The story of Hanako is one of the typical seven wonders in Japanese schools, where a ghost haunts the third stall of the girl’s bathroom. You knock three times, call her name, and she’s supposed to appear and grant you your wish. That’s the story that our main character Yashiro hears, and she does exactly that. Shockingly though, Hanako is not a girl ghost, but a boy. And then hijinks ensues.
I was incredibly excited for this show when I heard about it and watched the PV. The twist on the whole Hanako story was funny, and I loved the designs for both Hanako and Yashiro. But of course the thing that stood out to me the most was the art style and colors. This anime is brimming with charm and style, and looking at the manga art, Studio Lerche did a phenomenal job. The whole episode was so pleasing to the eye with its adorable art style, designs, colors, just everything! It has so much style and I’m in love with it. The actual show? It was pretty good. It was very comedic and very cute, and it set up the relationship between Yashiro and Hanako, and I liked it. I didn’t love it, but I liked it.
After Yashiro summoned Hanako, he asked for her wish and her wish was to make her crush, Minamoto, accept her feelings. So the rest of the episode consisted of the two of them trying out different methods for Yashiro to attract Minamoto’s attention and fall for her. Hanako suggested Yashiro use her talents, which consisted of making him a lunch, leaving him a note with the vegetables she grows in the gardening club, and just running into him…though that doesn’t really use any of her talents. And she ended up running into someone else and making him fall down the stairs. Oops.
I like Hanako’s character so far, but I’m not totally sold on Yashiro for now. Yashiro claimed that she’s in love with Minamoto, but the way she was explaining it and how Hanako was questioning her didn’t add up at all. She admits that she had confessed to a guy she had a crush on a month ago, and she went out of her way to be more “feminine” because her crush liked feminine girls. Feminine being sewing, cooking, and all the typical traits. When she confessed, he didn’t even know who she was and he insulted her legs saying they were daikon shaped. So, what an asshole. And of course that messed with her self-esteem, and she’s desperate for someone to reciprocate her feelings. Hanako caught on to it, and he thought just anyone would do but Yashiro denied it. Even though she doesn’t even know Minamoto’s first name. This poor girl is just extremely desperate. So desperate that she swallowed a mermaid’s scale without letting Hanako finish his explanation of the item.
This mermaid scale becomes important as it turns Yashiro into a fish, as she cursed herself to become the mermaid’s servant. The mermaid came to snatch her but Hanako attacked her and she retreated. I was excited that we would be getting a fight scene, but it ended pretty much immediately so that was a little disappointing. When the mermaid leaves, Hanako asks Yashiro if she wants to use her wish to turn back into a human. She does, but she also has to pay a price. When Hanako says she’ll have to pay with her body…he just means he wants her to be his assistant. He also swallows the other mermaid scale to share her curse and create a bond between them, so in a sense he also granted her other wish of wanting someone to reciprocate her feelings. So, it was cute!
I’m not sure where the story is going to go from here. It’s adorable, it’s funny, it’s fun, and I did like it. It was funny but it wasn’t laugh out loud funny, and it was pretty entertaining. I feel like the episode was a good start but it didn’t have enough to be amazing. It was just pretty good. Either way, I definitely do want to watch more. I’m just not sure if this show is going to become an episodic one or if it’s going to have a grand story. Because if it’s episodic, it might be a little tough to blog about. But I still enjoyed this so I’m going to stick with it for now. I’m too curious what being an assistant for Hanako is going to be like.
Possibility of watching: Guaranteed
Possibility of blogging: Moderately high
Note how there’s actually very limited animation in the episode; its mostly still shots.
I wonder if this was intentional, or if budget restrictions made the anime team decide to pour most of the resources into what they thought mattered most, the visuals.
Yeah I’ve seen lots of people mention the lack of animation. Tbh I barely realized that because I was too in love with the gorgeous visuals. A lot of scenes had the manga look to it so I’m guessing that it was probably intentional?