Hinamatsuri – 09 [Life is about Survival]

It’s a bit late in the game now that Hinamatsuri introduces another set of new characters, and unlike these new additions we’ve seen the last few weeks, Mao looks to be a prominent character, at least on the same level with Anzu and Hitomi. Part of me afraid that she won’t have time to reach her full potential, consider the fact that we only have roughly 3 episodes left. The bigger remaining part of me welcomes her with all my heart, since Hinamatsuri is always at its best when they play around with the new characters. Nao is another excellent addition to this ensemble cast. She’s more composed and mature than both Anzu and Hina, and they way she can mimic their voices perfectly speaks well to her sensitive and her big heart. We’re heading to more tragicomedy territory here, one that isn’t in Anzu’s level, but Hinamatsuri again succeeds in making this segment hilarious and achingly sad at the same times. There’s obviously a reference to Cast Away (although I haven’t seen that movie so I can’t speak for how much relevant), and it’s whimsical in the way she asserts Hina and Anzu’s voices (especially Hina, where she only has one line, appropriately – “feed me”). But her vulnerability alone makes it a sad undertone. No human enjoy being lonely, and I’m quite surprised that she keeps her sane for that long before she snaps out of it. She’s on the quest to get into land now (which according to the map she’ll probably get to Thailand or China), and I guess it’s the time when we get back to the flashforward bit in the first episode.

The second segment focuses on the yakuza part and introduces another character, but this time this new Nitta’s yakuza brother is weak, compare to all the new players we’ve seen so far. In fact, he’s my least favorite character in this universe, and it doesn’t help that I don’t care much about Nitta and this whole new yakuza boss affair. I can, however, point out two of my favorite moments on that segment. The first being Hina’s insensitive comment that leads the old man into (brief) coma. And the second is the striking image of Nitta waking up and finding himself holed up in a concrete box, which reminds me a great deal of Baccano. But the main plot doesn’t carry much weight or have anything specific to say except that Nitta is 100% behind uniting the yakuza group (which in itself doesn’t really mean much). For my take, I believe this story can be more hilarious if Hina involved in rescuing Nitta, or if Nitta just has it enough and make the scene. But nope, it went the most conventional way which also means it falls flat for me.

In the last segment, we shift back the focus on Hina and Nitta as Hina plans to make a “surprise party” for Nitta. Being Hina, the surprise party also means there is no “surprise”, nor “party” at all. While I enjoy most of what happened, this feels like a repeated version of Hina messing up we’ve experienced before. The funniest moments are undoubtedly when Nitta sees the whole “celebration”, which looks more like a mogue; and Hina rising up from the “coffin”, with her lame t-shirt and equally lame greeting. It doesn’t surprise Nitta that much though (more like nothing surprises him anymore), and his stoned-face reaction captures well the awkwardness of this surprise party.

x

Read More ->>

Hinamatsuri – 08 [And It’s The Same Old Hina]

The core dynamic of Nitta and Hina again is put into test this week, this time with more pressing matters. There’s a woman from Hina’s world comes to bring her back home, except – you know – she’s also scared shitless about Hina’s power. That’s the first thing that makes this new addition, named Kei, different from someone in her role. Kei’s more than willing to take shortcuts to her duty, and poor Anzu has to keep her from running away many times. Kei has a checklist to track Hina’s development in which she expects Hina to trip anytime soon. That blue hair girl passes all the test with flying colors and I especially like the way Kei and Anzu tested her by buying the puppy and disguise it as a homeless dog. Hilarious as it always is, but when Hinamatsuri wants to, it can ring the emotion so true. It might be a bit obvious the way the show wants to show us how Hina has grown while living with Nitta, but it mostly gets away with it by framing that change from Kei’s astounded eyes.

When learning about her going back to her world, she not in the least refuses. Grown girl accepts the consequences after all. The more important thing is how to break it to Nitta. Hina tries, and fails, in various methods to get Nitta noticed (most notably her “byebye” T-shirt, and when she’s frustrated she rolls and float freely in the air, creating a nice and weird visual quirk. Nitta takes the news calmly, he takes her to eat her favorite ikura bowl for the last time and says it when it’s time for their separation, that while she’s a pain in the ass, he enjoyed the time they spent together. That might be why the last laugh doesn’t really win me over because it kinda destroys my goodwill towards Nitta. But to be fair, Nitta has always been an ass himself, so they pretty deserve each other’s company.

In between that crisis, we have a side story of a new Hina’s classmate, Mami, who walks the fine line between a complete fool and an adorable fool. What worse than showing your true power to the bad people? It’s showing your true power to the eight-grader syndrome kid who believe they’re the centre of the universe (in fact they’re closely to grade 8^th here). Hilarity ensues when Mami decides to confront Hina upfront (and freaked out to the point of lying on the ground). Hinamatsuri is in total control of the tones here, building up her satisfaction and her desire to brag about her “superpower” just about right, while never overplays her humiliation. Having the crowd total in their straight faces works much better than them laughing and ridiculing the poor girl (especially love both Aizawa and Hitomi’s tense expressions there). There’s so much good laugh in this second part and never at once the show belittles Mami’s hijinks. Well, turn out the parts about those middle-schoolers are amongst my favorite parts of the show. With such a diverse cast with strong and funny characters who always found themselves in absurdist situations, Hinamatsuri retains its touch this week.

Read More ->>