Houkago Shounen Hanako-kun

Well, well, well… Here I thought Houkago Shounen Hanako-kun would be the sequel that I never anticipated for the series, turns out it isn’t. It’s just 4 episodes of 10 minutes each. Strange. Oh well, since it came out during Halloween season, I suppose it’s time to remember a forgotten apparition. Spooky but fun.

Episode 1A
Hanako continues to make Yashiro clean the toilet. It’s all part of the deal as his assistant and of course he won’t help. But to make it more fun, he’ll hold some bathroom festival? Yashiro not impressed so she seeks Aoi’s advice. Bring someone fun? Yeah, she brings Minamoto and his brother! Oh man, Hanako going to get exorcised tonight! Just kidding. But sorry, senpai can’t stay so this makes Yashiro sad. But Hanako assures he will stay by her side while she’s cleaning until she falls for him. Sorry, she reject him that’s not happening. Is this worse than getting killed?

Episode 1B
One day, Yashiro hears Hanako screaming for help. Why the Mokke attacking him? Well, it seems they want to kill him to become one of the Mysteries! Uhm, they want to kill by cosiness and warmness? Since there is an opening for that, the Mokke take an interview. Well, they do have their cute and nice charming personality. However their end goal is to destroy so rejected! Saddened they can’t be one of the Mysteries, it seems their obsession to destroy is actually to destroy the school so as to enslave human to make a candy plantation. A happy plantation? Yeah, they even have a CD song on it. Yashiro suggests if they want some candy, why not just have someone make it? Like, Tsuchigomori. And so they go bug him and is only released after making thousands of candies. RIP, sir.

Episode 2A
Yashiro is going to play kokkuri with her friends, Aoi, Akane Aoi (yes, this student council vice president shares the same name as Aoi but in reverse) and Lemon Yamabuki. A little bit of brief explanation by Akane on how to play the game. Now it’s summoning time. Yashiro has second thoughts about it but too late. The kokkuri summoned is… A Mokke? Yeah, it wants candy (ame) and not trying to predict the rain (ame). Akane then asks his crush. Mokke spells out Yamabuki?! Oh sh*t! Aoi not amused with this gay sh*t! Akane beats up Yamabuki to prove it but Aoi has already left. Hope you guys are happy together. Since there is no candy, Mokke just take the kokkuri accessory.

Episode 2B
Since Mitsuba wants to make friends, Natsuhiko is willing to be his. Well, his poser might have scared him off so Mitsuba goes to plead to Sakura instead. She introduces him to Hanako instead. He got the wrong idea of wanting to make a physical friend (actually trying to make a critter into one!). So Hanako agrees to be his friend. So what do friends do? Play fireworks. Seems okay until Hanako wants to know what happens when it is placed in one’s stomach! Friendship ended. Poor Mitsuba is alone again so Sakura would at least join him to do whatever he wants. I see, a group photo of this cringe pose. Hey, at least Mitsuba is happy.

Episode 3A
Looks like even apparitions can get sick. Yeah, how long has it been since Hanako is sick? Even Tsuchigomori and Yako are sick and all display different symptoms. For Hanako, he is a little bit more transparent. Instead of resting that will naturally cure it, Hanako runs around and even perhaps gets beaten up by Minamoto. Hanako thinks Yashiro comes to save him and hugs her. Apparently that’s a fire extinguisher! Holy sh*t! But wait. What’s with the Mokke? All are going to take this chance to kill him as they soon glomp all over him. Too bad in the end, they all get sick.

Episode 3B
A lost Mokke is taken back by this loli, Tiara who is of course Teru and Minamoto’s younger sister. After cleaning it up, she now claims it is her slave! Oh dear. She goes to introduce it to the rest of her brothers. I’m sure the Mokke is terrified to see the brothers because of their scary spiritual powers. Especially Teru. The terrified little one bolts out of the house but stumbles into a monster! Before it dies a gruesome death, Tiara zaps it to pieces and scolds the Mokke for going out by itself. Let’s go home and be safe and all. As narrated, Tiara possesses spiritual power that might surpass her brothers. Not as terrifying as the name she gives to this Mokke: Fairy!

Episode 4A
Suddenly Yashiro realizes she has turned into a Mokke! Others think she is a newbie so the Mokke elder confronts her and brings her to the depths of the school where he reveals the true origin of Mokke. Because they are varied, combined and transformed, basically the whole world and everybody is Mokke! WTF crap is this?! Yashiro gets scared and doesn’t believe it. She makes a run for it and wants to be human again but is surrounded by other Mokke who continue to overwhelm her to come to the Mokke side. In the end, it turns out that this is a dream and a Mokke sleeping next to her is trying to brainwash her with this fake history!

Episode 4B
Sakura takes in a helpless little monster into her Kanome Monster Nursery School. As she brings Natsuhiko into this facility, she tells him how the researchers try to raise and bring the best out of the monsters brought here. It is a tough challenge since many are immature. It seems Natsuhiko is actually an agent of a counter monster task force and infiltrated here as a newbie researcher. Sakura takes him to see various monsters and their researchers. Don’t get caught in the crossfire. Then there’s the recent addition who just doesn’t get along with researcher assigned to him. At first looks they might look like a bad match. Naturally they should be swapped but the little monster begs not to. Sakura realizes he doesn’t know how to express himself and just lets them be. Natsuhiko knows he can’t let such dangerous place exist. But he doesn’t want to see beautiful Sakura cry so he’ll let it slide and play along. Some time later, we see all the monsters doing well mingling with each other and having their own Halloween party.

Toilet Break Over…
Well, the whole thing seems a bit strange. Because it felt like these episodes were made as extra specials for the DVDs so as to get your 2 cents worth of money when you buy them. And then they realized sales of those weren’t as good too so they decided to release and air it instead. I might be wrong about it but yeah, that’s how this whole spinoff actually feels like since it is all random and has nothing to do with the actual plot whatsoever. The skits are all short and just to make you laugh and eke out at least a smile. Nothing really heavy to follow in the end.

Personally, I have a feeling these episodes want to give more time to those cute little creatures known as Mokke. They should rename-cum-hijack this spinoff as “The Mokke Show” or something but whatever. Other than Hanako and Yashiro, it seems these cute furry rabbits have much more screen time than the other characters and appear in every episode too. I mean, who could actually hate those cute little things, right?! Yeah, when can I bring back one with me! Just get ready to have some candies ready. They’re the real stars of this spinoff, no? It’s also strange for the spinoff to introduce a few new characters but I guess the more prominent one is Tiara (delightfully voiced by Misaki Kuno) because of her feistiness and innocence. Well, it remains to be seen of her potential (and cuteness!) if this series gets a real sequel in the future.

One thing I want to point out that irritated me while watching this, the character designs have many of the characters look so close together that sometimes I get confused between them. For instance, I thought Akane was Minamoto in his nerdy version but thank goodness for the power of the internet for me to do a bit of searching before I actually typed in the wrong character and then get even more freaking confused about it! Even those monsters at the nursery, I noticed one looking like a loli version of Yashiro (could it be?) and some researchers look like Hanako and Minamoto (are they?). So yeah, the series may have its unique and trademark looks but I really don’t like how they make the characters look too similar to each other in this sense.

Overall, it is a short anime to pass your time and nothing too serious about it. If you liked the TV series of this, you’ll welcome this little extension for your Halloween mood. It is like some sort of mini break or distraction seeing in the same season we have gigantic sequels airing like a certain shield hero dude, a certain goblin slaying dude, a certain eminence shadow dude, a certain paladin dude, a certain scientific genius dude, a certain spy family and yeah, horse girls. Oh yeah. What a heavy season it was. In spite all of that, be glad to know that one day we will all return to our ancestors and become one with the great Mokke! Oh no, looks like I’ve been brainwashed! True Mokke spinoff sequel when?