Tag: Horimiya

Horimiya: The Missing Pieces Review

Horimiya: The Missing Pieces Review

Horimiya: The Missing Pieces anime series cover art
Horimiya: The Missing Pieces

The Missing Pieces

Horimiya: The Missing Pieces (Horimiya: Piece / ホリミヤ -piece-) is sort of a sequel to the Horimiya anime. It’s also sort of a spin-off. But, in reality, it’s neither of those things. As the name implies, this series covers the content the original anime skipped.

In order to fight an entire year into one season, a lot of content had to be cut. But now, we have that cut content. Or, at least some of it. I don’t read the manga, so I don’t actually know if The Missing Pieces covers everything.

However, what I do know is that I would rather have gotten two normal seasons of the series. The first season could cover the first half of the year. And the second season could cover the second half of the year. I don’t know for sure why that wasn’t done. But, I can make an assumption.

Remi Ayasaki from the anime series Horimiya: The Missing Pieces
Remi Ayasaki

If you want my assumption, it’s that they only planned to make one season of the anime. Otherwise, this decision makes no sense. And, it might be that after the success of the original season, they got the green light for The Missing Pieces.

Is The Missing Pieces worth watching, though? In my correct opinion, it’s not as good as the first season. But, if you look at the average scores of both seasons on MyAnimeList, it seems most people disagree. The Missing Pieces has a slightly higher rating of 8.27 compared to 8.20.

With that said, it’s important to contextualize those scores. The Missing Pieces was only rated by 70,000 viewers. The original season was rated by 783,000 viewers. And those who went on to watch the “second season” are more likely to be fans of the series.

If you’re a Horimiya fan, you’ll like this season.

New Characters

Something I wasn’t expecting was for The Missing Pieces to introduce new characters. But, that’s exactly what it did. And, it didn’t stop at throwing in new characters. It also gave more screen time to some of the supporting characters.

The supporting character who got the largest bump in screen time is Akane Yanagi. I actually didn’t remember Yanagi from the original series, at first, and thought he was new. But, he’s not new. He just didn’t get very much attention the first time around. I wish he did, though, as he’s a pretty good character.

Aoi Kitahara is the first new character I want to mention. He’s a middle schooler who’s a classmate of Shuu Iura’s younger sister. Matoko Iura has a crush on Kitahara. However, Kitahara becomes obsessed with Shuu after meeting him for the first time.

Shuu Iura putting his arm around Aoi Kitahara from the anime series Horimiya: The Missing Pieces
Shuu Iura putting his arm around Aoi Kitahara

The next new character is Maya Nogami. She’s a freshman and one of Honoka Sawada’s classmates. Honoka and Maya become friends after Honoka helps Maya prepare for Valentine’s Day. Maya has a crush on Shuu and didn’t know what kind of chocolate he would like. So, Honoka asked since she’s friends with the third-years.

Next is Ichirou Watabe, Miyamura’s stalker. Ichirou has an obsession with all things Miyamura. He has an extensive collection of photographs of Miyamura that he’s taken at school. And, he’s always watching Miyamura’s every move. But, it doesn’t seem like Watabe actually wants to interact with Miyamura.

Finally, there’s Takeru Sengoku, Kakeru Sengoku’s father. Kakeru is the current student council president. And, when Takeru was in school, he was the student council president. Despite being two years older than Hori’s father, Takeru was also bullied by Kyousuke. To this day, he still believes the Hori family is no good.

Chronological Order?

At this point, you may be wondering if you should watch all of Horimiya in chronological order. And I’m here to tell you, no. If you really want to watch the series in chronological order, you can. But, it’s not something you can do without a lot of effort.

There are two huge problems with watching Horimiya chronologically. And the first is that it’s not in chronological order on a fundamental level. Each episode is split into multiple parts. And each of those parts may or may not be in chronological order.

For example, the second half of Episode 3 of the original series comes before the first half. But, it gets worse. The Missing Pieces Episode 1 has 3 parts that take place between Horimiya Episodes 2 and 9. And, those parts fall between parts of other episodes.

You’ll have to rebuild the whole series to watch it in chronological order.

Cheerleader Kyouko Hori from the anime series Horimiya: The Missing Pieces
Cheerleader Kyouko Hori

Now, I was going to try to provide you with a simplified chronological order. But, after a little bit of trying, I scrapped that idea. There’s really no way to simplify it due to how scrambled many of the episode parts are.

However, that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. For the true masochists out there, Crunchyroll put out an in-depth chronological guide. I still wouldn’t recommend watching the series this way. It seems like swapping between episodes would be more work than it’s worth. But, you can do it, if you want.

Instead of going through all that, though, I’d recommend watching the series as-is. Would Horimiya be better if the whole series was in chronological order? It’s possible. But, the order we got isn’t terrible. All you have to do is treat The Missing Pieces like extra content for the series.

Final Thoughts

In the end, I gave Horimiya: The Missing Pieces a 6/10. It was a pretty good “season.” But, I felt like it got a bit slow during the middle. The first few episodes were enjoyable, as were the last few. Everything in between didn’t leave much of an impact.

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Horimiya

Horimiya

Horimiya anime series cover art
Horimiya

Series Overview

Horimiya (ホリミヤ) is the anime adaptation of the manga by the same name. The Horimiya manga is one of the most popular manga ever, ranking at #11 overall on MyAnimeList. And despite that, I’d never heard of it until the anime was announced.

It’s not like I would have read the manga had I known about it earlier. But, I think it’s interesting that something can be so popular within the community I’m part of and yet I hadn’t heard of it. I even know people who read it, but they never mentioned it until the anime.

I guess that’s just what happens when a series doesn’t fall into the action genre. It feels like I only ever hear about shounen and seinen action manga before they receive anime adaptions. Every other manga I hear of is only after they get adapted.

Anyway, Horimiya is a slice of life romantic comedy — and no, it’s not a harem, which is refreshing. Yes, there are a lot of other non-harem rom-coms. But I feel like the harem subgenre is a bit oppressive. When I think of rom-coms, they generally tend to be harems.

Something else that sets Horimiya apart from most other anime in its same genres is that the titular protagonists, Hori and Miyamura, are actually in a relationship. It’s not one of those series that’s all about baiting the viewer into wondering what’s going to happen between the characters.

The season doesn’t build up to Miyamura confessing to Hori or anything overdone like that. We always know where their relationship stands, and that’s very nice. It’s really difficult for me to care about the wishy-washy relationships in most series like this.

Characters that Matter

Kyouko Hori is probably going to be my pick for “best girl of 2021” by the end of the year. I know there are still a lot of anime to air this year. But I really like Hori. She’s cute, she has good characterization, and she’s a bit kinky which is always a plus.

Izumi Miyamura is hot. I’ll say it. He’s a hot guy. The only male character I can think of who I’d put above him in terms of hotness is adult Eren Yeager (from the manga, specifically). Unfortunately, Miyamura does get a haircut partway through the anime and then he just looks generic and not hot.

Hori and Miyamura from the anime series Horimiya
Hori and Miyamura

Aside from those two, I’d say that there are really only two other characters who “matter.” These are Yuki Yoshikawa and Tohru Ishikawa. Yuki and Tohru are Hori and Miyamura’s friends who constantly have romantic tension between them.

I’ve heard that a lot of manga readers prefer Yuki and Tohru over Hori and Miyamura. But based on the anime, I have to say Hori and Miyamura are more interesting. Yuki and Tohru have that wishy-washy relationship I was just complaining about.

Now, just because I say that those are the only two other characters that matter doesn’t mean I like the rest of the cast less. There’s also Remi, Kakeru, Akane, Shuu, Sakura, Honoka, and Kyousuke (Hori’s dad), just to name a few of the other major recurring characters.

Aside from Hori and Miyamura, Kyousuke is definitely the best character in the series. Remi and Honoka are pretty cute too, but I find their characters to be fairly annoying. And, the issue of annoying characters is pretty major.

I just didn’t feel like most of the characters were all that likable. A lot of them have character quirks that are pretty infuriating.

Horimiya’s Biggest Problem

While annoying characters are definitely a problem with Horimiya, I think that’s actually the product of a bigger issue the anime has. My main complaint with the series is that the supporting cast just doesn’t matter all that much.

Hori and Miyamura get a lot of good characterization and development. The rest of the characters don’t. Yuki and Tohru get the most out of the supporting cast, but even they fall way short when compared to Hori and Miyamura.

Now, you might be thinking, “Obviously that’s the case. Hori and Miyamura are the main characters.” Yes, but every other character gets focused on for an episode or two and then effectively becomes part of the background.

Miyamura and Hori from the anime series Horimiya
Miyamura and Hori

What this means is that we get a bit of characterization for everyone, but then their storylines stop short of any real development being introduced. For example, we learn a bit about why Remi is useless, but she never gets to a point where she’s no longer useless. Her arc stops before she develops beyond what makes her annoying.

Honoka is the character who exemplifies what I mean when I say the supporting characters become part of the background. After the one episode that focused on her, she played no role in the anime. We would just sometimes see her briefly without her adding anything.

And then there’s Shuu, a character who oddly seems to have had his introduction skipped. I honestly don’t remember him ever being properly introduced. In one episode he was just suddenly there as a core member of the group. I even checked to see if I skipped an episode — I didn’t.

But, like the rest, after Shuu’s one or two episodes, he fades away and doesn’t do much. He’s just a presence in the background after that. If the anime was two cours instead of one, maybe this issue wouldn’t be as prominent. But also I think it would get very repetitive if it was that long.

Conclusion

You might think that I’m going to give Horimiya a bad rating because of all my complaints. However, I think it’s a 7/10 overall. It’s a good anime. I love the art style, I really like the main characters, and it has both a great OP and great ED.

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My review of The Missing Pieces is available now.

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