowly finds herself immersed in the art of yosakoi and assisting her new friend achieve her dream—for the path for a maiden such as herself is at the mercy of the wind!

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Fountainstand, Hana N. Main

Tanaka, Minami Japanese

Sekiya, Naru Main

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Nishimikado, Tami Main

Ootsubo, Yuka Japanese

Sasame, Yaya Main

Okuno, Kaya Japanese

Tokiwa, Machi Main

Numakura, Manami Japanese

Tokiwa, Sari Supporting

Toyoguchi, Megumi Japanese

Oofuna, Masaru Supporting

Koyama, Tsuyoshi Japanese

Sekiya, Tomo Supporting

Yamanoshita, Sachiko Supporting

Wakai, Yuuki Japanese

Fountainstand, Father Supporting

Ueda, Yuuji Japanese

Hayashi, Youhei Producer

Kobayashi, Hiroyuki Producer

Hotta, Shouichi Producer

Tanaka, Hiroyuki Producer

Reviews

Sep 22, 2014

pakoko

Recommended

Your first impression of this show is probably spot-on. Yes, it’s a show about cute girls doing cute things. Yes, it’s flowery, adorable, and sweet to the point it makes you cringe. And yes, it’s a typical story about the friendship between five girls in a club setting. On the surface, Hanayamata doesn’t do much to deviate from being the stereotypical anime featuring everyday lives of girls in a school club. Since the anime realm is saturated with these types of anime, you will more or less get what you expected with Hanayamata, especially in terms of the overall plot progression and the character developments.

However, ... Hanayamata is obviously not a show you will love because of all its stereotypical aspects. It’s a show you will love because of how it takes those stereotypical aspects and manages to make them enjoyable. It’s a show that takes the predictable character developments and makes them heartfelt. It’s a show that takes the typical shoujo personas and makes them lovable. And it’s a show that demonstrates a genuine effort to deliver high quality animation and drop-dead gorgeous aesthetics each and every episode. Hanayamata excels at what it does and sets a gleaming example of how the typical story of cute girls in a club setting should be done.

Hanayamata tells the story of five middle school girls who end up joining the Yosakoi club, a club dedicated to performing a modern style of traditional Japanese dance. The story focuses mainly on Naru Sekiya, who is a shy, passive girl that considers herself as “average” in every aspect. Her wish going into middle school is to break out of her shell to become someone dazzling like a heroine found in fairy tales, but that wish is easier said than done, as Naru struggles to do anything out of her comfort zone. However, after the fateful moment she meets the "fairylike" girl named Hana Fontainestand, Naru's life slowly starts to change. After deciding to join the Yosakoi club with Hana, Naru sets out to gather members for the club one at a time, all the while unknowingly developing into someone she's always wished to be. The story follows the five girls that eventually join the Yosakoi club, as they try to understand one another and work together to eventually dance as a team at a local Yosakoi festival.

When I first read up on Hanayamata, I didn’t feel it as anything out of the ordinary from a typical club setting anime. So what exactly does Hanayamata do differently that sets it apart from the rest? Three words: Well-executed character developments. The anime really takes its time to explore the characters’ backstories and makes sure not to rush their developments. As a result, the characters’ backstories and their developments don’t feel forced or “shoehorned” in just for the sake of adding depth. This aspect allows viewers to better immerse themselves into the show since most of it is dedicated to the coming-of-age story of each character. It is generally uncommon for an anime to dedicate so much of itself to the characters, but Hanayamata purposefully focuses less on its main plot in order to focus more on walking the viewers through the gradual process of maturation and self-discovery as experienced by the protagonists as the show goes on.

Therefore, since the character development is the main focus of the show, the main plot undoubtedly loses some of its spotlight. Does this mean that the main plot is negligible? Not in the least. If the plot hadn’t been gradually moving forward in the background, then there wouldn’t have been such an emotionally satisfying resolution. Once Hanayamata painstakingly develops all of its characters, the main plot takes over and leads the characters towards the resolution they’ve been working for throughout the show: to dance together at the Yosakoi festival. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen such a satisfying resolution for a show, and that sentiment is owed to the effort that the show puts into bridging an emotional connection between the characters and the viewers, all the while keeping the focus of the main plot strong.

To top it off, Hanayamata displays a captivating art style and boasts some of the finest quality in animation. The bright color schemes and the vibrant art style really scream out “youthful” and “beautiful,” both adjectives of which are fitting of a story about middle school girls enjoying their youth. The flowery overtones go well with the theme that each of the girls represents some sort of flower, and overall the art style helps to amplify the bright energy given off by the show. Some of the backdrops and sceneries are just downright gorgeous to look at and demonstrate the amount of effort that’s been put into this show in terms of aesthetics. In terms of animation, the quality can most directly be seen whenever the girls are dancing. Although there aren’t a whole lot of scenes in which they dance, the scenes in which they do are smoothly and naturally done. Considering that animating the choreography without resorting to 3D animation takes a significant amount of money and time, I applaud the show for its dedication to deliver such high quality animation.

The music of Hanayamata isn't anything noteworthy, but I did want to point out its opening song, “Hana Ha Odoreya Irohaniho,” which is uniquely sung by the voice actresses of the show. As you get more and more familiar with the show and the characters, you will start to hear the characters’ voices within the opening, thus giving the song a feeling of intimacy nonexistent in most opening songs. It is often the small things that count, and details like this really made me love the show even more.

To end, I did a double take on this show when I realized that the writer for this show, Yoshida Reiko, wrote for shows such as Aria, Girls und Panzer, and K-On! among other famous works. Combine her with the director, Atsuko Ishizuka, who directed shows such as Chihayafuru, Nana, No Game No Life, and Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo, and you have a dynamic duo that knows what it’s doing when it comes to anime like Hanayamata. Although Hanayamata is filled to the brim with stereotypes of the typical anime featuring “cute girls doing cute things,” the duo still manages to evoke a sense of brilliance out of the staleness commonly found in this genre. Hanayamata as a show is nothing too out of the ordinary, but the amount of effort that is put into this show is astounding and the execution of the story and the character developments is one of the finest I’ve seen in awhile. Whether or not you’re a fan of “cute girls doing cute things,” definitely give Hanayamata a try.

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Story: 7/10
Character: 8/10
Art: 10/10
Music: 7/10
Enjoyment: 9/10

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Overall: 8.2/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Oct 31, 2014

FreakyTy

Mixed Feelings

Hanayamata is something we've all seen before whether you've seen it specifically or if you've seen any other random SoL with a similar plot, unfortunately it could have been greater. The subject is something known as Yosakoi. A Japanese style of dance you've most likely never heard of unless you're into that sort of thing or live in Japan. The show does next to nothing to bring you closer to the subject and barely informs you of anything that has to do with the style of the dance outside of the fact that they use naruko and its done in groups. I could almost forgive ... this if there was actually more to the show though, because I can understand it was intended for a Japanese audience.

Story: 4

Have seen K-On? Have you seen any show like it? If yes then you know the story already. A girl with no after school club somehow ends up in one they know next to nothing about and it is un/partially-formed so they have to get members to have it approved by the school. This time the club is about Yosakoi and only the leader/club founder has any idea what the hell it even is. That would be all fine and dandy IF they actually taught the viewer anything about the style of dance outside of some very minor basics.

This is the traditional story of Kawaii School Girls doing school girl things cutely, and that's rather disappointing because this story has been done a hundred million times and done better. If you love that sort of thing then this might not be a problem, but I'm speaking as someone who is finally sick of it after about 50 shows doing the same.

There's also one other thing I'd like to bring up. Just because your school doesn't recognize you as a club it's not the end of the world. If you have a group of people that enjoy doing something together there is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing it by not being in a club specifically for that thing. I never could understand the drama about these types of things. Especially in this case where you need next to no money to get started. These types of story devices annoy the piss out of me and that's something that's present here, constant worrying about whether or not the club is legit.

Also don't forget the obligatory hot-springs training camp episode, we get some of that too.

Art: 5

The art style is something I'm not fond of personally, but it's not bad just because I don;t like the way it looks. The back drops are Ok to good at best and the characters are very colorful. The designs are nothing impressive, and almost all of them have the same eyes drawn slightly different. Nothing really stands out, but it's not objectively bad so I can't really complain.

However the animation is mediocre as fuck. Which is highly saddening because the scenes with dancing could have been great if nothing else. In itself there is nothing great about the art style I can see and it doesn't even look better then things that are coming out along with it. I was just overall unimpressed.

Sound: 6

Sound is what you would expect from your usual moe SoL. High pitched girls because they are about 13-14 years old. Cute sound effects for their interactions. And honestly not much else. The voice work didn't really do it for me. During the "emotional" scenes of building friendship I did not feel grabbed by the voices in any way.

Music is alright, I rather liked it for what it was. OP and ED are your usual fare of j-pop type songs and not breaking any ground in that regard. I personally enjoyed both though that is subjective to my taste in music and not a reflection of the show itself. The songs are not going to interest you at all unless you like most anime OPs.

Character: 4

If there's one thing I can appreciate it's well written and thought out characters. Hanayamata has none of that. All characters fall into the generic anime tropes that you've seen 400 times over and does not tread new ground with any of them. We have the ditzy/shy girl, the rich girl, the stuck up girl, optimistic happy go-lucky girl, and the tsundere. All crucial parts of any middle school rag-tag club. The small amounts of character development that there is can be seen from about half a planet away and has been done with every trope already. Nothing impressive is to be found and most are completely forgettable if not all of them.

Don't forget that one of the main characters is a native-English speaking transfer student that is supposed to be having trouble learning Japanese, but from what I can tell she speaks pretty damn fluently. There is even a episode about her failing at it and having to study harder for her to participate in the club. Yet not once is her accent (Doesn't have one) ever mentioned or anything. Yes I know the voice actor was Japanese, but just another thing that annoyed me a bit. I mean is it that hard to try for some realism?

Enjoyment/Overview 6/5

This show if done in a more informative fashion could have at least been something a wee bit original that had something going for it. But they took the idea of using a lesser known type of dance (At least in other parts of the world, in the show they treat it as if it's something uncommon in Japan as well though.) as the main plot device and took it a whole five feet before dropping off into the usual moe SoL that we all know and love/hate. I was expecting more only to be let down quickly, but I always hoped for something to change, but guess what; it doesn't.

For what it is I enjoyed it somewhat, but I'm getting sick of the same setting with the same story over and over with no show even trying to break new ground with it. I couldn't help but hope at least initially this would be something akin to Tari Tari. Where we got characters that actually grew over the course of the show and had at least some semblance of a story to tell. Don't be like me and get your hopes up. If you like moe, watch. If you want a good at least semi-original SoL don't, because it will take you nowhere fast.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Sep 24, 2014

McRib

Not Recommended

Jersey Girls aren't trash, trash gets picked up.

That should be the description for Hanayamata. When I first heard that this show would feature a character from the greatest state in union I was incredibly excited. However, that was short lived. I soon realized that like with many shows, the Japanese depiction of a foreign land is far from accurate. Seeing a blonde haired girl who speaks fluent Japanese in Princeton, NJ is rarer than finding one in Japan. Luckily the depiction was not along the lines of a Jersey Shore parody, but at the same time I felt that it would have been a more ... entertaining depiction of the first New Jersey native depicted in anime. What is even more strange is this New Jersey resident's love of “yosakoi”. Now you may be asking: “Ayyy yo Tony – what the hell's a yosakoi”, yet after a dozen episodes I still do not know the answer to it. Is it singing, is it dancing, or is it some weird mix of both that only a small minority of Japanese would even understand or care about? I am guessing it is the last option. It truly is a baffling subject matter for a foreign resident to be infatuated with which only leads to the overall mediocrity of this show. Let me straight with you, Hanayamata is the biggest disappointment of the season for me. A show that could have had terrible, but charming “engrish”, funny character interactions, and a pleasing story failed on all three fronts. If you are a fan of Kiniro Mosaic and were expecting more of the same, you will be in for quite a disappointment. Frankly, this show just comes off as being rather dull. It does not stand out among the many other “cute girls doing X” shows. If anything, it seems to be a cash grab by Madhouse on this popular genre. They have not cashed in on it and had to pump something out in hopes that it will break sales records like the many other shows that have used this formula.

In regards to story, Hanayamata is only unique due to the subject matter. As I have previously stated, the whole idea of Yosakoi is something that isn't explained well in the show and since they hardly focused on it for 12 episodes, I am not sure if the viewer is even supposed to know what it is. The show's formula where several girls do a certain activity has been done and redone dozens of times. For someone to create a story about girls creating a club about some obscure Japanese organized dancing; it really shows that the industry is scraping the bottom of the barrel. Then again, I don't think anything can top girls in a tank driving club so everything else really does pale in comparison. In addition, the show suffered from absolutely terrible pacing. While you cannot expect and you do not really want a show to rush the story along, it has to move at a pace in which the viewer remains entertained. I felt that the pacing for Hanayamata really made the show feel dragged out which added to my overall dissatisfaction. Regardless of the subject matter or pacing, the story itself is rather cut and paste – the girls have issues creating their club, there's drama involving some of the members, and they spend little to no time each episode practicing and instead do other various activities. This is not particularly a problem since this same formula has worked well in many other shows, it's just that Hanayamata lacked the magic of character cohesion. While the characters in the show were not any less generic and cookie cutter than any others, they just lacked chemistry with each other for some reason. There were many cheap attempts at making the viewer feel emotion towards the characters, but since they were not charming enough that ended up being a failure. Even New Jersey's pride and joy could not carry the weight of the show on her back. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely like “cute girls doing X shows” and I mainly watch them for the character interactions since they can be amusing and relaxing, unfortunately for Hanayamata they just either felt forced or just plain boring. I am not sure if it was poor direction or just poor writing, but it did not feel up to par in terms of either story or character interaction.

In regards to art and music, I found yet another problem. Style over substance is common theme in many shows, which can work if properly executed, but unfortunately for Hanayamata this is not the case. The art itself is put through a myriad of filters, much like No Game No Life which aired in Spring 2014. Hanayamata shares a director and she likes doing that to her work so I am not going to really fault her for it, but at the same time it felt off putting for a show like this. It was very out of place for a slow paced slice of life type show. It almost seemed like a distraction so that the viewer would focus on the vibrant colors instead of the dull plot. In regards to music and sound, it was nothing extraordinary. The voice acting was adequate and the singing was also typical and unremarkable. I will repeat my gripes over the lack of English used in the show since it did feature an American main character. They could have done something similar to Kiniro Mosaic was both entertaining and charming with the poorly done English. It could have been a bright spot in a show that was lackluster in many other aspects, but unfortunately I wasted my time watching 12 episodes for nothing.

If I could sum up my entire experience of Hanayamata in one word, it would be “disappointing”. I expected an enjoyable and fun slice of life show. Instead, I got a dull and boring show that quickly became a chore to watch. The cause of this was many different factors which all ended up working against this show. I would personally put the subject matter at the forefront of my disappointment. The actual subject of yosakoi was not thoroughly explained and it seemed to be somewhat of a joke with the characters who were just as baffled by the activity as the viewer. If anything, this show does prove that the “cute girls doing X” formula does have its limits. They have to either be mundane enough to bring a sense of familiarity to the viewer or outlandish enough that you just can't help but want to watch it. Unfortunately, Hanayamata falls in between that and comes off as a half baked and lackluster product that has to be a cash grab by the declining Madhouse. It feels like they had to make something to fit this current trend and went with whatever they could find, which unfortunately turned out to be this show. I expect more out of Madhouse and I expect more out of the staff behind it since their other works have been relatively good for the most part. Hopefully Madhouse either quits attempting this formula if it is going to be mediocre like this or at least picks a subject matter that is interesting and entertaining to the viewer the next time they try it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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