Synonyms: Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta
Japanese: 夜桜四重奏 ~ハナノウタ~
Type: TV
Episodes: 13
Aired: Oct 6, 2013 to Dec 29, 2013
Genres: Action, Comedy, Magic, Shounen, Super Power, Supernatural
Rating: PG-13 - Teens 13 or older
Synopsis
In a town where humans and demons co-exist, it takes more than a normal police force to maintain the peace. Enter the Hiizumi Life Counseling Office, a fantastic foursome of unique teenagers, each gifted with an amazing super power!
Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta has almost everything you'd expect of a shounen anime. Cute girls that kick ass, tsundere, characters with their own extraordinary powers, devilish cool-looking antagonists, dope fight sequences, high tempo music, blasting sound effects and fanservice. Almost all the ingredients you need for the shounen anime you can get hyped and drown in awe for is prepared, then it all comes down to execution.
TL;DR
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Story(7/10) + Character(6/10): I am particularly a plot maniac when it comes to anime so it could be the very reason why I gave this show a 6. Plot-wise, Hana no Uta really has nothing much to offer. What does our MCs and friends do? Protect the town and discover more about the dark world they are against, or at least that's what I expected it to be. What this show does is some kind of Team Rocket symphony, bad guy shows up, gets gangbanged by the good guys, proceeding to retreat without leaving any real damage or threat. They do this over and over throughout the whole show, and the only achievement they got from this is actually just introducing our characters' powers and prowess. Almost nothing is exposed about how the daemon world is like, and why some daemons randomly reach the human world. And this repetition comes with the cost of making the antagonists look underwhelming as a threat, slowly murdering my expectation of how the story will turn out.
The lack of plot progression nearly convinced me that the show could be in the slice-of-life genre. Half of the time characters are just interacting with each other and doing a sit-com. Speaking of comedy, this show has only two or three occasions where it managed to throw a punchline. The rest of the comedy relies heavily on our cutie girls interacting with each other and doing dumb stuffs, which is too weak to be considered comedy.
Regardless of the lack in direction on plot, it is still interesting to discover the special abilities of each character.
Character development is evenly distributed for everyone. We get a little touch on each character's past and learned their personal desires which drives them to be what they are. Sadly, what they are often portrayed as are just a bag of happy-go-lucky teenagers ruling their lovely town. I can pick three girls out of all the female cast(there are only three main boys), put them in a bottle, shake it up and you will have a hard time distinguishing who is who in the end. Because they act all freaking cute and cool all the time, hardly showing distinct motives or principles behind their perseverance to protect the town. Ironically, the side characters actually got themselves one or two episodes worth of backstory while the main characters only get a few minutes flashback. After watching the show, I found myself more fond of the side characters than the main ones.
Art(8/10): Pretty much the only thing worth the praise for the show, Hana no Uta has a solid art style on drawing the characters. Although all of them has quite the same facial feature, the simple yet unique design of the characters makes it easy for audience to directly recognize them even from afar. The show also frequently switches camera positions, meaning more angles of perspective on the background. It's hard to get bored even though the plot is moving slow as the camera gives us a tour on every corner of the town. Art is consistently neat and colorful, never failing to appeal my eyes.
Sound(6/10): Hana no Uta for an action shounen anime, is surprisingly quiet and calm in the music department. The background music volume is a lot lower compared to dialogues & the sound effects, and was remained that way throughout. When the MCs shouted some cliche lines, the music tempo and volume got higher for 50% and that's it. Never you'll hear an iconic soundtrack tsunami-ing a climax scene and never a trumpet sounded for the victory of battle.
All I can remember listening from the fight scenes is the endless spamming of ear-raping sonic booms(they even made a middle-aged man charging go "bMmmMmm!!!!!" too). Hana no Uta loves that shit! They conduct every attack blows with sonic booms and the stronger the attack the more ear-raping it gets. These sound effects disrupt the music a lot, so they lower the music volume to a point it doesn't exist. Due to that, Hana no Uta's fight scenes are all just pure strength no emotions, leaving a lot to be desired.
The voice actors never succeeded in being comedic(since I never laugh at any joke attempt), yet they did their job properly on acting moe and cool.
Execution(3/10):
This is the biggest disappointment of the show.
At first, they alternated chronological order of the scenes a little so things look more interesting, but instead it feels lackluster because these gimmicks are supposed to be used on mysterious or climax scenes to make audience go oooooohhh when the card is revealed. After a few episodes the show realized it doesn't work well, because they never had any intense scenes and important revelations to begin with, so they ditched the plan.
Then there's fanservice, this shows spits boobs and panties scenes almost every 5 minutes. It was fine, until a certain point when things starts to get tense and... KABAAAM! Here's a panties shot for ya fam! I don't even know what I am supposed to feel then. All the seriousness built up got demolished in a split second just for an unlewd panties shot.
Same goes for comedy, they make the characters act cute or stubborn in the most unfavorable situations possible, characters would show no fear and respect in front of an enemy which lead me to an impression that the antagonists are just small fries, there's nothing to get worried or excited about. Turns out it is, our cutesy boys and girls foiling each and every scheme the bad guy does without any consequences. "Team Rocket blasting off again!"
A lot of scenes could have been great if they just give the fanservice and moe acting a rest.
Timings on the action scenes are really slow, one fight can linger for more than 3 long pauses with lots of lots of pointless dialogues which loses a lot of momentum.
Enjoyment (6/10), Overall (6/10):
Music is the voice of a show. Hana no Uta despite all the pretty pretty art and decent animation, they don't have a good variety of soundtracks accompanied to amplify the emotions conveyed by the characters. And even worse, the volume of music got undermined by sound effects too often.
The action scenes are stalled, having too long of pauses in between, losing the momentum and hype.
Characters are shallow and have very little expression of their personalities. A lot times they act of out character just to complete the show's shounen vibe, gives me tons of cringe.
