English Dub Review: After School “Hanako-kun After School \ Mokke Be Ambitious”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Nene gets help cleaning up Hanako-kun’s bathroom, and later Hanako-kun negotiates with other spirits.

OUR TAKE

It’s time for another sequel/spin-off to a show I haven’t watched the source material for and thus have limited perspective on how to approach it critically! The good news is that these are just ten minute episodes released over four weeks. The BAD news is that I’m gonna have to come up with hundreds of words about each of those ten minute episodes. What I DO know about this show, or rather the series it spins out of, is that it aired twelve episodes in the winter of 2020 and is based on the urban legend of Hanako-san, a spirit of a girl that haunts toilets. Think Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter. Except in this case they made the spirit a boy and gave him a human girl sidekick. Hanako-KUN is apparently one of the seven wonders of the school he haunts, the other six apparently also roaming the school itself for wacky hijinks. This particular set of shorts are based off a manga that is itself a spin-off of the manga the original anime is based on, though apparently this short adaptation is the “first installment” of a “restart” of the series…which makes me think they’re rebooting it, but that doesn’t seem to be the case if this is the first step in that.

So, strange wording aside, how is this little ten minute bite of content? Well, for as inaccessible as one might think this is, it does give me a clear idea of the usual dynamics of the characters it makes use of, namely the two leads Hanako and Nene. Hanako is a little rascal who likes being able to haunt the school and having some human friends, but he also seems to have some enemies among them as one of them seems eager to exorcize him at the earliest convenience. And apparently they have been on bigger adventures that I’m sure I could see if I bothered to watch the previous twelve episodes…if I had the time. And the second segment of the short sees Hanako negotiating with other spirits who want to be one of the other seven wonders. Which I guess means the school doesn’t have all seven wonders? If that’s the case, having a roaming band of pink bunny spirits wouldn’t be a bad choice to have if you want your selection of spooky ghosts to stand out at like…the tourist guide to haunted schools or whatever. Find out what I can stretch out to talk about next time!