Hanoka

Hanoka is an 12 episode mini anime produced by RAMS and Fanworks which originally aired on the anime informational program "Anime Paradise". The anime was created by Aruzi Morino, the lesser known pioneer of Japanese Flash animation. Whilst lesser known compared to Mars of Destruction and Skelter+Heaven, it is considered to be one of the worst anime of all time.

Plot
On the planet Tokinea, Humans and indigenous alien races called 'Hoshi No Tami' (The Star People) were fighting for their rights to own the planet. In order to eradicate the Hoshi no Tami, the humans creates Bionic Metahuman species called the Majin (Demon God) as their ultimate weapon. However, the Hoshi No Tami overpowers the Humans with their powers to control the powers of wildlife. The Human chooses to commence their final operation 'Operation: Majin', making them unleash the 7th Majin (Later Renamed as Hanoka).

Why It Sucks

 * 1) Very rushed-looking and sub-par Flash animation. According to the creator, the first 3 or 4 episode were made in 10 days. and the entirety of the anime were made in 5 months.
 * 2) *Overabundunce of Motion tweening during action sequences, making the action cheap and lifeless.
 * 3) *Overuse of unneccessarty closeup panning shots, also seen in mid 2000's animation such as .Hack
 * 4) * The bad animation is highly inexcusable, due to fact that Morino's independent animation, such as YUKINO looks miles better than Hanoka, especially being created 4 years before Hanoka and using a simillar animation technique.
 * 5) Uninspired settings which ripoffs Neon Genesis Evangelion, Mobile Suit Gundam & Naussica: Valley of the Wind, although this is mostly due to Morino's own animation style being a mishmash of those works.
 * 6) The lack of consistent narrative tone, failing to fully grasp its target audience's appeal.
 * 7) *The story wants to present a Sci-fi war buddy romance story between Hanoka and Yuuri, but it often falls out of track due to the forced ecological messages.
 * 8) *At one point, the anime seems to treat itself as a ecological story aimed for kids, whereas there are some 'service scenes' inappropriate for children.
 * 9) *Keep in mind that, due to the anime being broadcast as a segment of a anime centric cable news programme, its key audience was severly limited to 2000's anime fans with strong interest in Voice Actors and diehard fans of Aruzi Morino's works.
 * 10) Bad character designs which attempts to emulate early 2000's shonen anime, but turns out to be disproportionate and 'horrific' to some.
 * 11) Character designs ripped off from various anime and films
 * 12) *Hanoka ripoffs Rei Ayanami from Evangelion, Ruri Hoshikawa from Martian Successor Nadesico, Elpeo Ple from Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ and Solty Revant from Soltyrei. Her ability rip offs Zeruel's elongating arms from Evangelion and energy blasts from Dragonball.
 * 13) *The walking enemy rock tanks amalgamates the overall appearance of Metagross from Pokemon, AT-AT from Star Wars and Ohmu from Naussica.
 * 14) *Kokutou ripoffs Mewtwo from Pokémon The First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back, with grudge towards humanity.
 * 15) Generic characters filled with unlikable stereotypes.
 * 16) * Hanoka is a Shinji Ikari/Rei Ayanami type character, being dependent to Yuuri.
 * 17) *Yuuri is a extremely Edgy 'Marty Stu' character, which feels like a poorly portrayed Call of Duty fan OC.
 * 18) *Kaori is a malicious jerk, who initially act as a 'Cool-beauty' type character, before she reveals that she is the true villain.
 * 19) *Mika is useless as a operator, speaking obvious information and not informing the crucial weakness of the Majin before Hanoka encounters it.
 * 20) *Despite being proposed as a rival character, Kongou (Majin No.5) and Barz only appears twice throughout the anime and was never mentioned within the epilogue.
 * 21) Numerous lack of explanations and Plot Holes
 * 22) * Why does the Human army have a 'King' as a leader, despite not having a kingdom?
 * 23) * If Majin is a hybrid of human and Hoshi No Tami, how did humans capture them and embedded their soul into a human body?
 * 24) * Why the member of the Majin force is against teamwork?
 * 25) *If Majin is a unstable entity, why is the Majin locked in a small dark cell, without any restraints?
 * 26) *Why only 6 out of 7 Majins appears in the anime?
 * 27) *Why Kokutou decided to not kill young Yuuri, despite killing all of the village peoples in front of him?
 * 28) *How did Yuuri replace/fix his laser rifle prior to episode 11, which was sliced by Kokutou in Episode 8?
 * 29) *If Hanoka was able to transform her wings into Mother's Gold wings, was Hanoka's Hoshi No Tami related to Mother?
 * 30) Although the later mentioned DVD version solves several plot holes, it also created several new plot holes.
 * 31) *Why did Kaori chose to waste Majin No.7, whose required as a part of Operation Majin, as a decoy?
 * 32) *What happened to Kaori's former partner who shot her in her head, preventing her from going berserk?
 * 33) *How did Mika survived the extreme earthquake, where the entirity of the human base collapsed?
 * 34) *How did Hanoka and ressurected Yuuri, restored a nearly extinct planet and sustained it for over 30 years?
 * 35) Mediocre voice acting. Sakura Nogawa does allright as Majin No.7/Hanoka, but Momoko Saito does an extremely poor job as Yuuri.
 * 36) All of the major problems mentioned above was mainly caused by Executive Meddling, by Satoshi Kashimura the CEO of RAMS, who wanted to emphasize the anime as a promotional material for Sakura Nogawa, who was the 'ace voice actor' of RAMS despite the anime being a spiritual sequel to Morino's Independent animations.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) The background settings are actually have vague links between Morino's other Indepedent animations so, it will be mildly interesting.
 * 2) *The 'Majin' species originates from Morino's earlier Flash animated series, The Mother Mars.
 * 3) *The overall concept of the Hanoka is heavily influenced from Morino's 2002 Animation Pitch, Ao-Blue- and YUKINO.
 * 4) The DVD Director's Cut released in 2008 makes a minor improvement, with new scenes, alteration of dialogue and a better opening and ending. (Unfortunately, only Episode 1, 2, 4 and 12 had the major changes).
 * 5) The opening theme 'Dual Love on the Planets -Hanoka-' is composed by Hironobu Kageyama, the singer of the Japanese version on Dragonball Z, especially known for 'CHA-LA-HEAD-CHA-LA'.
 * 6) During and after the airing of Hanoka, Morino created a web series called Hoshi No Onion, which act out as a 'polar opposite' sister-series with outer-space themes, Dragonball-esqe comedy elements and simpler (yet better looking) animation.
 * 7) The anime is noteworthy for being an early example of TV animation produced/directed by a single web animator, paving the way of later anime, including Tatsuki's well recieved sleeper hit, Kemurikusa (2019), which itself was a reboot of a 2012 web animation.
 * 8) Due to its interesting production background and concepts this anime has a niche fandom which was influenced by Akidearest's video 'I Reacted to Japan's Most Beautiful Anime '. A unofficial fan remake comic is currently in the works by TheSparkledash.

Videos
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