Hinadori Girl 3

So this mediocre series just kind of fizzled out in a big lukewarm puddle.  It had its cute moments, but overall it certainly wasn’t my cup of tea, and never struggled to have anything other than generally stereotyped characters with some heartwarming scenes.

There were several things I wanted to happen before the end of the series, paramount among them was some sort of promise that no more brother/sister hints would be dropped and that Akira would eventually go for her brother’s friend.  The back cover promised some romantic developments, but I was SO DISAPPOINTED in what was given.  There were several pairs that would have been interesting, but they went with the one that would make the least impact in reader’s minds.  In general, there was just a big general sweep to wrap up all the loose ends, with the beginning of the book dedicated to talking a bit about the family’s matriarch.   There was a resolution to the conflict from last volume and a new character, but this new character turns out to be bratty, spoiled, and more obnoxious than Akira.  They try to make it like she was made that way by society, but I didn’t really care that much, because she was still a brat even after everyone tried to make friends with her.

Her name was Luna.  She may have been a better addition earlier on, particularly if she was given a chance to develop, but… sadly, no.

And yep.  Another one bites the dust and leaves no teeth marks whatsoever.

Hinadori Girl 2

Goddammit, I just wrote a full review of this one over the course of two hours. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

Okay, just for a little bit. The characters still suck and are flat as hell. Thank you Akira for being the stereotypical anime girl, and thank you Nobuyuki for being the stereotypical anime asshole. It still reads like an anime, but the relationships between these flat characters are so good. It also still manages to be a robot maid manga akin to Chobits without actually being about the robot or anythign more extraordinary than the robot scientist’s daughter.

We get less incest this time around, and although they have annoying personalities, I’m all about AkiraxNobuyuki. Well, only a little, because Nobuyuki is so much an asshole his very presence aggrivates me, but he can be cute with Akira all he wants.

Hello Yoshiki, you forgot to be something other than an uninteresting doormat for your sister to beat up. Try harder next volume.

Though I did like it better this time around. I think I’m hooked, because I want to find out what happens in volume three. Not very badly, mind you, but I do all the same.

Hinadori Girl 1

Yeah, I actually sort of liked this one. It was a review copy, so not something I would’ve read otherwise, but I wound up fond of it. It screams ANIME! as loud as it possibly can with so many cliche things happening constantly… you have the dad who’s a famous scientist, a robot, a jealous obnoxious girl, and a supervillian (complete with henchman) who is after the two kid’s robot. Well, another thing that bothered me was that they weren’t kids… the boy was seventeen and the girl fifteen, even though they looked about ten and eight respectively.

But it is a much cuter story that the robot maid premise would have you believe. They treat the maid like their sibling, and she’s like a little kid they have to teach how to do things instead of a sex toy. She’s also cute as hell, with the bug uniform she wears at the end of the comic topping everything off nicely. Would I read volume two? Well, I’ll look forward to it if it happens to come my way, and I might pick it up if there’s a drought of good manga sometime in the near future, but otherwise it was charming and cute, but sort of lukewarm and not really my thing.