Hanamaru Youchien

Title: Hanamaru Youchien Genre:Comedy, School Life Rating: 7.5/10

Summary: The story follows the life of a young kindergarten teacher Naozumi Tsuchida. He is inexperienced and the only guy kindergarten teacher in the school.  Naozumi struggles to keep his students happy, and get closer to one of his colleagues Nanako Yamamoto. When starting his first day of teaching he runs into a young girl named Anzu, who ends up being his student. Due to a series of events Anzu develops a crush for Naozumi. With the help of Anzu’s classmates Hiragi and Koume quite a few adventures stir up in this little school.

Review: Alright guys, a couple things have changed since my original first look. I still found this anime to be one of the funniest for last season, but it didn’t really keep its original shine. I enjoyed the running gags, cutesy jokes, and the signs of romance here and there. However, as the series progressed it did get a little dull. The anime focused a lot more on the romance, and the comedy sort of fell short. There were quite a few touching moments, and the anime had great scenes, but it wasn’t what I was really looking for when I originally started watching. The problem I had with the romance part of Hanamaru Youchien was the resolve. Every occasion got me a little frustrated because of how much it felt like nothing happened/mattered. I did enjoy the scenes of romance, but they always fell short with the follow up. Normally I wouldn’t mind if a second season was announced, but from what I have researched there are no signs of a second season. Even so, I didn’t feel the anime should have pushed so much on the romance if they didn’t plan to conclude it in any way. Coming back to the comedy, I did still get a kick out of the little jokes Anzu played with her classmates. The heart warming moments of her pretending to be Naozumi’s wife really brought back some credit to this anime. The support characters brighted up the anime as well, although they didn’ty do much in terms of story. The little bit of fan service didn’t hurt too much either ;). The art was average. The characters were drawn in a simple fashion, and the backgrounds lacked quite a bit of detail. It wasn’t anything unbearable, and they did try to stick to the same art style as the manga. I felt they could have done a slightly better job, but it got the job done. The soundtrack was pretty well done, the opening and ending were nothing special, but the background music was well placed. The music set the proper mood during the romance scenes.

Final statements: Hanamaru Youchien did put a smile on my face almost every episode, but the romance was more frustrating than cute. I really wished that they pushed away from romance instead of moving toward it as the anime was coming to a close. If you are looking for a solid comedy, give this one a chance. However, if you want to see romance I would skip this anime since it doesn’t have any resolution. In hopes for a second season (which would greatly improve this anime): preferred watch.