Review of Haruchika: Haruta & Chika

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.