Anime version of Crazy Rich Asians but take out the romance and add more crazy.
I haven’t seen Crazy Rich Asians yet by the way.
So, um…
What the fuck. Kokoro can jump out the window from three floors high and not die, and Michelle is Iron Man now? I expected a crazy and ridiculous episode with Hello, Happy World because their stories are always insane thanks to how insane Kokoro is, and how insanely rich she is. But…this was beyond what I imagined. Whenever it comes to Hello Happy, you should just disregard common sense and the laws of physics and the laws of basically everything because it never applies to them. So if this episode made absolutely no sense? Well, okay then.
For the anime-only people however, this episode might have been completely random and out there. Hell, I play the game and I still thought this episode was random and out there. For those that don’t know, Kokoro is stupidly rich. And I mean extremely stupidly rich. That cruise ship? All hers. It’s her personal cruise ship and her parents own more than that. That giant Michelle hot air balloon? She paid for it and it was made in two seconds? Michelle’s costume turning into Iron Man? No problem. These are the types of things that are basically normal for the band of Hello, Happy World. Because of Kokoro Tsurumaki’s wealth and influence, she can have basically everything and anything she wants. Thankfully, Kokoro isn’t a smug spoiled brat and instead is caring. But maybe that’s not a good thing because she’s also insane and would literally spend her money on crazy shit. Those people in the black suits do whatever she wants by the way. The cruise ship isn’t new to me and other players of the game because it was already featured in one of the events, the Happy Phantom Thief event where insane things happened reminiscent of this episode’s, but without a flying bear.
Poppin’Party are still having issues coming up with ideas for their show, and one of the plot points from Garupa Pico resurfaces. For some reason Kasumi really wants them to fly in their show but even they know that’s impossible. Frowning, somehow Kokoro can see that a mile away and jumps out the fucking window and cartwheels over to them like it was normal. And that’s because it is normal. They tell her what’s bugging them and she gets excited looking at all their ideas but doesn’t like that they’re all frowning and wants to make them smile. Because that’s what Kokoro is all about, making people smile. That’s why she created Hello, Happy World in the first place. So she grabs Misaki from class and brings her over to tell Popipa that they’re going to have a show for them.
This was a good episode to really “introduce” the girls of Hello Happy. We haven’t seen them since the first episode and all we saw was them being crazy. Well, we just got more of that but we also got to see their individual personalities. Kaoru is the dramatic popular one, Hagumi is the hyper one, Kanon is the one that’s scared, and Misaki is the only sane person (and Kanon) that takes care of almost everything. The way she described Hello Happy’s shows was basically accurate. Kokoro calls an emergency meeting and gathers all the members together to her house, ahem…mansion. They try to come up with all the things that’ll make Popipa happy but they also focus on the flying. And they’re going to do it, literally. And while Kaoru is afraid of heights and Misaki knows this is just ridiculous, they all get talked into it. Kokoro wants Popipa to know that anything’s possible so they’ll have more confidence for their show. Kokoro may be obnoxious but at least she has a good heart?
We get two songs this episode, Goka! Gokai! Phantom Thief! and Worldwide Treasure. The rest of the events of the episode besides the flying was basically a rehash of the Phantom Thief event from the game but with the addition of Poppin’Party. As they perform on the hot air balloon Kokoro jumps off and Michelle/Misaki jumps after her and tries to grab her while also pulling the string for her parachute. But it wasn’t a parachute. All of a sudden, literally like Iron Man a screen pops up in front of her face and one of the voices of the people in the black suits talks to her and tells her the Konami command to fly. She freaks out and screws up but eventually she gets it right and she flies around the sky with Kokoro and writes SMILE in the sky with smoke from her feet. The goal was to make Popipa smile, and in the end they were loving every second so mission accomplished.
Really, so much happened in this episode it’s best to just watch it and experience it. While there was a mix of 2D and 3D again, the visuals of this episode were actually pretty amazing. Hello Happy is the perfect band to really show everything SANZIGEN is made of. The expressions on the characters were top notch and that’s because they’re such an expressive and unique band. There were lots of colors and movements and Michelle flying through the sky and through the fireworks was visually gorgeous. They did a pretty great job! And Misaki looked pretty badass in the Iron Michelle suit.
Next week is Pastel*Palettes hype as we’ll finally get to see them. They’re the ones with the less exposure since they didn’t get to perform in Galaxy with the rest of the other bands so I’m extremely excited to seeing them next week. Shuwa shuwa!
