English Dub Season Review: Hana-Kimi Season One

Overview:

Mizuki Ashiya is on a mission: to disguise herself as a boy and enroll in a male boarding school to meet her idol, high jump star Izumi Sano. But after successfully infiltrating the school, she discovers he’s suddenly quit the sport! Now Mizuki must dodge suspicion, protect her cover, and somehow reach the boy she came all this way for—all while surviving the chaos of an all-boys dorm!

Our Take:

Usually, when a manga finally gets an anime adaptation after a long time, I wonder why it took so long. In the case of Hana-Kimi, I wonder that too, but for different reasons. I feel that if it had gotten an anime while the manga was running, it would have been better received by me, at least. To me, the world is too different, and a show like this has already been done in a better way. We’re a lot more aware of trans people now, and while the main character isn’t trans by any means, the way some of the situations are handled feels tone-deaf given modern sensibilities. Which makes sense, since it came out in the nineties, but they make slight changes to the series to make it feel more modern with smartphones and the like, so I’m not sure why that couldn’t have received a little more attention.

Even if something like that isn’t on your mind, the story is laughably hard to justify. What parent in their right mind would send their child to an all-boys school when they’re a girl? I’m aware that parental involvement is a bit of a dubious topic with any anime. But one’s like this almost makes it hard to suspend disbelief. Mizuki is half Japanese and half American. So I’ll concede that it’s theoretically possible she could know the language, but I don’t see a parent sending their child to a school in another country without doing some research on it. We’re led to believe that they must not know because when her brother comes to visit, Mizuki makes sure she dresses in traditionally female clothes. He knows about her coming to see Sano, but that’s about it, so I can only assume that the parents are in the same boat.

This was a show I could have done without, and after doing some research, I saw that it has a second season in production already. I’m sure I’ll be covering that, but I won’t lie to you and say I’m looking forward to it. It’s disappointing that shows like this get more episodes while some truly great anime get nothing but one season. There were few, if any, characters I enjoyed, and there weren’t too many episodes I enjoyed. Unless you were a huge fan of this manga or something, I can’t think of who I would recommend this anime to.