Hanoka is a unique anime. It’s the first anime which has been entirely made out of vector-graphics in flash. The result is quite interesting. It’s also one of the shortest tv-series ever. It’s got 12 episodes with a length of 5 minutes. If you deduct 90 seconds for the OP, and 30 more seconds for a recap of the previous episode, then all this anime has is 3×12 = 36 minutes of airtime.
For the story, the creators must’ve been put in front of quite a challenge. Not only did they have to think of a story to fit inside those 36 minutes, it also had to comply with the episode length of 3 minutes, and it still had to give enough opportunities to show the capabilities of flash-graphics. For that, it chose a story about a war being fought, between humans and large machines, owned by strange creatures called the citizens of the stars. The story is extremely basic, but still the creators managed to add romance, betrayal, a bit of background, and a fairly consistent story.
The creators could have done so much worse with this. The story was nothing special, but because the episodes were so short and the creators threw in enough interesting plot elements due to a fast pacing, this anime never really felt boring or annoying. The only really bad point is the ending, where the creators suddenly introduce another villain for no possible reason, even though it already had the material to make a good ending. Instead of focusing on this, this anime preferred to focus on that final antagonist, who didn’t really add anything to the story.
The graphics in flash are a hit or miss. Because they’re made in flash, don’t expect the drawings to be of an extreme or realistic quality. Personally, I quite liked the style though. Animation in vector-graphics is quite different from the animation in normal anime, so it was really refreshing to look at it. Others, however, might get too bothered by the unusual look.
Overall, it’s been a cute, short show. I rather enjoyed watching, even though this is nothing really special. Still, I’m suspecting that by far the largest part of the anime-community will never touch this show. It’s been made in a style that you have to like. If you’re into experimental anime, then you could check this out. However, you won’t find much joy in this if all you can stomach is Kanon-styled graphics.]]>
Hanoka Review – 74/100
