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REVIEW: Haruchika: Haruta & Chika BD+DVD




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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5400
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 12:00 pm Reply with quote
I actually found Haruchika interesting, and to me it is one of the most underrated anime series from 2016. The overarching narrative was not strong, but I really liked the characters, and the mysteries were engaging to me.

I was disappointed at the end of the show. But not because I did not like the show but because I wanted to see more of these characters, especially Naoko. I am honestly surprised Rebecca deemed this show to be a C work. I can easily rate it B.
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Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9798
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 12:32 pm Reply with quote
I saw a couple of episodes of this show. The only thing I can really remember is the eyes with their multicolor iris's.
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4064
PostPosted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 12:38 pm Reply with quote
Rebecca thought more highly of this than I did- From the title, I expected something more like Toradora, a romance of one character with the other title character and was certainly disappointed by it as well as the puzzle solving aspect. Even more pointless, we didn't get the heavy drama of a show like Toradora which also featured a straight/gay love triangle.

Why was Haruchika so disappointing to me? Or how? Because the target of the two leads was a distant and unobtainable crush and the fact the whole series was framed as a flashback. So why:

Quote:
Haruta's sexuality is handled well.


I don't recall it being handled at all, beyond its "he's an old friend and he may as well be a girl for all the importance it has on his character" aspect from Chika's point of view. If you're not going to do anything different with a girl and a guy crushing on their teacher than if it was about two girls then why are you doing it, especially under a title already connecting the two?

It's almost like they were setting up something else but then lost their nerve at the last moment and just stuck with puzzles... like that puzzle show, Phi something... and the band story... like the band one... neither of which plots fit the need for a title pairing the two leads.

What would have worked for me? Chika liking Haruta while Haruta liked a fellow male student... which unsurprisingly brings us back to Toradora.
Bottom line: Just watch Toradora.... and those other two shows, why not. It may be convenient to get them all in one place but certainly not better.

Addendum: Is Haruta's sexuality not being part of any drama precisely "being handled well" as opposed to Toradora's heavy handed drama? I've seen other such real world sensitive elsewhere. Let me express my feelings about such views succinctly:

Yes, such matter of fact acceptance is great for real life but this is fiction, let it matter and give me drama. I don't care what it is but if there's some aspect to the plot that can be mined for drama then do it!
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
Posts: 2597
Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 1:25 pm Reply with quote
Animegomaniac wrote:


Yes, such matter of fact acceptance is great for real life but this is fiction, let it matter and give me drama.


Well said - I think I was so relieved to see it not made a big deal of in a negative way that I forgot about the all-important dramatic aspect. Ah, just another thing this show neglected to do...

I read somewhere (and I don't remember where, so it could be totally wrong) that the original author made Haruta gay so that he and Chika couldn't be a couple. Did anyone else hear that? Or am I having some sort of weird moment?
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Wingbeats



Joined: 23 Feb 2015
Posts: 272
Location: Boise, Idaho
PostPosted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 2:39 pm Reply with quote
Honestly, Haruta's sexuality was handled well BECAUSE it wasn't treated like a big deal. With so much LGBT media focused on the drama of it all, it's actually really super refreshing to see a casually gay character treated as normal. After all, that's all we really want. To be treated like normal people. In that way, it's just really good representation, and seeing that in an anime gave me warm fuzzies. It hardly ever happens!

Yeah, the show was mediocre in many areas, but the banter between the leads made it all worth a watch for me. I loved their bickering friendship.
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vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Posts: 729
PostPosted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 3:20 pm Reply with quote
Wingbeats wrote:
Honestly, Haruta's sexuality was handled well BECAUSE it wasn't treated like a big deal. With so much LGBT media focused on the drama of it all, it's actually really super refreshing to see a casually gay character treated as normal. After all, that's all we really want. To be treated like normal people. In that way, it's just really good representation, and seeing that in an anime gave me warm fuzzies. It hardly ever happens!
This. As someone who isn't LGBT I don't really have a personal perspective on this, but these discussions always remind me of a series of tweets from a Japanese lesbian lady I saw years ago. She was a fan of escapist, drama-free Yuri stories, and she said that whenever she heard people (especially straight people) tear these stories apart for their lack of realism she'd wonder "Are you sure it's 'realism' you're looking for and not just torture porn?" Besides, it's not like Haruchika's all about warm fuzzies in this regard: the (admittedly quite silly) Tibetan Mastiff episode includes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it depressing moment where Haruta says something to the effect of "I need this dog more than you do because I'll most certainly be alone for the rest of my life"...

Princess_Irene wrote:
I read somewhere (and I don't remember where, so it could be totally wrong) that the original author made Haruta gay so that he and Chika couldn't be a couple. Did anyone else hear that? Or am I having some sort of weird moment?
The way I remember it is that the author wanted to have a male & female lead character duo, but also didn't want there to be any romance in the story. But yeah, I don't have any sources at hand either.

Anyway, while the show wasn't anything to write home about, I did find a lot of things to enjoy about it. I loved the characters, both primary and secondary, and the casual interactions between them, some of the mysteries were very well done, and while the animation really was some of the weakest work I've seen from P.A.Works, there were many visual aspects I did like, like the chibi fantasy spots, the on-screen captions and some untranslatable visual gags (like the "club funds" label playing on the fact that the word for "club funds" sounds like the Japanese onomatopoeia for oinking, buhi). Oh, and the opening song is one of my favourites by fhána. I actually don't remember how the show ended at all, which may well be for the better Very Happy
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harminia



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 1985
Location: australia
PostPosted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 7:03 pm Reply with quote
this show was a slog to watch, i'm glad i dropped it.
the mysteries were so nothing, with the exception of the elephant's breath one, which was so dark it really shocked me.

I liked that Haruta was gay and that this wasn't made a big deal of, so Haruta and Chika's love rival scenes were funny rather than awkward.

But Haruta himself was annoying because he knew every single thing. Like, as if some kid would know all this random info. It stretched beyond belief.

There were elements of Haruchika that were good, and the love rival and haruta being gay concept were super nicely handled and should be a reference point for other anime including gay characters, but overall the show was so damn b o r i n g.



also I hated the theme song.
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Shaterri



Joined: 03 Jan 2008
Posts: 173
PostPosted: Thu Jul 20, 2017 8:51 pm Reply with quote
This review is, sadly, spot-on to my experience with the show. I liked it - and I really wanted to like it a lot more, which is why it was so ultimately disappointing. I enjoyed the puzzles more than Rebecca did, but even those weren't really as interesting as they could have been. There were just enough glimmers of a much better show than this to make me wish for what might have been here.
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SheRrIs





PostPosted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 11:13 am Reply with quote
Princess_Irene wrote:
I read somewhere (and I don't remember where, so it could be totally wrong) that the original author made Haruta gay so that he and Chika couldn't be a couple. Did anyone else hear that? Or am I having some sort of weird moment?


Here's the link.
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 16 Dec 2008
Posts: 2597
Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City
PostPosted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 12:31 pm Reply with quote
Thank you, that's what I was thinking of! It certainly makes sense, particularly with Japanese mysteries I've read - they do tend to eliminate the romantic suspense element you find in American and British mysteries and cozies. (A cozy in general is going to have a lot more romance than a straight mystery.)

It's also interesting in terms of a phenomenon I've noticed in western authors - a genre switch from (generally trashy) romance to mystery.
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phia_one



Joined: 15 Jan 2012
Posts: 1654
Location: Pennsylvania
PostPosted: Fri Jul 21, 2017 6:42 pm Reply with quote
I liked the show more than I thought I would, but it's not something I'm ever going to watch again. The banter between the leads was a highlight of the show for me and why I finished the show.
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Hikarunu



Joined: 23 Jul 2015
Posts: 950
PostPosted: Sat Jul 22, 2017 2:14 am Reply with quote
This anime is not too bad but that ending was a bit disappointing.
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Ethe





PostPosted: Sat Jul 22, 2017 9:39 pm Reply with quote
I couldn't get past the first episode. I remember having particularly high expectations and hype for this show and then finding it a total bore.

As for the romance, I didn't care about it since it revolved around the two leads' crush on their teacher, so you know from the very beginning that it's gonna lead nowhere.

On a side note, I had forgotten how great the opening song is.
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