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Day 30: Toilet-bound Hanako-kun
30 Oct 2020 10:00 pmI'd heard good things about this show, so I added it to my hulu to-watch list when I went through and added a bunch of stuff I wanted to catch up on. I rewatched all of Psycho-Pass, and I finally watched Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (I watched the original 2005 or whenever series that only went through the first manga volume or so, which means that this time, I could see all of it.)
So, Hanako-kun. There's an anime trope of haunted schools, and at Yashiro Nene's school, there are 7 "great wonders," the big apparitions, as well as a couple minor ghosts. The 7th wonder is Hanako of the toilet, who's linked to a specific girls' bathroom stall. Yashiro hears about ghosts who will grant you a wish, so she goes to summon Hanako, and it turns out Hanako is a male ghost. (Hanako is a female name.)
The first few episodes are typical light-hearted hijinks: Yashiro eats a mermaid scale to get her crush to fall in love with her; it doesn't work out very well, because mermaids in Japanese folklore are vicious. There's a minor ghost in a tree that makes confessions of love come true. A younger student, Kou, who's descended from a family of exorcists and is supposed to exorcise Hanako and gets a crush on Yashiro, who stops him from exorcising Hanako. You know, silly stuff.
But then it starts getting serious, with every episode exploring deeper into Hanako's psyche and Yashiro's growing fondness for him, and Kou's relationship with a classmate. Several episodes were heartbreaking. There's a growing conflict between some of the ghosts in the school and Hanako and friends.
I liked it. The only problem is that it's only 12 episodes, and it doesn't really end. It stops. It was adapted from a manga, so it probably ends where a collected volume or a story arc ends. It has a satisfying final episode, but I want a sequel to find out what happens next, to get more of the threads tied off.
So: I enjoyed this, and I recommend it to anyone who's looking for a surprisingly deep light-hearted shonen show. You can watch it on hulu and (I assume) funimation.com.
So, Hanako-kun. There's an anime trope of haunted schools, and at Yashiro Nene's school, there are 7 "great wonders," the big apparitions, as well as a couple minor ghosts. The 7th wonder is Hanako of the toilet, who's linked to a specific girls' bathroom stall. Yashiro hears about ghosts who will grant you a wish, so she goes to summon Hanako, and it turns out Hanako is a male ghost. (Hanako is a female name.)
The first few episodes are typical light-hearted hijinks: Yashiro eats a mermaid scale to get her crush to fall in love with her; it doesn't work out very well, because mermaids in Japanese folklore are vicious. There's a minor ghost in a tree that makes confessions of love come true. A younger student, Kou, who's descended from a family of exorcists and is supposed to exorcise Hanako and gets a crush on Yashiro, who stops him from exorcising Hanako. You know, silly stuff.
But then it starts getting serious, with every episode exploring deeper into Hanako's psyche and Yashiro's growing fondness for him, and Kou's relationship with a classmate. Several episodes were heartbreaking. There's a growing conflict between some of the ghosts in the school and Hanako and friends.
I liked it. The only problem is that it's only 12 episodes, and it doesn't really end. It stops. It was adapted from a manga, so it probably ends where a collected volume or a story arc ends. It has a satisfying final episode, but I want a sequel to find out what happens next, to get more of the threads tied off.
So: I enjoyed this, and I recommend it to anyone who's looking for a surprisingly deep light-hearted shonen show. You can watch it on hulu and (I assume) funimation.com.
