viola.blanda - 2014-12-16 06:56:59

The styles and character design is really nice and fancy. Ending was unexpected and was left off in a cliffhanger, can't wait for Season 2. Too bad Hajime has too less screen-time, I watched this show because of her in the cover.

aswift - 2014-08-26 17:28:42

Hamatora is a pretty surprising anime. It plays with typical anime conventions proving to be self-aware and leaving the audience a little off balance. A large cast initially seems unwieldy, but episodes devoted to specific pairings manages to provide enough backstory to make each interesting and sympathetic. Animation is decent by today's standards, though the psychedelic color pattern used for the Minimum abilities takes it a step up.

The main story isn't too shocking, but the villain had an interesting world view that was paralleled in the main protagonist.

I broke this series into three parts on my YouTube channel and devoted a video to every 4 episodes. If you're interested, you can check out the link here.

rutherford.delta - 2014-08-06 10:20:27

wconn - 2014-05-11 02:52:29

Full Review Here: http://littlecloudcuriosity.com/category/anime-recaps-reviews/hamatora/

zjakubowski - 2014-03-26 08:29:54

This show reminds me an awful lot of last Summer's Blood Lad. And I don't mean because it literally has the same character designer but because it's another show that is both really good and really bad at the same time. I'm not talking about "so bad, it's good" here, I mean it is kind of both simultaneously.

The story is about a world where some people have weird super-powers called "minimums" and everyone else doesn't. More specifically, it is about a private detective agency... or something to that effect, that investigates cases relating to various minimum holders. It starts off episodic but with hints of an overall plot and by the end turns into a story of it's own.

Now this series is interesting for a number of reasons. It plays with tropes and your expectations, for one. It has a habit of subverting or inverting many common tropes and LOVES making social commentary whenever it can, atleast one message per episode. The story is kind of exciting in a rather pulpy kind of way. Which doesn't mean that it is well-written... just that it is well-presented and is intriguing enough to catch your attention.

The biggest issue I have with Hamatora is its cast. There are way too many characters, which was the same problem that Blood Lad had too. While the show is pretty show about making sure everyone gets atleast a bit of bare-bones characterization and their time in the spotlight... it isn't really enough. In the end, I only cared about certain characters superficially instead of really getting to know them.

The character designs are brilliant. They are colorful and eye-catching and no two named characters look alike. Some of these designs are so good I wish they each had their own show to develop real character to go along with it. As it is, it almost feels like a waste to have so much potential and not know what to do with it. Now, the characters that DO get more focus are alright as far as 1-cour anime are concerned, but I wish the show had trimmed down its cast to alleviate this problem and give more time to the people it was actually going to develop.

The music and voice acting is also really good, so combined with fresh, vivid visuals, it is certainly very pretty despite the actual animation being barely above average at best.

So why is the Overall rating lower than one might expect? Because Hamatora is larger than this show. It is a mixed media project and I usually hate those because all it says to me is "we can't do one medium well so we're going to do 5 mediums in a mediocre fashion and hope it makes up the difference". As soon as this show started airing, there sprung up multiple manga versions, a video game, I think even some light novels as well. I know this is typical but it is so blatant here that it is almost degrading.

For all that Hamatora loves to critique society, it seems to be oblivious to its own hyper-commercialism. Which is amusingly ironic.

Fair warning; the ending is rapidly becoming infamous for being an enormous cliffhanger that resolves very little and is not satisfying in any way. If another season is indeed on the way then perhaps this can be forgiven, and the score may go up a point. If not, it'll stay where it is.

This is a weird, stylish, fun show that has a few major issues plaguing it. That doesn't mean it isn't worth watching however.

Rewatch Value: Maybe (Out of a Yes/Maybe/No scale)

frederick40 - 2014-03-24 18:13:04

Hamatora the Animation is the perfect example of an anime with an identity crisis. It can't seem to decide what it wants to be and unfortunately, it might be too late for it to save itself.

Let me say right off that by no means do I think Hamatora is a bad show. It's been quite entertaining and I have to say that I've enjoyed myself quite a bit while watching it. But I just can't seem to get over how much wasted potential it has.

The premise and characters aren't too original. In fact, they're quite cliché. However, the plot is executed in a good way, so I don't think I have much of a right to complain about unoriginality. But at the same time, the plot is one of the show's biggest weaknesses in that it's not sure what it is. Confused? Thought so. The two main themes in Hamatora are very contradictory, which makes it very hard to write a good plot. The first theme is one that belongs in a dark, gritty detective story where death is plentiful and deep philosophical ideas are knocked around like tennis balls. The other is one that's more common in anime than the first: the bouncy, bright, happy-go-lucky theme that makes people barf rainbows. Like I said before, these two themes are extremely hard to blend, and Hamatora's not doing a good job of that. It would've been better if they'd just chosen one of these themes and wrote the story according to only that. Either of them would've been great. I, personally, would've liked the dark theme, but that's up to personal preference.

I really have no problem with the characters themselves. Despite being cliché there's nothing that makes me want to give them a bad review. But here's the thing: the show focuses on the wrong characters. Despite Nice being the main protagonist, the series focuses very little on him, and instead decides to develop an array of side and supporting characters. It's good when an anime doesn't only focus on the main protagonists, but Hamatora takes this a bit too far.

However, there is still hope for Hamatora in the character aspect. Nice has received a bit of development throughout the course of the series, and it seems that the final few episodes will begin to focus more on him and his development and worth as a protagonist.

The thing that strikes me about Hamatora's animation is that it's so colorful. The Minimum powers are rendered beautifully, and the show is still very nice to look at even when Minimum isn't being used. The characters are consistent and well designed as well. This is definitely the best part of Hamatora, and I think that Hamatora has the best animation of all the winter 2014 anime thus far.

The sound of Hamatora is well done as far. Livetune (I think it was them) did a good job making a catchy intro, and it wasn't too difficult to tell that the guy who did the soundtrack for this is the same guy who did the one for Durarara.

Hamatora would be a really great series if it weren't for two things: bad use of themes and emphasis on the wrong characters. It is pretty entertaining, but these flaws really do show through and kinda ruin the experience. My recommendation? If it's easily available, them wavy it by all means, but it's nothing to go out of your way for.

bashirian.raymundo - 2014-03-06 02:08:00

Didn't expect it to be as good as it is. I was already captured by the art style, and to see them follow-through with an amazing lead and great surrounding characters was pleasant. Happy to see nobody's story lost and such great focus on character growth and story development.

margie35 - 2014-02-22 01:26:20

I like hamatora. When I watch the first episode, I got curious about what will happen next. That's curiosity. Also it's mysterious ^_^

jsmith - 2014-01-15 07:54:44

Quite, interesting! ~

The story seems fine, characters are okay but they could be at least more interesting and the animation was fantastic, can't wait for the upcoming episodes!~

birdie74 - 2014-01-12 05:38:51

There’s not a lot of background information on Hamatora available without reading directly from the manga that released a few months ago. That being said, I wasn’t sure what I expecting when I started this episode. First of all – I like it! I give it thumbs up for a first episode that isn’t too overwhelming, nor is it too lackluster. The story formula is very tried and true, and one that works to my liking even though it may not be original. I love me a good mystery and I think this series delivers that. This first episode seemed very episodic (for the sake of an introduction), but I don’t expect that to continue into the next arc. I think this series delivers a great set up for the rest of the show this way, and it clearly lays out who “Minimum Holders” are and what makes our protagonists so special.

There’s not much more I can say about this show that I haven’t already said in my preview. It’s about two guys, Nice (Osaka Ryota) and Murasaki (Hatano Wataru) and they’re both private investigators that make up the group Hamatora. Their “office” is actually just a table in a bar and they take on random cases here and there to make a living. They’re both also “Minimum Holders” – people born with supernatural abilities. Unlike others though, they don’t abuse their powers and use it only to defend people. Their circle of friends include a girl that likes to eat (that’s me!) named Hajime (Kato Emiri), an actual police investigator named Art (Kamiya Hiroshi), other Minimum Holders and then some. I won’t name them all here because I’m sure we’ll get to see much more of them later on.

A few impressions that I got when I started initially previewing this series was that Nice and Murasaki were pretty much broke. I thought they weren’t very good at their job (which means they don’t have income) and they didn’t have many companions either. To my surprise, that’s not the case at all. In fact, Nice and Murasaki are very good at what they do and they should be rolling in dough from the way they solved this one! They also have friends (some of the Minimum Holders too I expect) that help them along the way. Sounds cliché, but as an introductory episode, I’ll let it slide. In terms of plot and story, I’m quite impressed by how much they were able to fit in one episode. There are obviously a lot of coincidences and a lot of thought processing (especially within Nice’s mind) that the viewer doesn’t see, but I think the anime tries to convey as much as possible without giving too much away. I can appreciate that the whole point of the story is just to provide some context for what’s to come so I won’t criticize it too much yet.

The animation definitely is the biggest issue I have with the show so far. Not that it’s bad but there’s a huge difference from the beginning of the episode, to the end. It’s fairly inconsistent because as someone who doesn’t pride themselves as “all-anime-knowing”, even I can see the fluctuations. I hope this doesn’t become a problem later on (or see the production value decrease even further) because I think some of the scenes are already below average (or maybe it’s just huge censorship…). Even some of the color contrasts and scenes, make my eyes cringe because it’s like they flipped the switch on the “invert colors with high saturation and contrast” button and it’s supposed to symbolize the activation of Minimum powers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work well with me. Everything else seems to work fine though – the storytelling is very reminiscent of Durarara!! as many people point out, but I think it has a long way to go to meet those standards (I really liked that show!). The songs choices (both OP and ED) are very J-pop-like and aren’t anything too memorable for the time being. I like how they give a brief bio on each character in the opening sequence though. It seems like the creators have a story waiting to be told and I like that in a series, especially when it’s new and original. I’ll definitely stick around to see what’s in store… like I said, I love a good mystery and there haven’t been that many lately that blew me away.

(will update frequently)