Onsen Yousei Hakone-chan Episode 1: Hakone-chan Arrives! (First Impression)

Well this was a surprise. I thought this was going to be a full-length show but it turns out this show is actually a short. Three minutes and thirty seconds, three minutes if you take out the catchy opening. So you can expect this review to be just like the show and like Hakone-chan…short.

Okay, so we have this boy named Tohya who has a well in his backyard. He lives in a town that has the best hot springs and the well in his backyard is said to have a spirit that watches over all the hot springs. Tohya’s chores with that well include cleaning up around it, and making offerings and wishes. Right after sweeping up, he goes over to the shrine in the well and makes a wish wanting to get closer to a girl named Haruna. He uses a steamed bun as an offering but accidentally drops it in the water and out comes our spirit, Hakone-chan. Later said by Haruna the spirit is supposed to be beautiful and have a nice body. But really Hakone

is a kid. She’s a little kid spirit who barely reaches Tohya’s hip.

So after she pops out of the well she eats the steamed bun and makes fun of Tohya saying he’ll never find a woman if he’s always so fussy and that’s why he used a wish for that type of stuff. She loved the steam bun so much that she said if Tohya gives her more she’ll promise to keep his wish a secret. It’s then that he realizes that this little girl is actually the hot springs spirit. So he takes her to get more steam buns until they run into Haruna. Saying Haruna is pretty, Hakone “helps” Tohya with his crush and ends up pushing him from the stairs at Haruna, they both fall down on top of each other and YOU GUESSED IT, he lands on her boobs and she smacks him even though she clearly saw he was pushed by her. One cliche in anime that I fucking despise. And it ends there.

Okay so I was extremely confused when watching this because I saw the time said 3:30 and then checked and found out that this show is indeed a short. Oh, okay then. Well, not much happened. Hakone mentioned that she looks the way she does is because she was in a deep slumber for a long time and that she does live up to what everyone says about her (being pretty, nice body, etc.) The synopsis of the show did say that she’d need Tohya’s help to get her powers back. That’s what got me interested in checking this show, and it looks like that’s what it’s going to be doing. But the thing is that it’s a short, also a comedy short to be specific. So we sort of have a plot, but I’m just really worried that we’re not going to get far in it because they’re going to focus more on the comedy. I’m worried the comedy will be the main thing and the “plot” will hardly get moving. From the opening we’re going to be seeing more characters so their introductions are going to take up and episode and this show is only going to have 13 episodes. So…yeah.

So far we got three characters. Tohya is the main guy who probably is going to be the butt of the jokes and be a total pushover by Hakone. We have Haruna who…is probably going to get caught up in all the shenanigans too. And then who the show is about, Hakone-chan. I didn’t mind her when she asked for more of those steamed buns but she lost a lot of points for me already when she pushed Tohya on top of Haruna and the boob thing happened, I fucking hate that I really hate that. So what the hell. She’s pretty arrogant too, but I don’t hate her. I’m just indifferent. The OP was catchy and cute, and the animation is okay.

I guess there really is no harm in covering this show. It’ll only take a few minutes of my time and I am a little curious which direction this show will take. The comedy route or the actual plot route and where they do the best they can to go deep in the plot in three minutes. Though it’s 90% going to be the comedy route because if you actually wanted to go deep with the plot in this show, you would have made it a regular-length episode. I just hope it’ll be a good comedy at least, one that’ll make me chuckle and smile just for a little bit.

Possibility of watching: Yeah I suppose.

Possibility of blogging: Sure, why not.