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Are you having a bad week? Is school or work exhausting your life force? Do you want something at the end of the week to look forward to? Hinako Note was just that thing. Spring season is at the end of the school year and a busy time for people who work. At the end of every week I sit down to enjoy this lovely show that whispers to my soul "everything is all right" and pumps me with energy for the coming week. Why would anyone expect something other than light hearted comedy with very cute girls after reading the synopsis and looking at theposter of the anime. It is very clear as to what expect from this anime and it delivers more than what's expected. Story 9/10 Watch, enjoy and cheer for our adorable Hinako who struggles to get over her shyness and try to become a theatre actress. Other than that just enjoy the characters engaging in simple things that have been done over and over but this anime knows how to fulfil the cuteness parameters. Art 10/10 Usually in anime you know the chibi style is meant as a comic relief but in this one you won't know which one is the cuter. Everything is beautiful and cute Sound 10/10 I usually skip the intro and outro of all anime but the cute songs are stuck to my head and you'll feel as if they were having fun singing this. The voice actresses did a wonderful job to give life to those cute characters making each one a unique marshmallow of sweetness. Characters 10/10 If not for the title of the anime you'd confuse who is the sole main character, each one is sweet on her on. Enjoyment 10:10 I enjoyed each second of this anime. Whenever I had to look away even for a second I'd pause or replay just so I don't miss anything. And loads of thanks to the fansubs who translated her notes (which you'll find very cute) I mentioned the word cute many times in my review, if you think that's a lot of cuteness then maybe it's not for you. This entire genre of cute girls doing cute things is meant as a stress relief and it'll be pointless if you're not stressed and your life is perfect (you may enjoy it idk). The only reason I didn't give it a 10/10 is because it's over, it should air every week forever

Lancehot

TL;DR – A cute girls show that is never quite sure what cute things they should be doing, Hinako Note feels unfocused whilst at the same time increasingly focusing on the characters bodies. The potential for a good cute girl show was there, but it really needed a redraft or more editorial oversight to achieve it. It's not easy starting again in a new city. It's even harder for Hinako, a girl whose social anxiety makes her freeze like a scarecrow when approached by strangers. It wasn't as bad in the countryside, where having a human scarecrow to attract animals away from fields was useful. Butit won't do her much good in Tokyo. Yet that's partly what drew her there, because she has come up with a solution to overcoming her shyness: acting. After meeting her new house mates – the book-eating Kuina, maid dressing Mayuki & landlady Chiaki – they resolve to form an acting troupe to bring more customers to Chiaki's cafe & maybe even perform on a famous stage. That is if they can find time between all the other cute girl shenanigans they get up to. At the start, Hinako Note seems like it will be a spin on the cute girls running a shop set-up that proved popular in Is This Order a Rabbit? There's both a bookshop & a café to split time between, as well as a high school & threatre club – where they meet the final main member of the group; the bratty Yua. However, it flits between settings with abandon, leaving things feeling unfocused & unconnected, particularly as it becomes increasingly episodic. It's almost as though the original author couldn't pick one cute girl location, so tried to have all of them. It also has the effect of making Hinako's progression towards overcoming her shyness feel disjointed. The idea is that the acting will cause her to gradually gain in self-confidence so that she no longer freezes when talking to people, which is what happens – twice. While the show generally does a fine job showing her friendships develop over time, her own shyness increasingly seems to come & go when it's convenient. One might expect it to have been structured such that, for example, she starts off barely able to talk & ends giving the leading performance on the big stage, symbolising her finally overcoming her anxiety. Alternatively, it could have gradually dropped the idea altogether, perhaps shifting the theme from overcoming your weaknesses to accepting them & finding people who accept you for who you are. Instead it peaks & troughs throughout the series, with apparent breakthroughs being followed by a return to the scarecrow pose the next time it's funny. But in some ways that's to be expected, given how the show evolves over its runtime. While it starts out looking like an ensemble anime, all about the importance of friendship & the various relationships between the characters; by about episode six it increasingly seems more about waifu worship & how great Hinako is. Ditsy, vulnerable & air-headed yet also amazing & perfectly proportioned, Hinako quickly becomes the centre of almost everything happening around her. She may not be every viewers favourite character, but she clearly is the director's, it becoming rather eye-rolling by the time a clamshell pillow has been added to her bath scenes like she's some sort of discount Venus. There is some indication that this is all meant to be presented from Hinako's point of view. A notebook, presumably Hinako's, is often used as the image to break up segments of the show, perhaps suggesting this is all being taken from her diary (clue is in the name, I suppose). But while that may somewhat explain why the show focuses on her, it doesn't explain the things about her it focuses on. To be fair, all of them get a degree of back story & time to further distinguish themselves as characters, though it all feels a bit predictable. Yua has a girl crush on Chiaki that somehow seems to end up being directed, effectively if not explicitly, at Hinako. Mayuki is insecure about her height & being treated like a child while Chiaki is...attractive & responsible? Kuina, despite looking like Konata from Lucky Star, doesn't fill that or really any role. She eats paper & dresses in animal onesies, quirks compensating for lack of character. As if wanting to visually parallel this shift, there is progressively more fan-service as the series goes on, particularly once it's revealed what a great body Hinako has. There are two or three of what might be charitably called dress-up episodes, with each one seeing characters striking progressively more risqué poses. The incidental pervy cuts become increasingly so, with body pans escalating to close-ups of T&A while the images used for the next episode previews become increasingly fetishistic - one being of Kuina licking Hinako's foot. A degree of this is to be expected in cute girl shows, but at times Hinako's Note ramps it up to sex comedy levels despite never being one; the lewd parts never feeling in character or particularly connected with what else is going on. Oh & since important industry types undoubtedly read every MAL review, I have a request: Please stop using moo sounds to indicate big breasts are on screen. Please, just stop. Of course, if this sounds like your kind of thing, then Hinako Note's production does a fine job presenting it. It looks & sounds pretty much as you'd expect, with suitably bright & colourful images, standard but appealing character designs & an upbeat, whimsical soundtrack. There were no notable dips in quality, though a minor but noticeable thing is the increasingly static background characters. By the same token, though, it never really excels, with no memorable animation sequences or the like. The OP & ED are somewhat notable for being the type of music that goes through multiple key & time signature changes, creating a sort of bubbly, schizophrenic mashup of cute girl sounds, unfortunately accompanied by some rather lacklustre dance routines. There are some good things in Hinako Note. The characters are likeable, if not utilised to their full potential & some episodes deliver good enough cute girl antics. But it never manages to hold its focus on any one of its ideas for long, even as the camera increasingly focused on the characters vital assets. An okayish show that needed more editorial oversight to become a good one. & I didn't even mention the busty 9 year old club advisor.