Hana wa Saku, Shura no Gotoku

Flower and Asura — a recital that's best further explored to see if its weight holds up.

I love exploring niche topics when it comes to just about any medium of content derived from the sources that it stems from that's full of awe and intrigue to find out what goes on behind the trait that just works. So, in this Winter season, courtesy of the musical maestro that is author Ayano Takeda and her globe-transcending franchise that is Hibike! Euphonium, let's explore the road less travelled with her rather peculiar story about finding your voice and the incantations that are pretty much the vocal life ... of literature: Hana wa Saku, Shura no Gotoku a.k.a Flower and Asura.

If you're coming into this show and thinking that it'll be a masterpiece like Hibike!, then I'm sorry to say that you're going to be disappointed, since HanaShura doesn't have much of the weight attributed to it as compared to the former series. Instead, it explores the less ventured nuance of literature and, importantly, recitals/speech and storytelling, which Japan has no lack of such exquisite fine practices to help boost its literacy into something special. If you love shows like Summer 2021's Kageki Shoujo!!, then this will be your mojo, just in a different aspect.

Meet Hana Haruyama: the girl who lives on the small island of Tonaki-jima with a sizable population of just 600 and has an interest in storytelling by reading to children. That has been her life at least since the one influence that brought her to the same degree in her youth, until she attends school on a normal basis as a fresh new sophomore and gets noticed by the Senpai of Mizuki Usurai when she starts speaking affluently to scout her into the Broadcasting Club and try out her articulation, which confirms her position in the rather small club. Along with other prolific members of the Broadcasting Club, Hana's journey into the realm of recital literature begins.

Right from the get-go, HanaShura leverages the anime medium in one single fine thread: the aspect of sound through voice acting. It's never easy for VAs to get their articulation right, and when they do, they create some of the most iconic voices that have resonated with us throughout the years (e.g. Yusuke Kobayashi for Re:Zero's Subaru Natsuki, or any character that's voiced by Kenjiro Tsuda). It's the same application here in HanaShura, where the VAs drowns the surroundings until one decides to step up to the plate and showcase their talent, to which sound engineers will enable vacuum chamber-like settings to showcase their talents in clear-cut clarity and stereo voice. It's an art that, though, has been explored before (as in last Spring's Seiyuu Radio no Uraomote a.k.a The Many Sides of Voice Actor Radio), but not to this height of composition that enables one's voice to have so much power and feel that when he/she takes the lead, it's just that engrossing. It's for this reason that if you want to enjoy this show all the more, please use headphones or a good surround system to fully appreciate the sound design for the anime.

The Broadcasting Club has no lack of eccentric characters: some like Hana who are in the club for fun or others like Mizuki who've been climbing up the ranks between the various competitions against other high schools vying for the same glory and reputation. Obviously, the 2nd-year students of president Mizuki, vice president Ryoko Totonoi, Setaro Hakoyama and their advisor of Hiromi Kichijoji are experienced when it comes to competitive recital, enough to give the new faces of Hana, rivals An Natsue and Shudai Toga, as well as their meditator of Matsuyuki Akiyama to prove their skills, this becomes all the more important to distinguish what's good (in the comfort sense) and what's better (in the competition sense), because good is never enough, if you're not putting your own skills to the test, which if going by the symbolism of the series' name, Hana (as in the flower) and Shura (as in Shura Saionji, the person who inspired Hana to take on recital storytelling in the first place, or more appropriately as in the Buddhism demigod of war Asura) aptly creates the scenario of people falling into situations in which they have to fight an endless war against their own comfort zone, in a relentless and inhumane manner, if it means earning the fame that they're known for.

Remember how Studio Bind was created between White Fox and production-cum-planning management company Egg Firm just to focus on Mushoku Tensei alone? Well, after 6 years of operations, you can clearly tell where the studio is at thanks to Egg Firm separating it from White Fox to "allow us to move forward with the project in a continuous, long-term, and systematic manner." That's not to say that works from the studio from now on will become less varied, but they still show potential in their production, as does HanaShura here. It just needs to amplify what's needed, and that's as much effort to give the great effect.

Other than the incredible sound design I just mentioned earlier in the review; Masaru Yokoyama's OST also is solidly sound. There's not much to it, but whatever it does have, it's done to delicate balance and knows its centrepiece all the more. I'm also fine with Shishamo's OP and Sato's ED songs, though it's not something that is noteworthy, unfortunately. Props to rookie AiPri VA Minori Fujidera for her performance; the now 18/19-year-old VA easily fits Hana's character very well.

Ayano Takeda certainly wasn't lying when she made Hana wa Saku, Shura no Gotoku a.k.a Flower and Asura, because while it tries to hinge on the massive success of her prior series, at the same time, it's branching out to be its own work as well, which takes a unique audience to understand the brave complexities of vocals and sound in a captivating manner. They say, "a picture paints a thousand words," and I believe that the art of storytelling turns the quote upside down to give its own take on a long-standing rhetoric that shines best in silence.

For sure, HanaShura's a unique experience; just don't expect too much from it (especially if you're going into it with a Hibike! mindset) and let the series just resonate its wavelength of stillness, coupled with vocal harmonics that'll leave you wanting for more.

Highschool girls or just highschool kids in general working hard together to reach their dreams and be a better version of themselves isn't a rare view in anime, from the likes of Bocchi The Rock, A Place Further Than The Universe, Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight we now have Hana wa Saku, Shura no Gotoku or HanaShura for short.

Unlike the animes mentioned peviously HanaShura has a more niche topic at hand which is reciting and announcing as apposed to Bocchi The Rock's playing in a band or A Place Further than the Universe's going to Antartica. Therefore watching this show we're then thrown into this very ... new and unusual side of things, despite listening to announcements every day I never really thought of the process and the hard work put behind it and with the addition of the world of recital this is surely a very unique story for an anime to be tackling.

With the anime revolving around announcing and reciting the quality of voice acting is crucial for the general enjoyability of the show, and I could safely say that theres not really any problem with it. Although I say that it's not like as if I could really feel the raw immense emotions that the characters in the show are shown to be feeling when listening to some of the recital done in the show. Everytime there's supposed to be a good recital the characters that listened to it are often times shown to be utterly enchanted by the beauty of it, the animators also did a lot to show it by adding a lot of imageries and changing the background to fit the story that's being told.

So just to be blunt, I can't seem to really understand the beauty of it. Well this is probably just a "not my cup of tea" kinda situation but I bet most people relate to this. More so because a lot of the stories being recited uses a lot of hard unusual words and a ton of metaphors that are just simply to hard to keep up with which is probably my skill issue. Therefore, even if I personally can't feel what the characters are feeling or the emotions that they are supposed to be bringing I still kinda enjoy parts of the show.

But ultimately I think that this show is meh, with a very niche topic at hand its hard for me to really be engrossed in the stories nor the characters so I'd give it a 5 for average.

Flower and Asura is an anime that does not stand out for anything in particular. The story is very simple, the characters are very simple, and the only element that stands out is the animation. Regarding the theme of voice acting, the only thing that moves you is the visual representation—nothing in the performances truly adds to the story or engages the viewer. The anime never explains what makes a voice interesting, what nuances intonation can bring, or why it matters. Then, suddenly, the story decides you need to know the past of every character in the series.

So, the anime starts delivering one character’s backstory ... after another, with the incredible coincidence that, just as their past is being revealed, some event directly connected to it conveniently occurs—wow, very impressive! These elements of the story feel like unrelated pieces forced together. There isn’t much drama, and nothing justifies the time spent on these revelations. The anime misuses its pacing and fails to convey emotions effectively. Ironic, considering that its core premise revolves around the reading of works by some of the most important and renowned Japanese storytellers.