Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Arystokitten
I don't usually write reviews here, but I decided to make an exception. Just this once, for HaruChika.
Not gonna lie, I'm very surprised people didn't really see it as something exceptional. It was, at least for me. It was everything I wanted at the time.
HaruChika is many things - a story full of mysteries, drama, music, hope, love, but most importantly, it's a story of the youth. It is quite.. confusing, at first. I mean, the synopsis says it's simply a story about a love triangle in a school band.. right? Well, it's not quite.. that. We do get a love triangle, but it's nothing more than just a background noise of adoration and respect. It's more like the feeling of sending a love letter to someone that will never look at you that way, and you know that, and you're okay with it. And i…
Read at the sourceZachM
Haruchika tries to be too many things. That much is apparent if you've seen just the first episode alone. But what is rarely mentioned are the few things that it does do well, which I think have plenty of merit. They make the show at the very least worth watching to anyone who can find some level of enjoyment in them. This is less of a review and more highlighting some of the show's good points.
The characters as a whole are underdeveloped and underwritten. Most of the side characters like Narushima or Maren get maybe an episode on them, and then fade into the background only to say a line or two each episode after. While the two leads, the titular Haru and Chika, are not fully fleshed out either, I still very much enjoyed their time on screen. Chika is spunky, energetic and passionate a…
Read at the sourcedreamzxc
Haruta to Chika wa Seishun suru - Episode 8 First Love Sommelier
This anime has got me pausing the videos many times to think about what could have happened next.
What's best is how episode 8 made me thought about it through the long night and I find this really impressive for a mystery/detective anime show. :)
Due to the analogy of using animals to describe ''Children of the Forest'' and references to Esperanto languages like Purastelo and Vengenta , it's easy to get intrigued or confused.
So basically if you have watched - it's about Naoko Serizawa 's aunt wanting to find out about her first love. After unsuccessful attempts with private investigators and such, she gave up - until First Love Research Group from their school got her aunt to once again investigate about her true et…
Read at the sourceFlawfinder
PA Works, why do you gotta make me hit you all the time? I like my narratives to be strong with characters that are actually engaging, and you handle those two elements about as well as an elephant handles being a ninja. Even your resistance in regards to jumping on the light novel trend means little when your regular novel adaptations somehow end up being more of a coma-inducement than the fucking Asterisk War, and don't even get me started on your original anime. When Jun Maeda and Mari Okada are the ones who are keeping you on the radar, something has gone seriously wrong. Okay yes, you made Shirobako, but does anyone really count that one as a reason to pay attention to you considering it was made by people who owed you a favor rather than your usual team? Oh wait, some people do. Let…
Read at the sourceZaku88
Looking for a show about putting together a band? You're in the wrong place. Haruchika is a show about a pair of childhood friends who don't have feelings for each other; instead, they both have a crush on their band's advisor. In order to grow the band and earn a worthy trophy for their advisor, they solve mysteries to recruit additional band members.
I'm not going to sugar coat this one; this show is a complete disaster. If you're looking for Shigatsu level music don't bother because very few sound bites are used on the actual band. If you're looking for a mystery that you can actually think over and solve don't bother because you have to wait for Haruta to divulge everything before things make sense. If you're looking for P.A. Works' typical character depth, strong facial expressions,…
Read at the sourceRainyViolet
As much as I wanted to like HaruChika, I couldn't. I just couldn't.The first episode looked promising but the series just turned into a pretty-looking boring anime with annoying characters.
There isn't a real "story" in HaruChika, so to speak. The episodes mostly revolve around some issue the titular characters solve. This is mostly Haruta in the end though, and he gets pretty annoying when he solves one of the mysteries with little effort. It's also just sort of boring. The whole execution of the show feels rather bland. It's hard to exactly pinpoint a certain example in the series because of this, it all just sort of runs togther in an uninspired mess.
The characters were another low point in the series. I could care less about Haruta in particular-the second episode especially made…
Read at the sourceDog
Minor spoiler to the first episode.
Wanting to become a 'cute girl', Chika Homura begins by joining the Wind Instruments Club which is struggling to find new members. After reuniting with a childhood friend, she and the rest of the club find many mysteries ahead of them, including their instructor.
The music and sound tracks were nicely done, the OP and ED were among my favorites of the season and the BGM did well to convey mood and feeling.
Aside from Chika and Haruta the other characters don't receive much development aside few defining characteristics. Chika is mostly well done, she is exactly who she is introduced as: a loud and active girl trying to become a 'lady'. Her ignorance to music is to be expected of someone who previously had all of no knowledge on the subject (Allowing ex…
Read at the sourceTrollMuncher
Sometimes a show manages to grab you without being especially entertaining, and that about sums up HaruChika for me. Its a strange episodic mystery show with many quirks that isn't anything exceptional, but holds up a bit better on reflection.
HaruChika likes to delve into topics you rarely encounter in anime. Ranging from the Vietnam war and Tibetan dogs to radio shows, the mysteries will sometimes surprise you with their conclusions. These conclusions aren't anything mind blowing, but they are always logical and follow the clues each episode sets up.
Quirky characters tag along to provide a source of entertainment and the way each character interacts with one another is charming and pretty funny at times. When it works, the show absolutely flies by, I was surprised several times by how…
Read at the sourceV1nn13z
You know what happen if you actually mix "K-On!" with a hint of "Hyoukai"? This anime...
Is it a fun anime to watch? Yes
Is it a mystery? Not... quite.
Should you watch it? If you like a cute girl and a cute guy who-is-basically-a-full-cannon-gay-character... Yes you should
I like the whole anime, I really do. Sadly it's not like his brother, ERASED. I can't call this a mystery anime. Really I can't. It's like calling DxD a hentai anime. It's not. Reason I can't call it a mystery anime is because it's basically just 2 nutjobs who like snooping around. Then what-ya-know, they solve a mystery.
Should it stop you from watching this? NOPE. Hell, I actually think you should. It gives a bit of a fresh breeze to the genre. And it's actually one of my "I hope there's a season 2 of this" list.…
Read at the sourceBaconzombie
Haruta to Chika wa Seishun Suru, or HaruChika for those who don’t want to run out of breath before finishing their sentence, is a victim of misidentification that bears partial responsibility for the hole it sunk itself in when Winter season began. Misguided direction muddles the small moments of brilliance and potential the series teases, which is a shame because even with its messy composition, HaruChika remains as an endearing anime that is sure to entertain more than its rating entails.
As the title suggests, our story closely follows the lives of childhood friends Kamijou Haruta and Homura Chika. Reunited upon entering high school, Haruta and Chika quickly invest the bulk of their free time reconstructing the crumbling remnants of their school’s brass band club. While the incentive f…
Read at the sourceMaz
Haruta to Chika wa Seishun Suru (from hereon HaruChika) centres on Chika Homura being reunited with her childhood friend from many years ago, Haruta. They both wind up in the Brass Band club, and face the issue of the club not having enough members to properly function. They wish to end up playing in professional places as a club, but the initial tournaments they set their eyes on require having 30 members as a minimum. This results in them trying their best to recruit new members each week.
That's about it as the story and plot goes. Other than for the addition of new characters, each episode is unrelated to the previous one.
My issue with the story, however, is that despite the premise being about a music band, there's very little in the way of actual musical performances. Rather, it fo…
Read at the sourceKaoruMatsuoka
[This review may contain a few minor spoilers. Read at your own risk.]
Anything made by animation studio P.A. Works, in my opinion, can best be described as a mealy apple. It looks beautiful and delicious on the outside, but bite into it and you'll see that beneath the surface it's really not that great at all. While 2014's Shirobako offered some hope that the studio might finally put some depth and thought into the plot and characters of their shows, this winter's HaruChika returns P.A. Works right back to its "all style, no substance" ways.
PLOT- 3/10
Right from the beginning, it's apparent that HaruChika is quite simply attempting to do way too much. The story is about two childhood friends, the titular Haruta and Chika, in a music club at their school who end up encountering and sol…
Read at the sourcePhKay
Allright, it´s time to check P.A. Works´contribution to the Winter 2016 season, HaruChika. It´s a School/Mystery anime with a musical theme, so this sounded promising to me. Unfortunetly, it could not live up to my expectations...
As the title implies, our main heroes are named Haruta and Chika, who are both members of their schools brass band club which at the beginning of the show only has five members. The duo tries their best to find new talented musicians to join the band and get involved in random mysteries along the way to achieving this goal.
Unfortunetly, this anime gets off to a bad and slow start. The mysteries are not very interesting and Haruta is nothing but an anooying smartass solving everything by himself while Chika just tags along. This changes for the better from epi…
Read at the sourceSpiritedTrash
A famous idiom is, "To kill two birds with one stone."
But with Haruchika, it's more like "To miss two birds with 12 stones."
Haruchika revolves around two main characters (in case you haven't guessed from the title, their names are nonetheless Haruta and Chika), that are part of the Brass Band Club. Not only are Haruta and Chika trying to do their best for this club, and thus, attempting to get more members, they are also solving mysteries going around the school that, very conveniently, involve introducing new characters that play an instrument (and with every solved mystery, it often results in gaining a new member for the band club). While this seems like Haruchika is technically killing two birds with one stone, in the actual execution of it, it is anything but that.
Also, on a side…
Read at the sourceNoonebutMark
This anime had too much plates spinning for it and it just couldn't handle them masterfully.
Story:
It is about a brass band club and their goal of winning a tournament for Kusakabe-sensei. So the anime goes about introducing recruits for the brass band club and alongside that, we get to solve a mystery with the leads Haruta and Chika, then the character gets recruited except for one. It is the basic routine of the anime except towards the end but every episode has a mystery.
Characters:
Haruta and Chika don't have character development in this anime rather we get to know Kusakabe sensei more and the recruits. Those who are already members of the band aren't given the spotlight. The other characters are just throwaway and never really appreciated.
Sound:
The OP and ED are amazing and…
Read at the sourcePyraXadon
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 plac…
Read at the sourceAllenHavens92
If you're looking for a show with mystery, HaruChika is one that falls flat with a mixture of elements that don't seem to work well together.
While summaries for the series will say its about our title characters recruiting members for the ensemble, it mostly focuses on the mystery aspect. Although these cases result in the increase in members, I feel like there isn't a good balance between the two plot lines. Sure, there are musical references, but we hardly see the ensemble practice that much.
For characters, I would have to say Chika is my favorite for her brazen stupidity, willing to say whatever's on her mind and do what her gut tells her to do. Haruto is the exact opposite, as in he's my least favorite. I just don't like his smug attitude that makes him come off as, for a lack of b…
Read at the sourceamystic
If you liked anime like Hyouka or Hibike! Euphonium, go watch them instead. It'll be a lot better than watching this weird combination of both. This anime was a big disappointment. It tried to be too many things at once and it ended up as a huge mess. Towards the end I felt like I was forcing myself to watch it.
The story tried to be a combination of a mystery anime and a lighthearted slice of life music anime. The idea seems nice at first, but it didn't turn out well. The music part ended up being a backdrop and had no actual impact on the story. Just take any musical element out of this show and you'll barely even feel it's missing most of the time. The lighthearted comedy relief moments were nice, but there were times when they were just out of place.
If there is something I like doing…
Read at the sourceLegendAqua
So...P.A Work's version of ''Hibike Euphonium'' and ''Hyouka'' LA takes it?..with mixed results.
LA will say this about the plot, the plot follows a format of "mystery of the episode" with sprinkles of character development and "getting more members" for the band sub-plotline. The mysteries are extremely clever and some of the mysteries do go further than a "simple" mystery although due to Haruta being the all-knowing Sherlock with no equal, he usually solves all the mysteries. The mystery of the episode DO gives us some sort of clue to clue us in, however there are some mysteries that go into the realms of "prior knowledge only Haruta knew" to solve it, with that although many of the mysteries are indeed interesting and moves the plot forward the mystery is overall decent for this fusio…
Read at the sourceStark700
Ah high school club, music, and mystery? Here’s the thing about the show. We got a young girl named Chika who tries to renew her life by quitting the volleyball team and joining the wind instrument club. Because in life, that’s what we do right? We strive to improve ourselves and try out new ideas. The problem is, the club only has a few members and its being threatened to be shut down. To make matters worse, bizarre events emerges during their school year. Reunited with her childhood friend Haruta, this show seeks to turn ordinary every day stories into a bizarre package of formulaic misadventures.
To start things off, the series adapts a novel series written by Sei Hatsuno. P.A. Works is in charge of the production but impressions aren’t high at first. The studio has been known for bein…
Read at the source