HINAMATSURI

Hinamatsuri is a comedy based on a manga by Masao Ohtake. It ran in the manga magazine Harta, published by Enterbrain, from 2010 to 2020, and it filled 19 books. The studio Feel made the 12-episode TV anime, directed by Kei Oikawa, with scripts by Keiichiro Ochi. It aired from April to June 2018. The title comes from Hinamatsuri, a Japanese spring festival for girls, but the show itself has almost nothing to do with the holiday.

Yoshifumi Nitta is a young member of a yakuza group, which is a Japanese crime gang. He is doing well in his job, and he likes to spend his money on expensive vases that he keeps in his neat apartment. His calm life ends one night when a large, strange metal object falls on him from out of nowhere. Inside is a girl with an empty face and no interest in anything. Her name is Hina, and she has psychic powers. She can move things with her mind, and she can easily destroy a room, or a person.

Hina tells Nitta that he now has to take care of her, or else. Nitta has no choice, so he lets her stay. He has to feed her, buy her clothes, and get her into school. Hina is lazy, rude, eats huge amounts of salmon roe, and cares only about herself at first. But she is also a child. Little by little, this odd pair becomes something like a real family, and Nitta becomes a strange but caring father.

The show is not only about them. It follows several other characters who are pulled into the chaos. Hitomi is Hina's classmate, a polite and very capable girl. Because she cannot say no to adults, she is slowly pushed into working as a bartender, even though she is only in middle school, and she becomes too good at it. Anzu is another girl with powers who came from the same place as Hina. She ends up with no money and no home and lives for a while with a group of homeless people in a park, where she learns about kindness and hard work.

The humor is dry and deadpan. That means the characters often react to crazy events with blank faces, which makes the jokes even funnier. Many scenes build up a small mistake until it turns into a huge disaster. The show also makes fun of yakuza stories, school life, and the pressure to please others.

What surprised many viewers is how much heart the series has. Between the jokes, there are quiet, touching moments. Anzu's story in particular made many people cry, because it shows how much a person can grow when others treat them with care. The show is about found family, meaning the family you choose instead of the one you are born into.

Hinamatsuri was one of the most praised comedies of spring 2018. The manga was also nominated for the Seiun Award, a Japanese prize for science fiction. If you enjoy odd-couple comedies with a warm center, this one is a great choice.