Anime Review | HaNaYaMaTa Complete Collection (Lights, Camera, Action!)

HaNaYaMaTa Complete Collection (UK Rating: 12)

The series follows Naru Sekiya, a painfully average girl with few friends or hobbies. She's happy enough just reading fairy tales and practicing Iaido - Japanese swordplay - at home. That is until one night she sees what she thinks is a real life fairy dancing in the moonlight. It's not a real fairy. This isn't that kind of anime. It's just another girl from her school, though, a fairly unique one. A fairly eccentric American girl named Hana who now lives in Japan with her father. Hana has a real passion for Japanese culture and Yosakoi dancing, in particular. It's her performance of this dance in the moonlight that catches Naru's attention.

Yosakoi was a type of traditional folk Japanese dance but today it has become something of a nationwide craze for freestyle dancing. It still retains some of the original aspects, though; the dancers use wooden Naruka clappers to keep rhythm and the performers still wear Yukata or Happi. If you have never seen it, get yourself straight to YouTube to appreciate just how energetic and impressive the performances can be. Men and women both perform; some groups keep their dances in classic and traditional styles, whilst others integrate modern dance and choreography into their routines.

Hana's love for Yosakoi inspires Naru and pulls her into trying the dances, too, and then into joining the school's Yosakoi club with Hana, doubling the member count to two. It's a strange choice considering Naru has always had a problem with doing anything in front of an audience. What follows is the familiar gathering of characters into a club and the usual slice of life style comedy throughout the thirteen episodes as the girls overcome their fears with performing, losing weight, learning routines, and generally bonding.

As is often the way, the opening theme gives away the cast of the club that is gathered over the course of the season, and, honestly, the characters are one of the best aspects of the series. The name of the characters, or the first part, at least, makes up the title of the show, HAna, NAru, YAya, MAchi and TAmi. Hana is great, a real fish out of water American girl who loves, but doesn't understand, Japanese culture, making for some fantastic gags. Naru is the star of the show and has an interesting arc, really coming out of her shell thanks to Hana. Yaya is a token tsundere and has a very confusing character arc. She already is a member of a club - she's a drummer in the band - but her club disintegrates and she suddenly joins even though it's quite clear she doesn't want to take part. It feels like she would rather be back drumming… Machi is the school council president, a strict and overbearing character who is quite forgettable… Tami is older, rich and beautiful, and more forgettable than Machi.

There may be the option of dual audio here but this is a series that really needs to be heard in Japanese. The English cast isn't particularly bad but it just doesn't fit well with the characters, not to mention the performances are very flat when it comes to emotion-filled scenes. The Japanese cast, however, is fantastic, delivering comedy lines to great effect and putting real feeling into the delivery.

4/10

Subpar

Frankly, disappointing. A simple and enjoyable enough experience, but lacking anything to elevate it or to make it memorable, and, thus, it ends up being utterly forgettable. HaNaYaMaTa wastes all of the potential it has, spending too much of this short show on pointless plot points, which are forgotten after one episode, only to try and rush an ending in two episodes…  such a shame.