What They Say:
Hakone is about the hot spring spirit Hakone who descended to a spa resort on Earth. Due to her long slumber however, she now looks like a little girl. High school boy Toya stumbles across her at a hot spring and ends up helping Hakone retrieving her original powers.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While I’m not a fan of always bringing in an obligatory rival for the lead character, there are shows where it’s useful. Hakone-chan certainly needed that to give it a little more to work with and Miya’s fun as she plays it cool and above it all but is really just full of jealousy as she wants to take out Hakone. This episode brings us some time at Miya’s hotel with everyone in the outdoor swim area having fun, which means swimsuits galore and a far too cute old-school Hakone outfit. Hakone’s relaxed nature is definitely fun to watch since you know Miya will do her best to take advantage of it, and she does just that. It’s all pretty petty when you get down to it but it hits some very silly moments while not running blazingly fast, which makes it fun to watch.
In Summary:
Hakone-chan finds another nicely balanced episode here with what it wants to do now that Miya is a part of the picture. Naturally, that brings additional complications into the mix, particularly for Tohya, but the show’s not looking to go for anything deep when you get down to it. After a couple of awkward early episodes, it feels like it’s finally finding its balance and is hitting the comedy just right while giving us enough character to connect with it. It’s certainly not high end material or anything, but I’m finding it more and more charming each week.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
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