Hinako Note

Hinako Note

Hinako Note Cover Art
Hinako Note Cover Art

Overview

Hinako Note is about a girl named Hinako who isn’t very good at talking to other people. She prefers interacting with animals because she doesn’t freeze up with them like she does with people. However, Hinako wants to be better at speaking in front of people so when she transfers to a new school from the countryside she decides to join a theater club.

Unfortunately, the theater club is currently on hiatus. But luckily for Hinako, her landlady happens to be a stage performer and so they start their own theater troupe with the other girls who live and work in the Cafe/Bookstore Hitotose.

Characters

Hinako is the main character of the show. As I previously mentioned, she’s not good at talking to other people so she tends to freeze up when she does. Because of this, she was often used as a scarecrow back in the countryside where she’s from. Although she “worked” as a scarecrow, she also attracts animals who flock to her as she stands frozen.

While I can understand why she would want to get better at talking to other people, joining a theater group suddenly seems more like torture than something that would be helpful.

Next is my favorite character, Kuina. As with any show like this, there has to be one girl who is completely over-the-top. Think Kyouko from Yuru Yuri or Satanichia from Gabriel DropOut.

Kuina works in the bookstore portion of Hitotose. She loves eating and loves books which sometimes results in her eating the pages directly out of the books she’s reading in the bookstore.

Chiaki is the landlady of the Hitotose Cafe/Bookstore. She is a member of the theater club which is on hiatus, but she is also has experience in street performing. Of the four main girls she’s the only one with any real acting experience even though this is an anime about theater.

The last of the core group is Mayuki. She works in the cafe portion of Hitotose and regularly wears frilly maid outfits even though there is no dress code requiring her to. Her dream is to be a princess or something like that and she has no real interest in performing in a play.

Other than those four characters there are two other recurring characters I should mention. The first is Yua, another girl who wants to be a member of the theater club because she’s obsessed with Chiaki. The second is a child actress who is the adviser of the theater club even though she’s nine years old.

Hinako being scared by Kuina in a shark costume
Hinako and Kuina

Conclusion

While Hinako Note is a good slice of life comedy anime, I wouldn’t say it’s anything special. Overall, even though I liked it while watching it, I could only give it a 6/10.

It was an anime that could definitely have a second season, but I’m not sure if it will ever actually get one since there are so many other similar anime already. It’s no shounen which is guaranteed to get more than one season even if it isn’t that good.

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