Hanayamata

Jacklekins

This will be my first review. I'll tag spoilers, but will try to keep them brief. I feel like it deserves more love and I want to hopefully get people to try it out. I'll break this down into 4 parts. Story, characters, music, and animation. ~~~__STORY __~~~ The story is about a girl named Naru who is a very normal girl. She is average in everything including studies, sports, and social life, but has a love for fairy tales. She then meets Hana at a shrine and is awed by her dancing. The next day at school Hana joins her class and starts to pester Naru to dance yosakoi with her, but it takes some time for Naru to feel like she is capable of it. From here the girls set out to recruit other members and an adviser, and start their journey in the world of yosakoi. ~~~__CHARACTERS__~~~ Naru: the protagonist of this story. She is a very introverted and shy girl who has trouble making friends and often lives in her own fantasy. She feels like she can't be dazzling, which leads to her feeling like she is good enough at what she is already doing and wanting to change her behavior or try new things. After Hana convinces her to join the yosakoi club she starts to open herself up more. She is also very clumsy and often falls over during practice. She looks up to Yaya. Hana: she is the club president and a foreign girl. As a child she came to Japan and watched yosakoi for the first time and this is what sparked her passion and love for the dance. Hana is a very energetic girl and is very physically active as she is shown doing parkour. She is also a determined girl who doesn't give up easily. When recruiting new members she is always active and trying to get people involved and interested, and despite no one joining she keeps trying. Yaya: Naru's best friend since elementary school. Yaya displays a very cool personality and has tsundere like tendencies, but can be a crybaby despite her cool demeanor. She is very protective of Naru and actively tries to keep her away from Hana in the beginning. Yaya dislikes Hana because of how energetic she is, and that Yaya believes that she is putting too much on Naru and she wouldn't be able to handle dancing. Yaya eventually joins the yosakoi club tho it takes some time for her to warm up to the idea. Tami: the vice president of the student council. Tami has known Naru since childhood. Tami comes from a wealthy household and is very accomplished as she has studied piano, ballet, tea ceremony and flower arrangement her whole life. ~!Tami was not happy with the things she was doing as she was only doing them to impress and get the attention of her father, who stopped paying as much attention to her.!~ She is able to pick up yosakoi quickly because of her ballet lessons. Machi: the student council president. She is friends with Tami and sister of the club adviser Sally. Machi is a very serious girl who is strict with the rest of the girls, but is weak to Tami's requests. When she joins the club she makes sure the rest of the girls stay in line and practice enough. ~~~__MUSIC__~~~ The music in this series is very good. I really like the songs they play, and the OP and ED are among my favorites in anime as a whole. ~!The OP particularly plays a role in the story as it is being composed alongside their practices so they can use it during the final episode and their dance music. Through out the series you can hear the song coming together and it makes it feel very emotional and I quickly got attached to the song.!~ ~~~__ART & ANIMATION__~~~ The art is very vibrant and full of color. It is absolutely gorgeous to look at and the pop of color reflects the overall mood of the story and in some ways Naru's love of fantasy and fairy tales. The animation is wonderful as well. During dances especially it is stunning to watch. The way everything flows and the art all come together to make a beautiful package. Outside of dancing the animation is still beautiful and often serves to make specific scenes have more impact or more silly. ~~~__OVERALL ENJOY__~~~ I absolutely love Hanayamata I can't think of a single problem I have with this show. Everything about it comes together perfectly and every small piece plays off of each other to make the whole so much stronger. The characters go so well together, the art and animation compliments the characters, their relationships, and the mood of the scene/show, and the music is fun and lively to match. Hanayamata's greatest strengths are in it's art, animation, characters, and execution. If you are not a fan of CGDCT this show may not be for you, but you might be surprised. I highly recommend for anyone who enjoys the genre and wants a new one to try out.