Takafumi of the Pls No Hate blog posted his review of the summer 2024 anime season. I always enjoy Takafumi’s reviews, both because of the good analysis and also because they include many shows I avoid. But one show we both watched and failed to finish was P.A. Works’ Nanare Hananare (localized by Crunchyroll as Narenare: Cheer For You!). Takafumi got through 2 episodes. I managed to make it through six before tapping out (I think I lost here). I had already begun writing an article over the weekend about my sometimes-difficult relationship with anime by studio P.A. Works, and I figured being able to link to a brief note on its most recently completed anime would be a nice addition to that in-progress article.
In his brief analysis of the first two Nanare Hananare episodes, Takafumi opined that “Anna is god awful.” “Anna” refers to Anna Aveiro, a blonde, overly-energetic, Japanese-Brazilian girl who gets the ball in the series rolling (despite not being the principal main protagonist) by roping four other girls into producing content for her online video channel. Despite the fact that Anna is Brazilian, it would be easy to confuse her with many of anime’s blonde Americans. She is hyper-active, very loud, blunt, has no concept of personal space, and has some very interesting English pronunciations for a supposedly native speaker.
I agree with Takafumi that Anna was annoying in the first two episodes. Takafumi also said of the show “Maybe I could get through it on a binge watch, but I doubt I’d like it, so I’m just not going to bother.” From someone who watched six episodes, allow me to opine that not bothering is the safe choice. Anna gets her own character arc in episodes 4-5 about trying to keep a musty local record store that she loves from closing. The show does establish why the record store is important to Anna. Given that she is in high school, one may think that this would be an opportunity for Anna to accept that businesses come and go and to express her gratitude to the store owner who had run his record shop as a labor of love and consistently treated her well. Instead, Anna throws a tantrum, sulks, and generally acts like a 10-year old before summoning foreign celebrities to Japan (with some of the worst anime-English I have heared, bad as in how I would sound trying to pronounce Japanese). The arc was not helped by the fact that everyone, from the other main characters to entirely new characters, indulged Anna all the way through the arc’s improbable positive conclusion. I stuck it out one episode after the arc, but I had lost all hope for the show after Anna and the record store.
As I noted at the top, I have a difficult relationship with studio P.A. Works. It produced what was nearly my 2015 anime of the year (Shirobako) and a few other pieces I like (True Tears and Sakura Quest). But mixed in with those are pleasant mediocrities (Tari Tari), series which underachieved on account of annoying characters (Hanasaku Iroha and The Aquatope on White Sand), underachievers for lack of direction (Angel Beats), trainwrecks that got my hopes up with pretty previews (Glasslip), and at least one anime atrocity (Charlotte). I will describe Nanare Hananare as an inoffensive mess. I could see someone who does not find Anna obnoxious and does not expect too much from Nanare Hananare finding it somewhat pleasant.
(Anna Aveiro aside, I will note that 2024 has been generous to other anime Annas, but that will have to wait for my 2024 year-end review in a few months.)