Anime Review : Himouto! Umaru-chan R review

Himouto! Umaru-chan R

“A cozy ride which allows us to look deep at this satisfying series.”

What is Himouto! Umaru-chan R?

Himouto! Umaru-chan R is the sequel to the commercially-succesfull, yet less appreciated series Himouto! Umaru-chan which originally premiered in 2015. The story depicts Umaru and again, her lazy outlook in life, but this time, she wants to change, as a sister and a human being.

 

So, how does it fare?

The season 2 of Umaru was announced fairly later, which 2 months after the announcement that NEW GAME was receiving a second season. This little insight proves on how much Doga Kobo values these two series, but leaning far more towards NEW GAME as the series is more critically received than Umaru, simply because NEW GAME is far better than Umaru in every aspects. While the announcement of Umaru season 2 did get many people hyped up to see the chibi Umaru wreak havoc again, few may have predicted that this could be this good. I think that not only the audiences, but also the critics, were baffled by the improvement made in the Umaru season 2, much like what NEW GAME gave us a season earlier.

We all know how this anime thrives in the eyes of it’s audience, capturing the viewer’s attention via it’s cute and chibi style of Umaru, as well as how she would approach thing in her own way, such as eating chips and cola, and make fun at things her way, which ironically what makes another half of the audience got turned off by it and makes several critics displeased by the series. Despite the status of main character is held by Umaru, the true star of the first season was Kirie and Ebina, and in this season, Umaru seeks to regain that status as a true star of the show and prove her critics wrong.

And boy, she did manage to do just that.

 

Gone was the overbearing and annoying Umaru and in comes the Umaru that knows the value of friendship, the burden of others, and knows the pain she has been causing last season, especially to her brother. In this season, Umaru looks like a former of her own self and a character reborn thanks to a well-written characterization, which allows the audience to truly endear to her as a main character.

The main comedic routines still remained within the show, but it was greatly, and I mean greatly, reduced and would turn in favor to developing the character of each cast that appeared throughout the show, particularly Umaru and Sylphinford, oh we’ll get to that later.

Umaru interacts more and more with other characters in the sequel.

Allowing her character to develop properly.

As I stated before, Umaru was like a character reborn. This is partly because of her newfound belief that she too is a human being, and wants to socialize with others properly, not just be worshipped all day by people around her just because she is too perfect at everything. The anxiety she felt when she was about to ask out all her friends to go home with her was real, something she has never felt before as she has never come to this realization, which makes her truly alive. And when she does get over her anxiety and fear, and finally asks her friend to walk home with her, the sense of accomplishment is felt to both the viewer and Umaru herself, especially that last shot where she walks home happily with her friends, although that light she continually radiates that other people saw from her completely defeats the purpose of her innocence and charm in my opinion though.

And of course, by the end of that episode, now the norm is having each episode serve at least one interaction between Umaru and friends, whether it’s watching movie, going to the amusement park, or even studying together. It has become the norm, and I enjoyed every single of their hanging out moments.

In each episode, there will be a hang-out session between Umaru and her friends.

Don’t get me wrong though, as despite this fact, Umaru is still Umaru, and she is still as lazy as a sloth. There are still several routines of her either lazing around all day, or just play video games and still lazes around. However, the show found the way on how to properly utilize it, and while it still appears on daily basis, most of them works both comedically or to further characterize Umaru. Lastly, her self-awareness of how selfish she was previously and the fact that she loves her brother so much that she cries upon his return from a long trip is the result of her development as a character which was phenomenally done.

 All in all, Umaru was like a new person, someone never seen before in the previous incarnation.

However, aside from Umaru, there is also a character who was reborn in this show. Her name is Tachibana Sylphinford. Sylphinford was used atrociously in the first season, as a person who gratuitously challenges Umaru at any given corner in hopes of being her friend, yet never succeeded at becoming her friend, simply because the writing of her character was bad. She was unlikable and jarring in her first appearance, which I branded her as a misfit if I recalled correctly, but all that immediately changes upon her appearance in the new season of this show.

She is gaining more and more time to appear and showcase her characteristics properly to the audience, while slowly building her characters that allows the audience to appeal to her. Gone was that someone who constantly boast to no end, and in comes a person who wants to enjoy her time with her friends and value the friendship she has with other. This was highlighted when she received a gift from Taihei and gladly accepted it with no disappointment or anything despite the fact that she received the same gift from her brother. Sylphinford’s development as a character totally made her stood out from her friends, and most of her flaws that we see from the first season properly explained to make us truly endear to her as a character.

Of course, let us not forget the star of the last season, Motoba Kirie. Kirie remains the strongest character in the show in my opinion, due to the fact that she gained more characterization than both Umaru and Sylphinford, and definitely Ebina, and she also gained more screen time to appear in the show. Her character was still the same, someone who could not properly get her message across yet loves her friends with everything she has. 

Her character still oozes that special aura which makes her likable, especially when she shows that she wanted to be a picture-book writer in the future, which had her base the main character of Umaru chibi form. Though it was not shown in the anime, there was an important scene of her progression as a picture book writer in the manga that was definitely must be seen to see her character as a whole. In addition to that, she improved upon Bomber, her brother, when the two of them interact with each other properly for the first time in ages. That scene was quite the sight in my opinion.

While Kirie remains a powerful character in the series.

Sylphinford has finally received the spotlight she fully deserved.

Also, as a side note, it is worth note that Kirie might have ascended to a main character status, due to her new role in the show, as well as her more frequent appearances in the show, much more than the rest of the cast, and almost on par with Umaru. And of course, given the fact that Umaru’s later appearance was just to have fun with her friends, while Kirie was being focused solely, it makes the statement I made earlier all more intriguing.

Anyway, with the three characters done, now let’s move on to Ebina Nana. Unfortunately for Ebina, this season was not kind to her. She suffered the same role that Sylphinford was trusted in the first season, as a scapegoat. Ebina was a highlight last season due to her characters and her bombastic figure, as well as her awkwardness. However, in this season, she appears less important and constantly blushes randomly and got all tongue-tied whenever there’s Taihei due to her apparent crush on Umaru’s older brother, which was repeated numerous times. In my opinion, this undermined her character’s importance to the show.

Especially when her brother’s debuted. Her brother only appeared once, and Ebina has mentioned throughout the show that she is looking for her brother, but that’s it. She makes no effort in trying to actually find her brother and that reasoning has instead become an excuse in my opinion.

Perhaps this is the case of the writers thinking that Ebina is already far more established and decided to left her out of most of the writing since she is already appealing to the audience. At any rate, it was a shame to see such a powerful and endearing character from the first season got relegated into a background figure. True enough, she had several episodes focusing on her, but that’s not enough to showcase her unique characteristics she had.

Everyone is treated in the right way, except for Ebina.

With the four main girls done, let us move on to the rest of the characters. Is this becoming character reviews? This is supposed to be a whole anime review, yet all I’ve been doing was reviewing each character. Well, what can I do? Character development was the main focus of this new season of Himouto! Umaru-chan.

Anyway, I’ll keep it short so I can talk about things other than characters.

Taihei remains largely unchanged from last season. He still constantly scolds Umaru when she gets too lazy and reminds Umaru of the things she needed to do. However, Taihei has shown more genuine feelings in this new season, largely thanks to Umaru’s newfound characteristics, which was also thanks to Taihei half of the time.

Bomber, or Takeshi Motoba, or Kirie’s brother, shows that his appearance in this show is far more important than just goof around. There are several instances in which he played a integral role in developing the character of Taihei, as well as showing her love for Kirie implicitly. Her family talk with Kirie is also a sight to behold, something I mentioned earlier. Bomber has been unfortunate that he has been showing his bad sides to Kirie most of the time, which undermines his worth to Kirie, and that scene truly reinvest Kirie’s belief to Bomber as a brother, albeit only momentarily.

Alex was okay too, if only he appears more than just once every episode. There is something hidden beneath his character. However, given his lack of promotion, there was no need to be disappointed in him.

Bomber remains a largely important, although subtlely.

And Alex is finally receiving his share in screen time, much like his sister.

The biggest disappointment has to go to Hikari Kongou, the little sister of Kanau. She was promoted in many news outlet, and even got voiced by a popular voice actress in the form of Inori Minase, which was far more popular than any of the voice actors in this show in my opinion. However, her appearance was limited, her interactions was limited, and the only thing we knew is that she loved Taihei and treated him like her big brother since her childhood, but that’s it. Her interactions might be limited, but all of those was enough to showcase her prominence in the show, though it’s just that she did not appear enough to make her mark.

She suffered the Elma-problem I mentioned in the Kobayashi-san chi no Maid Dragon earlier. Elma appeared much later in the anime, which is episode 8, and flounders after her brilliant debut episode, as just another dragon who loves to eat. Hikari almost do Elma, though she was a little bit better, since she got a better writing by the show. I sure hope this Elma-problem doesn’t appear anymore though, as it was sad to see character as important as Elma got relegated into a background duty.

But that’s enough of talking about the characters. Let’s talk about something else.

Hikari was unusually left out in the show and had limited appearance.

The overall theme remains largely the same, big brother and little sister. This theme is even more reinforced upon the single-episode debut of Ebina’s brother, Koichiro, and thanks to that, all of the main cast is now positioned properly as a little sister. The interaction between Umaru with Taihei, and Kirie with Bomber remains the strongest brother to sister interaction in the show, as Sylphinford and Ebina’s relationship with their brother are a little bit underwhelming.

The animation remains the same, colorful and vividly animated, with each character articulates their animation properly. Still, I think the studio goes all out when animating that ending scene, where the four main character are animated in a chibi form, much like the Umaru himouto form. Despite the fact that most of them looked out of place, they all still looked cute enough and the animation was top notch.

And speaking of the ending, really love the ending song and how catchy it was. I found myself watching the ending most of the time when I finished watching an episode, something I reservedly do only to Mahoutsukai no Yome, until it was replaced, given how powerful the ending and opening song was.

The ending song is very catchy in my opinion.

Lastly, allow me to talk about voice-acting. The voice acting remains good in the show, with Aimi Tanaka continues to show that she can do great as a voice actor, despite the fact that her voice is type-casted as a young girl, or the himouto version of Umaru voice. Her ability to deliver a proper voice is still good and she sounds relaxed with her role in my opinion. Hopefully other anime will cast her as someone other than character with the voice of Umaru all over again.

While the English dub of the second season is still not here, allow me to talk about the English dub that the show had in the first season. A month earlier, I was able to watch Umaru in the English dub, and that was very unique and captivating in my opinion. Sure, some sounded a bit strange or out of place, but I must give credits to the voice of Taihei and Umaru, Adam Noble and Emily Neves. While Emily was good in her ability to switch out her voice as the perfect Umaru and the himouto Umaru, Adam Noble’s performance as a Taihei truly steals the show for me. He was sarcastically comedic in his approach and performance as Taihei, and there’s just something about his voice that sounded very entertaining to me, in my opinion. When the English dub of the second season arrived, I will definitely watch it again, hoping that the cast remain the same.

All in all, Himouto! Umaru-chan R was a major improvement, as a whole, to the first season of the show. The second season directly focused on developing each and every character in the show, with it becoming the sole objective of this show all around. Every character is given a proper development that allowed the audience to endear to, either with their newfound characteristics, or their innate ability to just make them likable. 

It could not really best the second season of NEW GAME, but it managed to achieve it’s objective well enough, and I think this is far better than the first season, far far better.

A third season is both necessary and unnecessary as the show wraps everything up in the final episode. If there’s a third season, then that’s a good thing, but if there’s not, then that’s okay.

The Good: Character-development was top notch, with each character getting their major development. Kirie remains the star of the show. Sylphinford and Umaru is characterized properly. Catchy ending song. The pace is far better than before.

The Bad: Again, the jokes are toned down in favor of character development. Ebina suffered a lot of damage in her character. Hikari did not appear enough.

Highlight Moments: Umaru crying to her brother when he finally gets back. Kirie realizing the importance of her brother. The image of all four main cast walking home together.

Final Score : 4 out of 5. Far better than the original. Hopefully, the future is bright for both Umaru and Doga Kobo for animating this show.

A splendid show, and a magnificent continuation to it's original show.

Anime Review : Himouto! Umaru-chan

Himouto! Umaru-chan

 “A refreshing, if not disappointing, comedy series that everyone likes”

  

What is Himouto! Umaru-chan?

Himouto Umaru-chan follows the story of Umaru as she lifes her live as a Himouto, or a lazy sister. Despite her being a perfect girl on the outside, if she goes back to her home, she reverts to her Himouto status!

Being a full-blown comedy slice of life anime, Himouto Umaru-chan does it job wonders, or so many people would have say. Adapted from the manga series made by Sankaku head and the studio that helmed the production is Dogakobo, known also for their Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun and Mikakunin de Shinkoukei, both a comedy anime. Everyone's expectation, including mine, is very high upon the announcement of the production of the anime.

Himouto! Umaru-chan, when they performed their comedy, almost many of them are a hit than a miss. Everytime i tune in an episode, there’s most certainly a guarantee that i will laugh, and that is what a comedy anime should always do, make the viewer laugh, and Himouto did just that.

Comedic timing is always perfect and well-timed that you won’t even believe it. The interaction that Umaru did everytime she becomes her Himouto style is so cute and sometimes, so funny that you want to laugh your heart out.

You decide whether this is funny or cute. I’d say it’s both.

Though the comedy always plays out perfectly, sometimes you can see the punchline of a said comedy too easy, as the story follows the pattern of Umaru being lazy. Sometimes, when her brother, Taihei, a corporate drone, ordered her to do something, she would lazily do the thing he ordered. At first, it looks funny, but later in the series, you’ll see that they did this frequently, though not most of the time.

As i mentioned character earlier, in Umaru and Taihei, i feel like i need to talk about the character too.

Characterization are great, if not, only one character feels bland to me, which is Sylphinford, which is a shame, since in the manga, i thought she was the best to be interacted with Umaru. Sylphinford, in the anime, is a typical school rival to Umaru and constantly competes with her, in the form of exam score or swimming contest, and she always loses, following the trope of a rival. As the series progresses, her character becomes interesting when she interacts with U.M.R [Umaru’s alter ego] as she shows her actual personality, a child-like person who wanted to befriend Umaru. Since this is only shown when she’s interacting with U.M.R., her actual interaction with Umaru and friends are always limited. A shame though, such a great character is held back by the animation studio itself, i’ll explain later. 

Sylphinford’s character actually suffers from either writing or directorial tone. Don’t know which.

Aside from Sylphinford, the other character... Oh, i forgot about Umaru. Umaru is the ace protagonist, who seems to be able to do everything effortlessly, be it exam scores or gaming. Of course, her laziness and love for cola is her comical flaw, while her actual problem is the fact that her character is never got focused properly in the anime, she’s always shown as a perfect girl, but is there a backstory to why she becomes so lazy? None.

Ebina is your typical busty girl with the tendency of blushing every few minutes or so. She’s always shown embarassed, especially when she’s around Taihei, because of her love for the guy.

That what makes Ebina so endearing though, everytime she flusters or does things not right [Such as putting noodles in the small cup, which is actually for putting empty shells] is always funny and leaves you wanting more of her. Since she sometimes slips out to her actual dialect and is always flustered when that happens, we can take that characters coming not from Tokyo but from another prefecture is a hillbily to Japan. She is basically the star of the show, though, judging by the fact that people seemed to love her more and well, there’s many focus to her backstory in the anime than to Umaru’s.

Like them or not, Kirie and Ebina stole the show from Umaru, figuratively speaking

Kirie, on the other hand, is a shy girl who lets out a scary glare whenever people talks to her. This is a common characteristic, but her voice and her facial expression that she makes whenever this happens works like a wonder. I’ll be honest, i see a lot of girl who is shy and misunderstood in other anime like her, but no one pulled it off better than Kirie. In my opinion, despite Umaru being marketed as the anime’s mascot and protagonist, Kirie and Ebina stole the show from her due to their apparent cuteness and funny behavior, as well as the focus to their backstory.

There’s also Bomber, Kirie’s brother who constantly get beaten up by her. Alex, Sylphinford’s brother who loves anime. And Taihei, Umaru’s brother who is a typical loving big-brother. Out from the three, Bomber is the funniest and most fresh out of them, especially when he’s interacting with Umaru for the first time, he looks just like Kirie.

Alex is, by far, the least used character in the anime. He appears only several times and there’s one scene when he stops Sylphinford that bothered me. I think there should be more explanation to that but the show just moves on, don’t know why.

And now, let’s get to the real thing that really, really held back the show.

The show suffers from a lot of adapting out trope, where there are a lot of things that were not adapted from the original work to this work. Usually, adapting out some material that deemed unworthy to be added to the work is an okay move. But, when you adapt out something far more important, it becomes a problem, a big problem.

Dogakobo is playing safe with Umaru’s adaptation. I read the original manga AFTER i watched the anime series and though, god there’s so many things adapted out, many of it were important to the actual progression of the story. Several to the things i mentioned above, the Sylphinford siblings.

Since the anime series stops at the beach event, let’s not take the manga reference further from that, but...

While Sylphinford shouldn’t have been in the Umaru’s gang by episode 12, she shouldn’t have been in the sea with them, and that is trying desperately to salvage what is left of Sylphinford by trying to make her Umaru’s friend by the end of the episode, while they can instead to adapt why Sylphinford and Umaru becomes friend in the first place, with her actually interacting with Kirie and Ebina.

Since Alex is not focused in the anime, there’s no need to make a reference on him from the manga. He actually befriends Umaru later in the story, but that happens after the beach event, which, if we take it to the anime, it would mean i take the reference a bit further.

Other than them, it’s worth mentioning Ebina a little bit here. Despite Ebina’s apparent romantic feelings for Taihei, it is not clearly shown in the anime. Heck, the only way she’s done this is on episode when she’s reminiscing on Taihei and her first meeting, as well as her apparent blushing whenever he’s around. In truth, however, there’s several scene that hinted her feelings toward Taihei [Example is during the segment when Kirie is visiting Taihei with Umaru not around to hand Taihei a proper cookies. Ebina actually makes a brief but important appearance in that segment].

Amongst them, is another plethora of adapted out material that is important.

Such as Taihei’s expression after he was licked by a cat and immediately remembers his mother in the episode 7. His expression is a bit more shocked than that, it apparently tries to tell us that his mother has long since passed away or something like that, but let’s just say ‘whatever’

You can read the full article about this here. In this post, i discussed several hidden themes that are placed within the manga. 

Anyhow...

The series also suffers from a lack of episode count. Should the episode number is as high as 20, or even just 16, this show would have flourished even more, but because of the current trend of having just 12 anime episode that has been plaguing the animation industry, we were given only 12 episode with an extra OVA and a number of short anime to keep us company.

If Himouto has at least 16 or 20 episode count, this anime should be better. It could adress Sylphinford sibling’s problem [Their lack of screen time and their interaction with umaru], as well as some episodes with focus on Umaru’s backstory. I’d say that hurts the most here. But, let’s not blame Dogakobo, since they’re following the trend.

Maybe it’s because the fact that comedy slice of life anime can’t go more than 12 episodes? Then what’s Lucky Star? K-ON! Second season? 

Also, this is a better opportunity to also state this fact. When i said earlier that the anime is playing safe, it’s because Umaru is actually a story-driven comedy slice of life, which has an actual story progressing them. The timeline also flies fast, as the manga hits two new year fairly quick. So, when i say this is playing safe and has a low episode count, it is.

Low episode count hits the series hard

Though let’s not take that for granted. Himouto is actually excelling in their comedy, though because the story-driven is dropped, Himouto is just another comedy anime with no story whatsoever. That is the problem of this genre. Comedy anime seems like it just does things for fun and laughs only. Himouto’s manga, on the other hand, tries to be different and wants an actual story to go for them. I’ve read a lot of comedy manga and watched a lot of comedy anime, and frankly Himouto manga is one of the few comedy manga that has a story going for them.

Perhaps it fears the fact that when it goes story deep, it’ll go full drama? Remember Gakuen Alice and Mahou Sensei Negima, whose story was so deep that the genre shifts? Gakuen Alice from comedy to  tragic drama, and Mahou Sensei Negima from comedy to full-blown action. Those aspects must have been the deciding factor of why Himouto is abandoning it’s story in the anime version. Though it’s safe to say the manga is still a comedy.

Though let’s not take away Himouto’s effort on comedy. It’s performance in comedy and  telling of slice of life, as well as it’s fresh setting [Actual laziness] overshadows all of those flaws i mentioned above. When you think of a good comedy, you don’t want to think about the story, they say, and i’d say it’s true in this case.

The opening and ending song fits the theme, while the BGM hits homerun. Everytime Umaru’s doing something, or a particular character is doing something, there’s also a fitting BGM that follows them, making what they’re doing looks and sounds good.

And let’s not forget about the animation and art. The character model looks alive and animated beautifully. You might think that only Umaru is the best, but it’s not the case. All the characters get the same treatment. They have a good animation and their facial expressions is really great, especially Kirie and Ebina. Though, when Umaru reverts to her Himouto form, her animation begs a question there. It looks decent, but it’s not as good as her normal form, and is far more inferior than Kirie’s or Ebina’s.

Though the animation is well-made, i think the animation on Umaru’s himouto form feels weaker than the rest.

All in all, Himouto! Umaru-chan is a good, or more like excellent anime series that focuses on comedy and slice of life. It has so many good point that it practically shadows any flaws it might had. It is slightly different from it’s source material, but for a greater good. In abandoning any story material the series might had, the series focuses simply on comedy and slice of life, focusing on telling the story of a girl so lazy she reverts to a chibi form on her home.

Any slice of live lovers should love this show, while those who loves action should be okay with this show acting as a breather, and those who heard that this anime is good would be pleased.

The good : Offers a plethora of refreshing comedy everytime you tune in, beautifully animated, the characters looks very alive, good characters [save for one].

The bad : Jokes can get either boring, dragged, or easily readable at times. Some source material being adapted out. Sylphinford is badly characterized in the anime. Lack of focus on giving several backstory, especially Umaru.

Highlight moment : Too many to mention, every episode is as good for me!

FINAL SCORE : 3.5, though it could easily be 4, or even 4.5 had it been adapted better.