Chika Homura begins her high school career with a goal: to develop a "cute girl" persona. After quitting the volleyball team despite her all-star status, Chika decides to join her school's underrated Wind Instrument Club and play the flute, believing it to be the most delicate and feminine instrument. For the first time in nine years, Chika reunites with her childhood friend and total opposite, Haruta Kamijou. Unfortunately for Chika, Haruta is not fooled by her efforts to become more endearing. But this does not deter Chika, and she develops a crush on the band instructor, Shinjirou Kusakabe—but so does Haruta!
However, Chika's high school life just won't go according to plan, as mysteries begin appearing around her and her friends. The club members must work together to solve the mysteries plaguing the school, all while trying to find more members to compete in musical competitions.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Comentários
Stark700
Ah high school club, music, and mystery? Here’s the thing about the show. We got a young girl named Chika who tries to renew her life by quitting the volleyball team and joining the wind instrument club. Because in life, that’s what we do right? We strive to improve ourselves and try out new ideas. The problem is, the club only has a few members and its being threatened to be shut down. To make matters worse, bizarre events emerges during their school year. Reunited with her childhood friend Haruta, this show seeks to turn ordinary every day stories into a bizarre package of formulaicmisadventures.
To start things off, the series adapts a novel series written by Sei Hatsuno. P.A. Works is in charge of the production but impressions aren’t high at first. The studio has been known for being a powerhouse at crafting technical visual qualities but Haruchika isn’t exactly impressive to the eye. More on that later, but right now, it’s more important to examine the storytelling and characters of this show.
In essence, the series combines elements of slice of life, mystery, school, and some bits of music. What could go wrong? The first few episodes introduces us the main characters, Haruta and Chika. From first glance, their relationship is off to a rocky start but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A mystery emerges and the club members decides to solve it. It shouldn’t take long to realize that Haruta is the brain of the group as he makes key analogies, references, and using clues for analysis. While having an intellectual mind, Haruta is a character that I’d describe as obnoxious with a dry sense of humor. Despite having some good intentions, his personality is portrayed often as rude either intentionally or unintentionally (I personally find it difficult to tell at times). Regardless, when you have a main male protagonist with a role like that, it’s really hard to feel attached to them. And furthermore, his relationships with others isn’t particular memorable either. This brings in Chika, the main girl of the show. Yes, she makes a bold attempt to change herself by trying to be “girly”. What does she become more instead? More annoying than she should be. At many stages of the show, it feels like she’s trying to become someone she’s not. It goes against being expressing her personality with honesty or being natural. Instead, Chika often behaves like a kid with lack of direction or purpose. She is quite friendly though, a trait that seems to be the opposite of Haruta. But when you mix these two together, it’s really hard to embrace their relationship as something special.
Special isn’t an easy word to use for this show’s storytelling either. To me, the show’s mystery comes off as a secondary factor. It’s kind of like Hyouka but presented more as a daily mystery story. What I mean is that cases are often resolved in no more than a span of a single episode. And more often or not, the show attempts to try variety with its mystery. Unfortunately, it’s rather dull and quickly loses flavor because a lot of the mystery themselves are fairly predictable. While it establishes some good mechanics with case on paper, it’s still not memorable enough to be recalled. However, the show does try some refreshing concepts by adding in music as a mix. These also tie in with some mystery cases including an episode focused on an inspiring musician. It invites some attention as the show can be more realistic. Plus, Haruta’s role in the show is very human. His behavior feels real and I think being aware of that might help enjoy this series; depending on the perspective of the audience. Later on in the series, the club does get more attention and other characters like Serizawa joins. While Haruchika is still more about the storytelling with Haruta and Chika as the main players, there are a few recurring characters that can carry the series.
That being said, the show isn’t necessarily bad but just uninteresting. If you focus on the story, each episode seems to be a standalone that focuses on some message, theme, or moral. While it still connects to the main premise, there’s less emphasis on the main purpose of the show (if it has or needs one). In other words, the show gives us less and less reason of why we should continue to watch it. Is it for the characters? The mystery cases? Or even the music? The comedy of the show isn’t well done as some jokes comes out as dry humor. In terms of relationships, don’t expect romance at all. Haruta has more interest in himself talking than dating Chika. In retrospect, the show doesn’t do well for attracting attention or make us feel like there’s something to write home about.
Speaking of attractiveness, P.A. Works’ technical work took a step backwards. The character designs are lacking especially from this studio. While I was not expecting something glamorous, the outline of the designs just feels awkward. Plus, those exotic eyebrows are distracting and facial expressions looks cartoony. On the other hand, it’s interesting to see the show attempt at an avant-gante style to express cases. From moving lyrical notes to clever usage of coloring, the show makes the cases stand out as peculiarly attractive.
Music and soundtrack go hand and hand for this show. In other words, it has to coordinate well with each episode’s mood and delivery. This has been done well in most cases especially during eerie moments at the apex of a mystery. Other times, it’s lighthearted to portray the easy life style of a school setting. In retrospect, it’s done pretty well in that respect. The character voice mannerism for Haruta and Chika is somewhat difficult to get accustomed to. I guess it really depends on how you perceive their characters and personalities. But on the surface, Haruta and Chika sounds exactly what they are like – high school students who aren’t sure what to do with their time.
For a show like Haruchika, it’s probably a show that you’ll really have to enjoy watching to appreciate it. Otherwise, it’s pretty dry in storytelling, characters, and overall delivery. And despite being P.A. Works helming the series, the technical visual quality isn’t very impressive. Mystery context is rather predictable and most times isn’t attractive either. By the time I finished the show, there’s a sigh of relief. Why? Because Haruchika is snoozefest.
LegendAqua
So...P.A Work's version of ''Hibike Euphonium'' and ''Hyouka'' LA takes it?..with mixed results. LA will say this about the plot, the plot follows a format of "mystery of the episode" with sprinkles of character development and "getting more members" for the band sub-plotline. The mysteries are extremely clever and some of the mysteries do go further than a "simple" mystery although due to Haruta being the all-knowing Sherlock with no equal, he usually solves all the mysteries. The mystery of the episode DO gives us some sort of clue to clue us in, however there are some mysteries that go into the realms of "priorknowledge only Haruta knew" to solve it, with that although many of the mysteries are indeed interesting and moves the plot forward the mystery is overall decent for this fusion genred anime.
Now time for the other half, time for the band sub-plotline, well this also gets the "decent" tag as well as the band development might as well be the character and band development for some of the more crucial characters within the band. With the "mystery of the episode" and the character being linked does bring us character development and works in its favour as they do become memorable but that only applies to the main cast, the episodes where it focuses on minor character NOT to do with the band get second billing and it's their mystery that gets more of the attention and again even that's not a bad thing either.
In terms of characters, well due to the fusion of genres, the main cast and heck even some of the minor cast members do get their time to shine and some are even unique and interesting with Haruta being the most interesting and unique. LA's favourite would actually have to be Chika however, LA doesn't know LA is drawn to quirky characters and even her "feminine yet not really feminine" schitck even holds out throughout the series. Oddly enough the two main characters Haruta and Chika the characters named after this anime have each side of the genres at hand, Haruta taking care of the mystery whilst Chika handles the characters and plot movement in gathering and getting to know the characters, the anime is self-aware of this.
The animation done by P.A Works is decent to baffling beautiful, what LA means is that this is one of P.A Works' least detailed animes LA has seen right down to the backgrounding in which P.A Works usually is great at, however with the decent character designs and "ok" backgrounding makes the animation "decent", where it becomes baffling beautiful is in two things for LA, the characters eye color and the instrument's. The animation on the eye color itself looks like a multi-colored rainbow at times (although they don't always just sometimes they go into extreme detail on JUST the eyes) and the instrument animation although not as great as ''Hibike Euphonium's'' animation overall, LA at least sees some sense of detail workmanship on making the instruments animated well.
The ending which is built up to both the competition and the odd love triangle that was brought up by the first episode and it leads to a "finishing episode" with the competition finishing but with the love triangle not even resolving, yes we get a "read the manga" ending, LA feels indifferent about this as at least one of the major plotlines finishes (in a rushed manner) but with the other plotline pretty much nagging LA to read the manga and see what happens next.
HaruChika: Haruta to Chika wa Seishun Suru does seem to cater between both it's mystery and music genre well, if your not in it for the mystery the music is backed up with it's characters and developing the plot along with it, the mystery in itself be it self-contained within it's own episode, it too leads to moving the plot forward and have that air of mysteriousness it needs to make it interesting all the way through the entire anime. Although this isn't P.A Work's best animated anime they have released, it seems this anime puts more care on it's characters, mysteries and plot more and LA enjoyed it all the way through from trying to solve the mysteries to seeing the band grow which by extension growing the cast. HaruChika: Haruta to Chika wa Seishun Suru isn't the best anime of Winter 2016, however it is CERTAINLY a unique one.
*Note - LA knows LA gave it an overall of 8, however if anything LA would really just give it a 7.5
SpiritedTrash
A famous idiom is, "To kill two birds with one stone." But with Haruchika, it's more like "To miss two birds with 12 stones." Haruchika revolves around two main characters (in case you haven't guessed from the title, their names are nonetheless Haruta and Chika), that are part of the Brass Band Club. Not only are Haruta and Chika trying to do their best for this club, and thus, attempting to get more members, they are also solving mysteries going around the school that, very conveniently, involve introducing new characters that play an instrument (and with every solved mystery, it often results in gaining a new memberfor the band club). While this seems like Haruchika is technically killing two birds with one stone, in the actual execution of it, it is anything but that.
Also, on a side note, I'd like to point out that I did not mention Haruchika as having romance (unless you count a silly crush), and, despite the perfectly sounding ship name of "Haruchika", if you are planning to watch this solely because it seems like a romance of the two main characters, don't bother as you will soon realize why in the first episode. Anyways, continuing on:
As said before, there is no effort to include the music genre, and instead, it is used as this loophole that gives the anime reason to lack depth in the mysteries; each mystery revolves around a problem of a person, and this person happens to be affiliated with a musical instrument, so the end result of obtaining said person to be in the band is more important than the actual mystery. But despite all that, the band rarely performs in the anime. The mysteries don't make up for this lack of music, either.
The mysteries themselves are simplistic, which is why they can be solved in the time span of one episode, even less with the amount of flashbacks they have to try to get you to care about the new character. It's with this lack of time that should raise alarms to how the "detectives", in this case, Haruta and Chika (though it's really just Haruta), analyze the clues and ultimately, solve the mystery.
Answer: He doesn't.
Haruta doesn't really investigate. He listens, is confused enough so that we have to wait about 5 minutes for him to figure out. In that 5 minutes he listens to the flashback of someone, and after the flashback is up, all of a sudden he has all the answers to the mysteries with about 5 clues to back his reasoning up even though the most clues he actually investigated amounts to one.
Chika baffles me even more. She's so useless in the mystery portion; the most she has contributed to the solving of a mystery is her lightheartedness and cheerfulness.
That's pretty much all the characters are: Haruta is the detective, Chika is the motivator, and everyone else is either someone that plays an instrument or someone that will help with the club. That's it. The characters are all one-noted, with none of them shown to have any other dimension.
Continuing on with the characters, their designs weren't as well thought out as I have seen them do with some of their other series. For me, one of my main problems were the eyes that try to go for mesmerizing but fail and turns out to be muddled, childish, and off-putting, all of which can equally describe the series as a whole.
NoonebutMark
This anime had too much plates spinning for it and it just couldn't handle them masterfully. Story: It is about a brass band club and their goal of winning a tournament for Kusakabe-sensei. So the anime goes about introducing recruits for the brass band club and alongside that, we get to solve a mystery with the leads Haruta and Chika, then the character gets recruited except for one. It is the basic routine of the anime except towards the end but every episode has a mystery. Characters: Haruta and Chika don't have character development in this anime rather we get to know Kusakabe sensei more and the recruits. Thosewho are already members of the band aren't given the spotlight. The other characters are just throwaway and never really appreciated.
Sound:
The OP and ED are amazing and they really made me watch the anime. Even though this is a music anime, there's less focus on the music.
Art:
The art is so familiar with other animes of P.A. works and it isn't unique but it was beautiful.
PyraXadon
Progressive Animation Works or P.A. works has what is recognized as a rocky reputation. On one hand, they have been known to make some great anime that still hold some popularity today after their releases, but on the other hand, they've made some honestly, quite poorly made shows that really have stained their reputation (aka, Glasslip.) And so, in the Winter 2016 lineup, P.A. works have put themselves out there again with their newest work, an adaptation of HaruChika, a series about music, mysteries, and love where the biggest mystery of all is...Why did they let this happen? Story: Chika Homura is your average,every day popular girl who is well known and well loved by everybody. Well, at least she wants to be. Upon entering high school, she decides to begin a fresh start in a new place by joining the Brass Band Club as a flutist, hoping that joining such a club would give her a stake in this new battleground called high school. Upon coming into the school, she meets the handsome yet mysterious Kusakabe, the advisor for Brass Band club who she instantly swoons for. Not only that, but she finds out that her old childhood friend, Kamijo Haruta is ALSO at her new school too! But not only that, but there's a mystery going on in the school! Oh no! Oh yeah, and Haruta's also got the hots for Kusakabe too. Gasp! A rival! Double oh no! Yeah, Haruta's gay, that's what's going on here.
The basic story structure for HaruChika is what equates to a simple, episodic mystery show. With every new episode, our 'dynamic duo' solve various mysteries or problems that pertain to each student and/or person they meet. This by far is the biggest problem that this show has.
As an episodic mystery, every episode is a different scenario that features a different problem with a random individual that for the most part, doesn't pertain to music at all. (Like seriously, they spend an ENTIRE EPISODE trying to find out who a dog's owner is.) Most if not all of these mysteries are exceedingly random to the point that it's difficult to even remember at time that the setting for this show is about a bunch of kids playing music, something that they do very little of really to begin with since most of their progress is done off-screen or through timeskips, with maybe only 1-2 minutes worth of actual music playing per episode maximum.
As for the mysteries themselves...well quite honestly, they're terrible. The mysteries and clues are told through the duality of Haruta and Chika where we have Haruta as the 'detective', telling us all of the facts and figuring out the situation at hand, and Chika as the 'idiot', who gets told all of this information so that it doesn't seem weird when ever Haruta is monologuing. In its core, this is not a terrible way of setting up the story as it is quite commonplace for a mystery anything to structure itself in this way, but the 'detective' and 'idiot' roles are very extreme in the case of HaruChika, making their roles VERY exaggerated to the point that Haruta feels too smart for his own good, and Chika is just a dim girl who works more off of instinct than actual human thought. As for the actual content of the mysteries, the 'mysteries', if you can even call them that, are very random and don't really give you clues as to HOW or WHY stuff happens and rely on obscure knowledge that the average human being wouldn't ever really know, resulting in a show that falls back on our male protagonist to relay information to the audience, pointing back to what I mentioned earlier about him being 'too smart for his own good.'
Another thing that HaruChika attempts to shove down your throat is the 'love triangle' between our two main protagonists and their teacher. Since both of them love Kusakabe (for some god unknown reason), a lot of the show is focused on their passive aggressive behavior towards each other that just...gets...tiring! While it did take me by surprise, a pleasant surprise, that the show didn't go the traditional "I'm in love with my childhood friend route", the fact that they both somehow love their teacher romantically, made them go so far as to fight and bicker constantly every...single...episode added another layer of terrible writing that we really didn't need.
Aside from the whole 'mystery' element of the show, and the terribly made romance, HaruChika features an extremely underdeveloped plotline about these kids going to a music competition. Basically a poorly made, watered down version of Hibike Euphonium. You don't see their progress at all, and it's hard to feel anything for the characters if you never see them improve, or even practice for that matter. Plus, that ending was terrible and personally really annoyed me, as well as the fact that some well known music prodigies just HAPPENED to be in the same school that Haruta is in.
Overview:
+ Episodic mystery show
- Most of these 'mysteries' don't make sense due to lack of clues and/or knowledge
- Underdeveloped overarching plot
- Completely unneeded love triangle
- Pisspoor pacing
- Pointless ending (Like, it's a 'pff, end' sort of deal.)
Characters: Characters are split into two groups in this show. You're either a title character, or you're basically complete garbage.
Let's start with the 'Haru' of the title, Kamijo Haruta. A french horn player and a naturally smart boy, Haruta is someone who enjoys music and dreams of fulfilling his teacher's goal of placing top rank at the Fumon Festival in hopes that one day he will confess his love for his teacher and they can...do whatever. I don't know, he never said what was going to come afterward. As mentioned before, Haruta is the 'detective' in the show and solves literally all of the problems that he and the cast come in contact with in this series. As a character, he really doesn't change too much and only serves as the textbook of useless knowledge to aid in whatever problem that's going on right now. He's not a very flawed character and that in and of itself makes him very boring, as because every situation is basically solved with what equates to a bullshit explanation every time, making it so that Haruta really can do no wrong.
Then we have the 'Chika' of the title, Chika Homura who is the opposite of Haruta. As an aspiring flutist (not for the sake of music, but for the sake of personal gain really), Chika is the flawed, overly energetic, and idiotic main protagonist of the series to contrast Haruta's perfect, calm, and wise personality. She's an idiot who does stuff before she thinks and while there is some growth to her as a character since she learns more about playing the flute, all of that gets overshadowed by basically everything else that's going around because the show is episodic driven, leaving little to no room for really anything else.
Kusakabe is the last character that holds more than an episode's worth of importance in this series and he...really doesn't do anything. Kusakabe is really a sort of the 'knows everything' character, as he always seems to know what's going on, but never does anything. He even goes out of his way to conveniently show up after all of the hardcore sleuthing's over just to give his 2 cents in and mention that he's 'known it all along'. He also has a 'mysterious' past regarding conducting, which, while hinted a lot over the course of the series, is so underdeveloped that the explanation for it was incomplete and barely took up half an episode's worth of time. As a character, he really doesn't have any traits and is just sort of...there, leading me to wonder what's so cool about this guy that he has two underaged high schoolers thirsting after him so much that P.A. works devoted entire show segments just to have the two of them fight each other.
Everyone. Else. In. This. Show. Is. Worthless. And that's putting it lightly. Aside from Haruta, Chika, and Kusakabe, everyone else in the cast is either a plot element that pertains to one mystery, or is one of the brass band members that you really don't remember. Since the show heavily focuses on only those three characters, everyone else squanders around for screen time and aren't really all that memorable since they show up one scene and disappear for the next. Any recurring characters only show up a maximum of 2-3 minutes per episode, making it even difficult to even remember their name since sometimes they just disappear for entire episodes and show back up like we're supposed to remember them off the top of our heads.
Overview:
- Characters of significance aren't really that good or developed
- Characters without significance are easily forgotten and serve no place but for plot reasons
Art: For the most part, P.A. works has really nice animation. Even during their lowest times, they usually gave us animation that was above the standard. This time however...they really dropped the bar. HaruChika has a very blah color scheme as it's really only color without substance. Everything is really one note and so light to the point that every color looks like a reflective surface that is actually really jarring to see.
Not only that, but the character designs themselves are bothersome. The characters from the original LN (yes, this is an LN adaptation) looks NOTHING like the characters that we're presented in the anime. Why this change was made, I do not know. Point is, Haruta was not originally blonde. What is bothersome is how they look after these changes were made. The characters look very odd, with these very detailed eyes that make them look more like rhinestones than pupils. Coupled with some very peculiar eye shapes and a weird gloss to the lips, HaruChika definitely has one of the stranger character designs that I've seen from P.A. works.
Art:
+/- Character designs are different from the original
- Boring and exceedingly bright color scheme
- The overall look of the characters just looks weird and peculiar
Sound: Performed by Fhana, the opening of HaruChika bears a lot of resemblance to that band's genre of music, which is basically a bright and cheerful sounding opening that is more fluttery than anything else. There's not really much to say for the opening since it's honestly pretty generic and holds little to no merit in terms of memorability, but it's still a good song.
The ED on the other hand is this happy piece that uses more mellow beats and tones rather than its counterpart's loud and proud personality. Honestly, there's nothing really memorable about this OST. It's nice music, don't get me wrong, but it's not music that I think would be worth to go out and actively search for.
Overview:
+/- Good soundtrack, but not really memorable
Personal Enjoyment: Well, what do I think of HaruChika? Hmm...I hate it. There. HaruChika is in my opinion, a sad excuse for a mystery show. Its mysteries are complete bullshit since they require you do know some random knowledge beforehand that even when mentioned, really doesn't make all that much sense. And with its bullshit love triangle and the CONSTANT...CONSTANT BICKERING, I agonized watching this show week after week, unbearably crawling towards the end only to be rewarded with an ending that ends what equates to just cutting in the middle of the punchline, and that is NEVER a good sign.
Did I like this anime?
No. I vanquish it to the pits of hell.
What didn't I like about this anime?
Literally everything. I despise the story, I loathe the characters, I cringe at the artstyle, and I shrug off the music. There is absolutely nothing about this anime that I don't despise.
Would I recommend this anime?
No. HaruChika is an anime that fails to commit itself well to one thing, resulting in a steaming pile that should not be watched by anyone. It's a music show that attempts to be a mystery show while also trying to put effort into making beautiful music and coordinating with the other 30 nobodies in the band while running in circles around itself with the main characters' constant bickering. There is nothing of value to get out of watching this show, only value to lose. I would recommend a skip, as there is nothing more painful than a show failing to make itself interesting week after week.
Flawfinder
PA Works, why do you gotta make me hit you all the time? I like my narratives to be strong with characters that are actually engaging, and you handle those two elements about as well as an elephant handles being a ninja. Even your resistance in regards to jumping on the light novel trend means little when your regular novel adaptations somehow end up being more of a coma-inducement than the fucking Asterisk War, and don't even get me started on your original anime. When Jun Maeda and Mari Okada are the ones who are keeping you on the radar, something has gone seriously wrong.Okay yes, you made Shirobako, but does anyone really count that one as a reason to pay attention to you considering it was made by people who owed you a favor rather than your usual team? Oh wait, some people do. Let me rephrase that again. Does anyone count that one as a reason to pay attention to you that is actually sane?
I say that, but I don't think anyone really thought Haruchika was going to be good when it was announced or anything. There wasn't really much fanfare pre-airing, and man the art in the promo images were ugly as sin. It's actually kind of weird how many people complained about it in comparison to the novel's illustrations upon airing as if they were living under a rock for the last few months. And speaking of which, I know the studio has a history of fucking up their novel adaptations, but I have a hard time believing anyone could have gotten this kind of narrative published in the semi-professional circles to begin with. Sure, 50 Shades of Grey exists, but at least the terrible prose put some sort of momentum in its drivel. Based on the anime alone, Haruchika feels like a rejected children's book that would only satisfy people who legitimately enjoy the Barney movie.
The show is centered on two childhood friends, a girl with grayish-black hair named Chika and a boy with blond hair named Haruta, and their desire to form a music club with the help of their glasses-wearing teacher in order to experience the joys of youth. With Euphonium, Anthem of the Heart, the upcoming Classicaloid, and now this in the last year or so, I'm suspecting that Japan is going through some sort of musical revolution at the moment. But of course, it's how you use the premise at the end of the day that matters, isn't it? Euphonium used its music premise to explore the unfair nature of competitive orchestra play, Anthem used it as a vehicle to drive the characters' personal drama, and Classicaloid...well it probably doesn't even have a club and is probably going to be used for humor given it's directed by one of the Gintama guys. So what exactly does Haruchika use music for exactly? Not a single thing. Threw me a bit really, considering you'd think a novel adaptation would at least stick to its main concept for the majority of the plot.
Although the main thrust of the show's plot is gathering band members in order to join a competition, most of Haruchika's episodes put that aspect on hold in order to dedicate time to the band member's non-music related lives and personal troubles that Haruta and Chika must resolve in order to get them to join the band. For example, one guy is in the drama club and our main duo must help out with the play before he'll agree to change after-school activities. Another girl has hearing problems - which admittedly would be detrimental to playing music - and is dealt with through those styrofoam cup phones that I have never seen actually work in real life. Then there's that one episode where Haruta must deal with his own living situation. And ignoring the fact that this is character-building for the sake of character-building, every single situation is resolved by people showing kindness and not giving the subject matter the respect it deserves. If you want to put war trauma and homelessness in your school story, actually address war trauma and homelessness. Don't say "these exist" and then just call it a day like someone running to be the local councilman.
Then there's the mystery element. That's right, Haruchika sells itself on being part of the mystery genre as well as the musical one, and it doesn't fare any better at making a case for itself in that field either because said mysteries are more obligatory than a side quest in a Yakuza game. It has about as much mystery as an arc from Clannad in that it's mostly just figuring out the character's problem and deciding how to go about solving it. Even with the many ways you can stretch the definition of the term "mystery", that's like saying a television can be considered a fruit. How? It's not even edible let alone organic. The only mystery I had in regards to this show is how the hell the producers could have possibly thought this would be entertaining to watch. I mean this show has even less life than Tari Tari, PA Work's last musical anime (with the same team on this, no less), and that was far from a big hit.
Oh yeah, you'll also notice in the premise that there's a sort of love triangle in this show. Well that's because Haruta and Chika both have a crush on their teacher. Not going to dignify that with a response. People were already initially paying attention to the show solely because they were surprised that Haruta was gay, and I shake my head at that about as hard as I shake my head at the entire concept. Nothing even comes from it anyways, so what was the point in even having it? What was the point of advertising this show as a musical mystery story if it has little music and little mystery?
In fact, that's the main reason why this show was so terrible to the point that people forgot it existed: there's no drive to anything that's happening. It's like someone wanted to make his banal slice-of-life story interesting by putting in apartment buildings filled with nickels and a woman cosplaying as a character from an Irish folktale rather than, I dunno, making your banal slice-of-life story interesting? Even the final scene when the band actually plays music for their competition at the very end is mundane to look at, with very basic movement and so little of it is actually shown to the point that it becomes clear that all this anime has are ideas. Ideas that it has no ability to execute properly due to terrible production, terrible writing, and terrible notions on what constitutes fun.
And because of the show's lackluster approach to pretty much anything, I have absolutely no idea how to end this review on a strong note. Maybe with some more thinking, I'd find something - but I've wasted two hours writing about a crap show that people have already moved on from by and I'm not going to waste anymore. Fuck this show. Goodnight.
AllenHavens92
If you're looking for a show with mystery, HaruChika is one that falls flat with a mixture of elements that don't seem to work well together. While summaries for the series will say its about our title characters recruiting members for the ensemble, it mostly focuses on the mystery aspect. Although these cases result in the increase in members, I feel like there isn't a good balance between the two plot lines. Sure, there are musical references, but we hardly see the ensemble practice that much. For characters, I would have to say Chika is my favorite for her brazen stupidity, willing to say whatever's on hermind and do what her gut tells her to do. Haruto is the exact opposite, as in he's my least favorite. I just don't like his smug attitude that makes him come off as, for a lack of better terms, a jerk. The other characters we meet are introduced as the main focus of a particular episode. They appear throughout afterwards, but, except for a select couple, wind up being nothing more than background characters.
The animation was decent throughout, save for a couple of episodes where it was lacking. Though only a minute detail, I always found Chika's eyes entrancing for some reason (I mean, I've never seen any like that in real life).
After a few episodes in, I found myself bored with the series. Still, I continued watching in case something interesting happened. That didn't really happen. So, I recommend not bothering with it. There are plenty of other mystery shows (as well as ones about music) that are better.
V1nn13z
You know what happen if you actually mix "K-On!" with a hint of "Hyoukai"? This anime... Is it a fun anime to watch? Yes Is it a mystery? Not... quite. Should you watch it? If you like a cute girl and a cute guy who-is-basically-a-full-cannon-gay-character... Yes you should I like the whole anime, I really do. Sadly it's not like his brother, ERASED. I can't call this a mystery anime. Really I can't. It's like calling DxD a hentai anime. It's not.Reason I can't call it a mystery anime is because it's basically just 2 nutjobs who like snooping around. Then what-ya-know, they solve a mystery.
Should it stop you from watching this? NOPE. Hell, I actually think you should. It gives a bit of a fresh breeze to the genre. And it's actually one of my "I hope there's a season 2 of this" list.
As long as you don't treat it as a mystery anime, you're fine. No seriously, don't treat is as a mystery anime, you'll cry.
TrollMuncher
Sometimes a show manages to grab you without being especially entertaining, and that about sums up HaruChika for me. Its a strange episodic mystery show with many quirks that isn't anything exceptional, but holds up a bit better on reflection. HaruChika likes to delve into topics you rarely encounter in anime. Ranging from the Vietnam war and Tibetan dogs to radio shows, the mysteries will sometimes surprise you with their conclusions. These conclusions aren't anything mind blowing, but they are always logical and follow the clues each episode sets up. Quirky characters tag along to provide a source of entertainment and the way each character interacts withone another is charming and pretty funny at times. When it works, the show absolutely flies by, I was surprised several times by how fast the episode ended. That's not something you can always rely on though in HaruChika, with the caveat of the plot never being especially interesting with the lack of tension involved. A few episodes are enough to decide whether this show is for you; its pretty much the same thing throughout.
I respect Haruchika for trying to incorporate such a large array of topics while maintaining a logical mystery. Its very easy for a mystery to incorporate twists and turns until it doesn't make sense, which destroys the purpose of it being a mystery in the first place. HaruChika doesn't fall into that pitfall, and in the process taught me several facts I knew nothing about beforehand. Despite being bored several times while watching, I'm glad I followed HaruChika to the end, its a quirky show that isn't afraid to break genre convention, making it a fascinating piece of art.
Baconzombie
Haruta to Chika wa Seishun Suru, or HaruChika for those who don’t want to run out of breath before finishing their sentence, is a victim of misidentification that bears partial responsibility for the hole it sunk itself in when Winter season began. Misguided direction muddles the small moments of brilliance and potential the series teases, which is a shame because even with its messy composition, HaruChika remains as an endearing anime that is sure to entertain more than its rating entails. As the title suggests, our story closely follows the lives of childhood friends Kamijou Haruta and Homura Chika. Reunited upon entering high school, Haruta andChika quickly invest the bulk of their free time reconstructing the crumbling remnants of their school’s brass band club. While the incentive for both is driven by their romantic feelings for the club’s conductor and advisor, Kusakabe Shinjirou, both Haruta and Chika (Chika more so) find themselves slowly taken in by the concerns the members of the brass band introduce even though their ulterior motives persist.
This is really where HaruChika excels: as an episodic character piece that examines varying dynamics of clashing personalities. Author Hatsuno Sei chooses to draw out the majority of interactions through a collection of entertaining mysteries – some on the lighter side and others surprisingly thorough and novel considering the limited scope of controversial topics anime tend to tread over. Given the 20 or so minute cap each mystery has to be solved, Haruta employs his Sherlock Holmes-esque deduction skills to piece together various pieces of the mystery to reach its resolution.
At its core, when HaruChika understands its strengths to use the aforementioned elements to build its cast, it absolutely excels. Unfortunately, this focus never persists throughout the series. The sudden shifts of focus from understanding the backstory of a supporting character to its obsession of placing the band’s goal of winning the grand prize at their regional competition at the forefront of importance hinders HaruChika’s general direction. It’s reminiscent of an impatient child: trying out a bunch of things and refusing to settle with its strengths. Whether this is the onus of the original author or series composition director/screenwriter Yoshida Reiko is up in air as I have not read the original source material.
However, given these issues in story direction, the fact that the characterization of its core cast and even its supporting cast can push through the series’ messy composition is a testament to the thought and care put in HaruChika’s dialogue and character development. The character that best exemplifies this crowning achievement is Chika. Thrust to the audience as a brash, klutzy, yet cheerful girl, one’s first impression of Chika’s personality isn’t too promising. Blabbering about changing her middle school image to become the prototypical high school “cute girl” belies the tremendous development Chika sees as an individual; however, there really isn’t a defining moment that catapults her to a more well-developed character.
And that’s what’s so impressive about it.
There is no overdramatized moment that pushes Chika to become more than a stereotype yet it happens so organically. Just as her cheerfulness encompasses the slowly growing brass band club, it finds its way to endear the audience as we explore the complexities that define her behavior and persistence. Although the same level of development cannot be seen with Haruta or the rest of the core cast, Chika’s progression and charisma alone is enough to warrant giving the show a try.
As for HaruChika’s supporting cast, development of other important characters like Narushima or Maren is inherently stunted by the series’ episodic nature, which is a shame given that each individual episode covering them provides rich backstories and cathartic moments. The conversations exchanged between the cast also holds an impressive degree of maturity and cognizance of each particular situation, although that might come off as a bit unrealistic since we are talking about high schoolers. However, given that we have a Sherlock Holmes boy genius in Haruta, one could argue that their maturity is a minor detail. Unfortunately, it’s not something that can be easily overlooked with an anime keen on developing characters through continued conversation.
In terms of other general issues, HaruChika harbors a distinct lack of a band dynamic present in other similar shows like Hibike Euphonium. I would say this circumstance is inescapable though because HaruChika’s strength of individual characterization contradicts the construct and complexities of a school band, so this results in a core setting issue leading to an unfortunate paradox of tradeoffs. Namely, if HaruChika wasn’t set in a team-related club (e.g; band, sports, etc.), it would justify its failure to consider drama within a larger group but forfeit opportunities to capitalize with its episodic mysteries, especially since many were focused on convincing members of the supporting cast to play for the band.
Shifting focus to HaruChika’s technical merits, they are unfortunately far and few in between. PA works is typically known for its consistency and quality in animation; however, HaruChika sees almost none of the artistic brilliance and care previous PA Works entries such as Uchouten Kazoku or Shirobako have received. Character models are generally choppy but grow on the viewer as the series progresses. Visual cues and framing techniques are seldom employed to augment a scene, and backgrounds were generally unimpressive. However, voice acting performances and the few band entries played throughout the series help offset some of the lackluster animation efforts. Sarah Emi Bridcutt’s jubilant Chika heads a handful of notable performances that includes Chisuga Haruka’s Narushima and the endearing Omigawa Chiaki’s Asahina twins, Sae and Kae.
Overall, when viewing HaruChika as a complete package, it falls short. Muddled in its ambitions to be more than what it excels with, the natural progression of the story feels haphazardly constructed. The animation quality does not hold up with what we’ve come to expect from PA Works and its limited runtime left the viewer with more questions than answers. However, even with that in mind, when viewed in the perspective of an episodic character piece with a loose string attaching the pieces together, HaruChika remains an intriguing and entertaining entry highlighted by an excellent main character. If you have a few hours to spare, I would definitely give HaruChika a shot despite its abysmal ratings.
RainyViolet
As much as I wanted to like HaruChika, I couldn't. I just couldn't.The first episode looked promising but the series just turned into a pretty-looking boring anime with annoying characters. There isn't a real "story" in HaruChika, so to speak. The episodes mostly revolve around some issue the titular characters solve. This is mostly Haruta in the end though, and he gets pretty annoying when he solves one of the mysteries with little effort. It's also just sort of boring. The whole execution of the show feels rather bland. It's hard to exactly pinpoint a certain example in the series because of this, it alljust sort of runs togther in an uninspired mess.
The characters were another low point in the series. I could care less about Haruta in particular-the second episode especially made him come off as a douche with little respect for others' feelings. The show also makes it seem like he was doing the right thing when he solves the mystery of whatever, but it really doesn't. His character was probably not written like that on purpose, but he was one of the biggest detracting factors for me.
A lot of people told me to ignore Haruta and focus on Chika, the main heroine, but I wasn't a big fan of her either. I don't see her as a bad character, but she wasn't ever a very good one for me either. She wasn't very memorable, and I just couldn't get attached to her. None of the side characters were memorable enough to mention.
Considering P.A Works, the production values were pretty good. The colors were bright, but were toned down into softer shades that gave the anime a nice look. The character designs were okay, not too special but they didn't look bad. The animation was also okay-something about the hair movement bugged me, but other than that it was satisfactory. On a similar note, the soundtrack was also okay-nothing too memorable, but the music fit the scenes nicely. The opening and ending themes are worth a listen too.
In conclusion, HaruChika was an anime with a bland, boring story with annoying, unmemorable characters., and nice pproduction values. It's far from the worse anime ever, but I believe it's below average, earning it the rating of 4 (bad.)
If it sounds interesting to you, give it a go, but know it doesn't change much after 3 or so episodes.
KaoruMatsuoka
[This review may contain a few minor spoilers. Read at your own risk.] Anything made by animation studio P.A. Works, in my opinion, can best be described as a mealy apple. It looks beautiful and delicious on the outside, but bite into it and you'll see that beneath the surface it's really not that great at all. While 2014's Shirobako offered some hope that the studio might finally put some depth and thought into the plot and characters of their shows, this winter's HaruChika returns P.A. Works right back to its "all style, no substance" ways. PLOT- 3/10 Right from the beginning, it's apparent thatHaruChika is quite simply attempting to do way too much. The story is about two childhood friends, the titular Haruta and Chika, in a music club at their school who end up encountering and solving mysteries.
Did you, the reader, just think of something having to do with Kyoto Animation?
Back on topic, calling the series a mix between musical and mystery elements wouldn't be right. The mysteries are the entire focus, which serves to make the entire music club aspect pretty irrelevant. I mean, you could change it to a literature club, a swimming club, a hentai-watching club, or, yes, the Classics Club, and really not a lot would change because such a disproportionate amount of time is spent on the mysteries. For a club whose job is to play instruments, they are hardly shown practicing at all.
And then we move on to the mysteries. The huge issue with them is that they are episodic and repetitive, and they are formulaic in such a way that will shatter the suspension of disbelief into tiny pieces. Almost every one of the early episodes goes like this: new character is introduced. New character is an amazing musician, but cannot join the band because of [angsty backstory]. The character has some sort of puzzle related to said angsty backstory. Haruta butts in whether the character wants him to or not, dragging Chika along, and manages to solve the puzzle through some reasoning the viewer would have had no idea to think of because they were not provided with the information he was, a big strike in the mystery genre. Having had his or her angst cured just by the intervention of two band kids solving a puzzle or question, said new character joins the band. Even if you accept the possibility that ordinary high school kids can emit pheromones that cause mysteries to swarm to them like flies to an open, half-drunk can of Bud Light, the way in which the exact same scenario plays out every episode is absurd. The later episodes attempt to change this formula up a little bit, but it's too little too late as in the end it's still Haruta being nosy and winning with asspull logic no matter what.
CHARACTERS- 4/10
I have to give props to HaruChika for introducing a gay character that wasn't a crossdresser or a flaming caricature. It's the sort of thing you never really see in anime nowadays, and it completely took me by surprise. Making him the main character, Haruta, was even better. However, the problem with Haruta is that he single-handedly carries the show, and not in a good way. He ends up being the one who always investigates the mystery, and who always ends up solving it. In short, he makes the other characters look useless. While he is likable most of the time, his personality is also an issue as he can be very catty, especially around Chika, even though those interactions are usually the source of many of the funniest moments in the show.
I admit that I fell in love with Chika in the first episode. When I heard her reciting a cliche narration in her head about her high school debut and then sneezing constantly whenever she tried to be cliche, I was sold, and unlike Haruta she manages to be likable all the time. The main issue with her is that she's useless. Haruta always drags her along on his mystery hunts, but despite her equal billing in the title she basically exists to be the clueless Watson who asks the obvious questions as Haruta figures everything out. I don't recall one instance where she actually made a deduction on her own. Her personality may be great, but it can't really help her uselessness.
The teacher, despite being listed as a third major character (Haruta has a very in-depth crush on him, Chika has a crush on him because love triangle regardless of sense), is pretty much nothing but a walking plot device. He shows up, gives a few philosophical statements, and the two MCs fight over him. That's about it.
As mentioned before, all of the side characters blend into the background as their characterization follows the exact same pattern, so nothing much to say there.
ART- 7/10
The one thing you can't deny that P.A. Works is good at is art. Despite the fact that this show's animation might be a little rough around the edges at times, it's still very high-quality. The major highlight had to be the distinctive multicolored eyes that the characters sport, something that seems to be very rarely done in anime if at all.
That said, the artwork clearly isn't the best thing P.A. Works has produced. Sometimes it's simple enough to look generic, although there are no animation faults that I noticed.
SOUND- 5/10
Most of the soundtrack is serviceable, although I do have a big gripe with it for a reason I mentioned above, that being the fact that the actual music that the band plays is almost never shown. This is an anime about a brass band club, would it kill the music producer to put in a few pieces of classical music every now and then so we can be reassured that yes, the band parts of the show are still relevant? As of the final episode, yes they in fact did, but it went on for nine minutes.
The seiyuu, most of whom are of younger age, seem at the very least to match their characters well, and special mention goes to Australian-Japanese Sarah Bridcutt for playing Chika to perfection. However, there's one cast choice that baffles me. The teacher, who is at least in his mid-20s if not more, is played by Natsuki "ASADA-SAN" Hanae, who is best known for having a high, soft, sometimes whiny voice resembling Yuki Kaji 2.0 who nearly always plays younger characters. The voice he's playing the teacher with is too high and doesn't fit, but it's just one blemish in an otherwise fine, if not spectacular, cast.
With that, my review comes to a close. Hope I could help any prospective viewers of this anime out with what to expect.
-Kaoru
PhKay
Allright, it´s time to check P.A. Works´contribution to the Winter 2016 season, HaruChika. It´s a School/Mystery anime with a musical theme, so this sounded promising to me. Unfortunetly, it could not live up to my expectations... As the title implies, our main heroes are named Haruta and Chika, who are both members of their schools brass band club which at the beginning of the show only has five members. The duo tries their best to find new talented musicians to join the band and get involved in random mysteries along the way to achieving this goal. Unfortunetly, this anime gets off to a bad and slowstart. The mysteries are not very interesting and Haruta is nothing but an anooying smartass solving everything by himself while Chika just tags along. This changes for the better from episode 6 onwards when they start to work more as a team finally. However, only a few mystery cases were really interesting and executed good. So storywise, this anime is not the highlight of the season, that´s for sure!
Another weakness of HaruChika are the supporting characters. Not a single character apart from the name-giving duo leaves a lasting impression or adds something great to the anime.
A saving grace besides the general improvement in the second half is the Artwork which is beautiful as always when P.A. goes to work. You might have to get used to Chikas´ weird eyes though o.O
It´s a shame music plays such a minor part in this show as the Opening song is in my opinion the best OP of the season and the performance the club gives at the end is amazing.
All in all, this is not the greatest anime ever, but i has some good points to avoid it being a complete waste of time. It is still a little disappointing, especially if you go into this with high hopes of a Hyouka/Hibike! mashup kind of thing which could´ve easily happened given the genre tags.
I ended up giving it a very gracious 6 as i am a huge P.A. fan and couldn´t bring myself to rate it lower. I have to admit a 5 would also be a justified rating for HaruChika!
amystic
If you liked anime like Hyouka or Hibike! Euphonium, go watch them instead. It'll be a lot better than watching this weird combination of both. This anime was a big disappointment. It tried to be too many things at once and it ended up as a huge mess. Towards the end I felt like I was forcing myself to watch it. The story tried to be a combination of a mystery anime and a lighthearted slice of life music anime. The idea seems nice at first, but it didn't turn out well. The music part ended up being a backdrop and had no actual impact onthe story. Just take any musical element out of this show and you'll barely even feel it's missing most of the time. The lighthearted comedy relief moments were nice, but there were times when they were just out of place.
If there is something I like doing while watching a mystery anime, it's trying to solve the mysteries myself before the big reveal. In this anime the mysteries were impossible to solve. They were so ridiculously hard that you had to wait for the characters to solve them for you, because the writers wanted to throw you off as much as possible and had kept unnecessarily crucial details hidden from you just so you don't outsmart the characters by accident. This made the story unpredictable in a bad way, it was trying too hard to surprise you. Granted, this wasn't always the case, but the mysteries were so pointless and the solutions were so anticlimactic and uncalled for that you didn't even care.
One thing this anime did do right is not shying away from any subject. This anime tackled real-life problems very often; like sexuality, death, the struggles of adopted children, running away from home, disability and even war and PTSD, all before the half-way point. However, most subjects weren't taken seriously enough or didn't get enough screen time, almost canceling the effect that tackling those subject had in the first place.
Add to the fact that most episodes followed pretty much the same structure, not to mention the large timeskips between episodes, and you get a poorly written, poorly paced, repetitive story that gets boring really fast.
When it comes to characters, the show didn't do much better. The club has many members and they couldn't give everyone a fair share of screen time, but instead of focusing on 4 or 5 main characters, they decided to introduce as many characters as they possibly could. The result was that most characters were overlooked and neglected.
The show followed a structure in which a student presents a problem to the main characters, the main characters try to solve it, Haruta comes up with a solution and presents it to said student and said student ends up joining the club. The character backstories played a big part fo the problems that were presented, but they were completely half-assed and usually were never talked about again.
The only somewhat relatable character was Chika. She was cute and funny and she could barely follow the investigations. Her job was to be the dumb airhead that needs to have everything explained to her, so the viewers could follow the investigations more easily without getting bored. However, the way the show treats her makes you feel like you're being pointed and laughed at for being too stupid to follow along. It's like a big middle finger to the viewer.
Also, there's no character development whatsoever. Even if a character shows some semblance of progress, it'll devolve and go right back to square one by the next episode. The only exceptions are 2 or 3 characters that changed completely after the episodes they were introduced in, but they had no development since then.
The characters themselves weren't bad and they actually had very good interaction, but they were underdeveloped and neglected. The characters were just wasted.
The animation was good at the beginning. The designs were nice, especially the eyes, and the instruments looked amazing, but there was a notable decline in the animation's quality towards the end (with the exception of the final episode).
Since this show (supposedly) revolves around music, I expected a more memorable soundtrack. It wasn't bad, it did a good job and the pieces preformed by the students were beautiful, but it was nothing special. The opening and ending themes, on the other hand, were very good in my opinion. Definitely more memorable than the rest of the soundtrack.
As for the voice actors, they weren't bad, but most of them didn't get many opportunities to do anything noticeably different than usual.
I know I bashed this anime quite a bit in this review, but it doesn't mean it had no good in it. This anime tried too hard to be unpredictable, but sometimes it was done right. The ending was surprisingly satisfying and came to a good conclusion. But in the end, even though this anime had a good start and a satisfying ending, it's barely worth the mess that was the middle. You can try watching it if you're curious, but this show is entirely skippable.
Arystokitten
I don't usually write reviews here, but I decided to make an exception. Just this once, for HaruChika. Not gonna lie, I'm very surprised people didn't really see it as something exceptional. It was, at least for me. It was everything I wanted at the time. HaruChika is many things - a story full of mysteries, drama, music, hope, love, but most importantly, it's a story of the youth. It is quite.. confusing, at first. I mean, the synopsis says it's simply a story about a love triangle in a school band.. right? Well, it's not quite.. that. We do get a love triangle, butit's nothing more than just a background noise of adoration and respect. It's more like the feeling of sending a love letter to someone that will never look at you that way, and you know that, and you're okay with it. And in case you're wondering about the main trio and how that would work - it doesn't matter whether youre a boy or a girl, the world of HaruChika doesn't question your feelings, or belittle them, it accepts you the way you are. And in this world you're a teenager, full of life and hope, in love, growing up and looking at the world around you in awe.
The mystery aspect of HaruChika feels like a fun and engaging mechanic to make you understand it's characters. Although I understand some of you are confused on to why there is mystery in a music anime, you have to understand that it's there to make you feel things, relate, see different sides of these characters. And we're dealing with a lot - mental health, grief, loss, things we all have to deal with at some point in our lives. And it feels less lonely to see these characters struggle and understand there are things out there that are waiting for them. HaruChika truly is about that journey, and I think it's pretty clearly stated at the end of it. It's not a stupid love story, or just one of many titles in the anime music genre, it's not faking any emotions or pretending to be happy go lucky - it's real.
Dog
Minor spoiler to the first episode. Wanting to become a 'cute girl', Chika Homura begins by joining the Wind Instruments Club which is struggling to find new members. After reuniting with a childhood friend, she and the rest of the club find many mysteries ahead of them, including their instructor. The music and sound tracks were nicely done, the OP and ED were among my favorites of the season and the BGM did well to convey mood and feeling. Aside from Chika and Haruta the other characters don't receive much development aside few defining characteristics. Chika is mostly welldone, she is exactly who she is introduced as: a loud and active girl trying to become a 'lady'. Her ignorance to music is to be expected of someone who previously had all of no knowledge on the subject (Allowing explanations to not just be given for the sake of being told). Haruta is Chika's inquisitive childhood friend who definitely is more than meets the eye, while seemingly perfect on the outside he has been hinted to have been through a lot since he and Chika have been apart (Holding much more interest than the series itself). However his intuition is miraculous at times which is somewhat bothersome, luckily the series doesn't rely heavily on mysteries for much else than character introduction. These two share a a flaw that the show could probably go without; the attraction to their instructor. It felt rather shoehorned into the plot and doesn't serve much of a purpose throughout the series than giving Chika and Haruta something to 'compete' over.
The series by no means rushes itself to compensate for only having 13 episodes (aside perhaps mysteries lasting about an episode). This brings its own pros and cons. While preventing itself from overwhelming the viewer with too many characters or details about those characters. However this slows the series down significantly causing it to be rather uneventful and consequently boring.
Overall 7/10
It's easy to forget that this is an adaptation to a beginning of a series. If you find that you enjoy this then you'll probably want to pick up the manga, but if you're looking for a quick show that gets straight to the point then you may want to look elsewhere.
Probably-Charlie
Haruchika is a show that feels like two different people wrote it. One that was very good at writing and the other was extremely bad at it. This made for quite possibly the most mediocre show I have ever watched. Story 3/10 While at times the story can be extremely engaging (episodes 7 and 8 for example) at other’s it can be so random that it’s almost down right jarring (episode 10 is a perfect example of this). The plot felt extremely unfocused between its love triangle,the mysteries and the band while doing none of them particularly well. While I could enjoy an episode at face valuefor a while afterwards I could only think about the unsatisfactory way in which the plots mysteries were unveiled, and the rushed side plots of the band members.
Art 7/10
Despite the high rating I gave the art I’d actually say that it’s horribly inconsistent it’s just that the highs of the art are extremely high. This was one of the main aspects of the show that I was talking about when I said Haruchika felt like a show that had half people that were really good at what they do and the other being really bad. The character designs are overall pretty decent and I could tell character’s apart from each other which is extremely important.
Sound 10/10
Despite some complaints about a few of the background themes feeling a bit generic the soundtrack for this show is overall refreshing and I’ll definitely be listening to it in my free time. While I enjoyed the Ed this shows best selling point is it’s stellar opening credits preformed by the one and only Fanha.
Character 3/10
Outside of our main two leads I struggled to remember the names of most of the band members something that I’m normally extremely good at in anime. They really weren’t that memorable and served very little to the plot. I will say that I did enjoy Haruta and Chika’s dynamic quite a bit and wished the show had stayed a romcom about their crushes on the one band teacher dude as weirdly enough that was some of the best comedy the series had.
Enjoyment 6/10
I don’t have much to say here as long as you try not to think about the plot to much after the episode. Then you should be fine though Haruta and a few other characters (like this one girl who kept hitting her dying grandpa with a pillow) were somewhat annoying though it’s bearable.
Overall 5.43291/10
I don’t have much else to say but this is the most meh anime that I’ve ever watched. Obviously I feel that you should watch it for yourself and see how you feel about because maybe there will be an episode that really speaks to you that I just couldn’t quite enjoy.
Worinof
As I expected P.A Works, it always plays with your mind and your feeling. They always make stuff that makes you want to get involved in the Anime to twist its fate. Q: Is it worth watching? A: "yes" but not for those who seek a great ride from the entire episode. because each episode is a whole new page, but still in the same book. Q: Tell me why should I watch this? A: if you interest in a schoollike detective genre, then you should give it a shot. it's quite to say this anime is anew thing, it's like a combination of vary animes.
This studio always gives a surprise at the end of the anime.
there's no reason for me to throw tomatoes on this anime, even though I did shake my head.
after all, it's a work of magic. you just can't hate it even you doubt it.
ZachM
Haruchika tries to be too many things. That much is apparent if you've seen just the first episode alone. But what is rarely mentioned are the few things that it does do well, which I think have plenty of merit. They make the show at the very least worth watching to anyone who can find some level of enjoyment in them. This is less of a review and more highlighting some of the show's good points. The characters as a whole are underdeveloped and underwritten. Most of the side characters like Narushima or Maren get maybe an episode on them, and then fade into thebackground only to say a line or two each episode after. While the two leads, the titular Haru and Chika, are not fully fleshed out either, I still very much enjoyed their time on screen. Chika is spunky, energetic and passionate about everything. The rest of the brass band club feeds off of her vivacity. Haru, by no stretch of the imagination is he unique, but he is not generic. Uncharacteristicly as the male lead, he does not have every girl falling in love with a nice guy persona, and he's...blonde! He's also in love with his teacher, whether in a romantic way or in admiration. The simple fact that he isn't the 1784th generic anime dude I've seen is a breath of fresh air.
It is unfortunate how short this show is, as I feel that if they just had more time on them, the characters could've really been expanded on. Serizawa in the second half got some development, but along with her it would've been nice to just get more from everybody. It's Angel Beats syndrome. PA Works has done this before, introduce 20 characters and only lean on maybe 3, but even less so in this show.
As said earlier this is a show known for trying to do too much. It's a brass music show, a semi episodic mystery show, a Slice of Life school club show, too much. But within that too much is what some of these mysteries entail. There's one about a girl suffering from depression after her brother died of cancer, and how to fix her. There's one about a girl trying to find out what's wrong with her grandpa, only to find out he's suffering from PTSD from the Vietnam war that he was dragged into. There's one about an adopted guy struggling with his identity after finding that his birth parents from China want him to visit. There's one about a girl slowly going deaf and another about a girl slowly going blind. One about a dude trying to steal a little girl's Tibetan Mastiff to sell for millions of dollars. Absolutely crazy one episode plot lines that you never see in an anime. Interesting to watch, although baffling at times.
The art is above average, and while it won't touch PA Works best stuff, it's still quite good. The backgrounds look great especially in that sunset it brings in so often. They ditch the classrooms and spend most in school time in their club room, which is nice to see. The characters themselves look striking (for a high school brass band anime) with Chika and Haru contrasting, and everyone's crazy looking eyes. The soundtrack does a better than average job conveying the emotion in any given scene.
My enjoyment of this show was carried by Chika and her attitude. She's oftentimes ditzy and arguably completely useless to the current objective at any given time, but it's her enthusiasm that gets everyone else moving forward, and any kind of character like that is a joy to watch in action. I really enjoyed Haru and Chika's relationship. They were not into each other at all, just simply best friends with no romantic implications. That gave their relationship a unique feel, rare to see compared to most anime like this. The show is too short for what it tries to do, often times skipping forward in time so much that you don't even notice they just went through a whole year of school. The latter half of the final episode does everything well, and feels like it deserves more. It kind of sequel baits itself at the end, and honestly, I hope it gets one someday. Because for what it is it is nothing short of an interesting watch. If not for it being marred by issues, I think there's a gem hidden somewhere in here. But I doubt it'll ever be fully realized.
