If I were to assign a descriptor to this episode of Hananoi-kun, it’d be “conventional”. Certainly compared to the first two eps, this was very straightforward shoujo romance with all that implies. The tropes were present and accounted for and any signs of the dark side of this story were pretty hard to spot (though if one squinted, they might still see them).
One of those tropes is the anime cold of course. That whole scene with Hananoi passing out on top of Hotaru was a bit weird, but if was played off as pretty innocent. The element of this that bothered me was Hotaru believing afterwards that she had to apologize to Saki – I mean, for what? But that’s the shoujo way, pretty much. It was implied later that Hotaru had some kind of (perceived) betrayal incident in her past but that’s a thin justification.
The rest of the episode was basically harmless fluff, and fine for what it was. Hotaru stresses over the Saki situation and winds up going to her little sister’s Christmas Eve figure skating recital. Was is a bit stalker-y that Saki tracked her down there? Well, it’s in the eye of the beholder I suppose. As it turns out this was also her birthday, and he was determined to make her the star. Was it sweet that he did that or creepy that he knew? Like so much with this series I guess that’s in the eye of the beholder.
In a season full of bubble series Hananoi-kun to Koi no Yamai is certainly in that category. It does fall on a relatively slow day (those things do matter), so if my interest level ticks up it I might be tempted to stick around – or at least put it on the Patron Pick ballot. For now I’m leaning towards stopping coverage after this week, but as always I reserve the right to change my mind.
Brian Guy
April 20, 2024 at 2:41 pmI didn’t have to squint too much to see the big key to Saki’s darkness here: in a genre where teens being left alone to raise themselves without much thought given to it, here’s one teen whose been emotionally wrecked by it, maniacally desperate for someone to give affection to and utterly lacking in anyone to show him any sign of affection in return.
It’s no wonder he’s beyond over the top when it comes to love (or, perhaps, “love”; it remains a bit telling that the leads continue to use completely different words for the same[?] concept). It doesn’t excuse it — he’ll have to understand just how out of phase he is not just with Hotaru (wildly out of phase in her own way as she is) but with any sort of social convention if he everwants a functioning relationship with anyone — but it at least explains it rationally.