Hisone no Masotan – 03 [Take responsibility, would you?]

HisoMaso continues its bright, playful creativeness with another stellar episode, albeit a bit light in terms of plot. It’s an annual Air show and with that our titular characters’ bond is getting a little deeper. The cast’s getting even more expansive with several new faces, although somehow the main supporting characters that we see in the ED are still nowhere to be seen. Here I want to bring up one of HisoMaso’s unique appeal: its simple but incredibly expressive character designs: be it in their facial expressions or in their gestures. I believe the simple designs help loosen the strict movements we usually see in other anime. Here, each character has their own mannerism: their distinct movements can inform us plenty about the characters’ personality. In addition, their exaggerations actually never feel out of place with the tone of the show and the facial reactions from those characters are just something to behold, even with Masotan this episode whenever he hears Forest name. Those things help make up plenty for the lack of actual characteristics in our characters.

The main development of this episode revolves around the appearance of Hisone’s predecessor, Forest, which I’m still not sure if she’ll be a recurring character or just one-off. While she quit the D-pilot job few years ago, Hisone still feels the connection between Masotan and his old pal and becomes jealous of it. I can understand where Hisone coming from, given how she always regards Masotan and her have some sort of special bonding. Turns out, someone else even understands the dragon better than she does, so even her most secure feeling gets crumbling really quickly. Hisone’s speech with the dragon during their flight is another touching moment, further strengthen their special relationship. I also come to enjoy HisoMaso whimsical sense of wacky, most notably from Hisone’s remarks (gold: “I’m envious of your ability to sincerely believe this a proper contribution”. Way to go, Hisone) and her TAC name (which is like a nickname) is her freaking real name. I might not catch the nuance of the wordplays in those names here, or maybe the point is that these names don’t even mean anything excepts sound cool together (HisoMasooooooo)

As I said earlier, in terms of plot this show doesn’t have much to tell right now but it more than makes up by the strength of its stunning visual (I took like 40 screenshots out of this episode) and its easy-going bright atmosphere and fun characters. Being said that, I hope the show doesn’t get dark later on and I still HAVE NO IDEA what it will bring for the main overarching plot. The flights aspect is my least favorite part so far, so I hope they can turn that aspect into something more interesting. Somehow the lack of actual main plot doesn’t really worry me much, as long as HisoMaso still delivers those cute face expressions and introduces us more characters that we can relate to, I will be more than happy to get behind.