My first impressions of “Toilet-bound Hanako-kun” was “ah, this is going to be another one of those romance anime where drama will ensue on who gets the girl and whatnot”. Then I looked at the genres.

“Eh? Where’s the drama tag? Or the romance tag?”, I say as I tried cross-referencing the cover with the genre tags, as if trying to find a connection between two seemingly unrelated suspects in a convoluted murder case.

Trying to connect the dots | Source: Giphy

What I loved about Toilet-bound Hanako-kun

I loved the unique style the anime uses to perform story-telling. Instead of animating the whole thing, they make use of still frames to present information, which works very well with the light-hearted side of the anime.

I also liked how the anime keeps the viewers on their toes whenever secondary information (i.e. information through gossip) is presented - there is always more than meets the eye. Keeping the viewer constantly guessing is a sure-fire way to retain engagement, alongside the constant flipping between light-hearted daily occurrences, mystery and action elements.

Visually speaking, the art style is cutesy and easy to look at, serving as a contrasting point to the darker elements within the anime. It’s kind of like “gap-moe” but for story-telling. It is very easy to discern when a moment is supposed to be cute, or emotional and heavy.

Extra points:

• the voice-acting; they’re pretty much on-point.
• the storyline was enjoyable to watch and easy to digest.
• relationship between characters were well-defined and is logical due to circumstances.

What I think could be improved

Toilet-bound Hanako-kun was great, with every episode having a problem that requires resolution. However, the progress towards reaching the underlying plot’s “main goal” or “main conflict” is moving at a tortoise’s pace - in fact, I believe that the first “real” conflict hasn’t even been resolved yet, despite the long 12 episodes.

It is fine to perfect the environment around which the main story takes place, but taking too long might cause the viewers to forget they aren’t actually watching a slice-of-life anime. I had to keep telling myself that: “no, this is not a slice-of-life anime, there’s a deeper lore here” whenever I encounter a plot device for the main plot as I watched the anime.

Conclusions

Nevertheless, I can’t wait to see what Season 2 of “Toilet-bound Hanako-kun” brings to the table. There is room for even more character development for our main cast, which I believe can only progress should the climax of the main plot present itself in the near future.

Give “Toilet-bound Hanako-kun” a watch!

Happy Coding

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