Whenever it comes to story in any sort of fiction, whether it is a book, or anime, it is very risky to set the plot up in way where each segment or episode is based on one particular event, only to never be brought up in that series again, thus creating that “event of the episode” format that is repetitive. Again, I say it is risky because the author could set up that repetitive format in a way that can be interesting, if done right. Now, what does that have to do with HaruChika? Well, everything, given HaruChika follows that format with a twist.
Spoilers ahead! If you haven’t seen this episode, I suggest you stop here. If you haven’t watched the series, please have a look at my first impression of the show (Spoiler Free).
(Note: I have changed the scoring system to a letter grade only and will continue to only use letter scores on my future reviews).
In all honesty, I don’t know how I feel about this episode. Don’t get me wrong, it was good, but I felt it was there for foreshadowing and more character of the week purposes than anything else. The episode was mainly focused on our new character this week than the mystery, along with comedic moments. Speaking of character of the week, we get introduced to Naoko Serizawa, a clarinetist aiming to become a professional musician, but unfortunately, she has sensorineural hearing loss. If you’re a musician or have experience in music, you’ll know that the loss of your hearing and hands are a nightmare because, well, musicians need those. We can see how she is affected by this slightly, but her path to going pro doesn’t stop since there are ways to help hearing loss.
With hearing loss on the mind, it seems Naoko has been avoiding conversations with people and lacking in her grades. She’s also the one who is responsible for stealing the clarinet and sneaking around. Well, it turns out that she has lost something in the brass club, which turned out to be her hearing aid….that is broken. Poor Naoko. Well, at least she fixed the clarinet. This episode wasn’t heavy on the mystery this time around, so finding out Naoko has hearing loss and that she stole the clarinet is the closest to any mystery we get, but the comedy did get a boost this time since I chuckled a bit when Chika dodged that vehicle with nice reflexes and the scene at the beginning where Chika makes Naoko sneaking around very suspenseful, only to have Haruta just play it off.
The final scenes are definitely foreshadowing on what’s to come in the future and it is obvious Naoko will join the brass band since she’s in the opening. Also, it seems we will get to see our future percussionist in the upcoming episodes, since Naoko brought up the fact that she has a friend that can play the drums, which is why she was sneaking around the brass club to see that snare drum. With HaruChika’s story being more focused on mystery than music, I wonder if the next episode will start bringing up progression for the final plot and if it does, will it be centered on mystery or music? I believe mystery is the way to go with HaruChika, since it hasn’t done too much progression with its music plot.
Overall, this episode didn’t do too much and felt like setup for something big coming up. Since we are at the halfway point, my main worry is HaruChika dropping the ball because it can only get better or worse from here on. As each episode continues, the chances for it to recover if it does something bad decreases, so if HaruChika wants to pull out the big guns, it might want to start now. The next two episodes will have a lot of anticipation in them, so I’m looking forward to what will happen. HaruChika hasn’t let me down yet, and I sure hope it doesn’t start doing that now!
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