Hinamatsuri (original) (raw)

If I had to sum it up: Hinamatsuri is the art of spending 19 volumes with almost no story, like a huge slice-of-life manga, and letting most important moments happen off-screen. It's a frustrating read, because all the ingredients for a great manga were there. But the art is beautiful and expressive, and a few of the characters are really admirable (not the main, though).

The background, explaining where some of the main characters come from? Completely glossed over, just a few words near the end of the story, to provide motivation for the finale scene. No character is ever curious or asks questions.

The reason for... the "psychic girls" and friends to have been sent here? Forgotten immediately. Understandable for Hina herself, but the others conveniently arrived in circumstances that allow them to drop their mission and focus on ordinary life.

The yakuza? Mostly used for jokes. What little story there is absolutely does not require them.

The psychic powers? Serve no purpose whatsoever. Just a few running jokes, and one-off stories with no repercussion.

The characters

First, the main ones: Hina and Nitta. They're arguably the worst of the bunch. Nitta is weak and incompetent as a yakuza, indifferent as a father, and has no evolution whatsoever. Hina is passive and lazy. In the first half where she's of middle-school age, she spends her days in a couch, doing nothing, feeling nothing and wanting nothing. It's a bit better in the second half, where she's three years older, as she has some agency, takes some initiative and worries about others, but it doesn't amount to much.

I still fail to understand the point of Hina as a main character. She barely does anything, has almost no emotion good or bad. Her only defining element is her very strong psychic power… which has no use in the story. The "father and daughter' dynamic with Nitta never goes anywhere. So what's the point?

Where Hinamatsuri shines, it's with the rest of the cast. Hinamatsuri is, at heart, a slife of life manga about life choices and trajectories. Hitomi, Anzu and Mao do have remarkable trajectories. All three start with no agency, either because of their age (Hitomi) or because they don't have anything (Anzu and Mao). Opportunities come their way, and they're good enough to grab them, leading them on unexpected paths.

The manga doesn't lack in variety: Hitomi's achievements are all about money and business, Anzu's are about family and having pride in her own accomplishments, Mao's are about martial arts and devotion to a cause.

The story

As I said above, there's very little story to speak of. The manga tries to come up with one near the end, in order to have a conclusion, but it lacks any punch, both because of the lack of build-up and because nothing is changed for the main characters afterwards (they just keep living their lives as before).

But what's most annoying is that the most pivotal moments tend to happen off screen. A character has a crisis-of-faith moment where they have an important decision to make? Off screen. A important discussion happens? Off screen. That happens far too many times.

Conclusion

On one hand, the manga is far too long for what little story it has to offer. It's just slice of life, a bunch of kids finding their own paths in modern Japan in spite of incompetent adults.

On the other hand, once you cast aside the two useless main characters, you keep coming back to see Hitomi, Anzu and Mao grow and evolve. The three-year timeskip is a godsent, making them older and having more agency.

I'd love to see someone edit and trim down the 19 volumes by removing all those pointless elements. At least half of the manga would be gone, and we'd have a focused story on three girls crafting their own success stories. As slice of life go, there are few characters that I came to like more than Hitomi and Anzu!