Anime Review: Haibara-kun no Tsuyokute Seishun New Game

Romance? Time Travel? Two of my favorite genres mashed together? Of course, I’m going to be there! That’s what you get when it comes to Haibara-kun no Tsuyokute Seishun New Game (Haibara’s Teenage New Game+). Of course, time travel is a very tricky thing to get right, but something tells me that this isn’t going to be the kind of series that worries about things like stepping on an ant and suddenly, Hitler never happened (That’s what Petals of Reincarnation is for!) Can this show tow that line without turning into something generic?

Let’s Jam

The Story

Haibara was a socially anxious, overweight kid during middle and high school. While he did go on to college, lose the weight, and land himself a steady job in infrastructure, he has always had those regrets about his teenage years. While standing on the balcony of his apartment smoking a cigarette, he wishes that he could redo his teenage years over. When he went to sleep that night, little did he know that he would wake up in the past.

After the typical “did I just time leap?” reaction and zero freaking out about it, Haibara realizes that it’s not a dream, and he has truly been given a second chance at redoing the one part of his life that he regretted the most. So, not wanting to waste much time, he gets to work on losing weight. One month later, he looks like a completely different person, and Mori, the girl he grew up with, sure noticed it. In fact, she’s the only one from his middle school who will be going to the same high school as him, which is a bit of a thorn in his side because she’s the only one who knew what he used to be like.

On the first day of school, he runs into Hikari Hoshimiya, the girl he had always had a crush on, asked out once, and got thoroughly rejected. One of his goals is to correct course and actually date her, but he knows that he can’t be the socially awkward version of himself that he used to be. While he is looking up his class, he overhears three people talking… Uta Sakura, Reita Shiratori, and someone he knew from his first time through high school, Tatsuya Nagiura, with whom he had a falling out. However, this time things seem to be different, and they quickly include him in their little group.

When they get to class, they spy Hikari and her friend Yuino Nanase. Those two quickly join the group. After establishing a chat group, Haibara realizes that everything is going smoothly for his high school re-debut, but as things progress, they get a bit complicated as Uta begins to develop feelings for him… the same kind of feelings that Tatsuya has for Uta. Her feelings for him, coupled with how he seems to excel at everything, cause Tatsuya to become jealous. Now, Haibara needs to juggle choosing between two girls, repairing a friendship with Tatsuya, all while figuring out how to make the most of his second chance at high school

The Characters

Natsuki Haibara

I’m not sure what more can be said about him than what was in the story section, but if we’re going to talk about him from a personality standpoint, then he’s just a down-to-Earth teenager who is trying a bit too hard to please everyone because he knows that his newfound acceptance is the only chance he’s got to making a brand-new (or first, in this timeline) impression on everyone. The funny thing is that Tatsuya had a right to be jealous because Haibara was coming off as someone better than everyone at everything, but he was just too naïve to realize it. That naivety was driving a wedge between his group, so he decided to do the right thing and come clean about his past without giving away the fact that he’s a time traveler. While he does a good job at repairing things, it’s not until the end of the series that you see him actually struggle with something… which is singing and playing rhythm guitar in a band. Still, he remains committed to his goal of having a colorful adolescence, which is commendable, if anything. I guess one could say that he’s a character who took chances, but also played it a bit too safe… if that makes any sense.

Hikari Hoshimiya

She was the girl Haibara had a crush on in the original timeline, but due to being overweight and not well-perceived, he never dared to pursue her. She becomes his main goal in this timeline; however, he learns that she has struggles of her own. At first, she seems like a typical high school girl, but when the show digs into her past and shows us how she was constantly under the pressured thumb of her father, you get a sense that she was trapped in a proverbial cage just waiting to break out. In a sense, that made you feel a bit sympathetic for her, and it also made sense for her character to want to be an author. Taking such feelings and transforming them into a novel format is how a lot of writers (be it novels, lyricists, poets, etc) get their primary motivation from. It was a nice dynamic to her as a character… and I like how she grew a spine at the end of her background arc! Very solid secondary main character that I enjoyed.

Miori Motomiya

She’s the only one of the group who knew Haibara from back when he was chubby. There was one point after Haibara’s transformation that I could have sworn she suspected that he was a time traveler, but even with those hints, the show never pressed the issue of it. Her and Haibara become partners as they help each other achieve their individual romantic goals. She starts with a prominent role in the story, but after her arc with the basketball club, she kind of disappears for the remainder of the show… only to get her character arc wrapped up in rushed fashion during the final episode… and then… the show seemingly tries to salvage the fact that they forgot about her by having them drop a bomb on us. While we could all see that bomb coming, I don’t think it was needed, and I think it kind of hurt her character more than helped it. Still, she was the tomboy character of the cast, and I do love me some tomboys, so I have a soft spot for Miori… I just wish she had a more prominent role outside of being a cheerleader for about 30% of the show.

Uta Sakura

Uta is a highly, and I do mean HIGHLY, energetic girl who falls in love with Haibara, but is actually loved by Tatsuya. Ugh… I know people might love her because she was trying so hard, but I just found her annoying…. and at the end of the series, when she explains things to Haibara, and what she was trying to do, yeah… that annoyance just blossomed into something a bit more ugly for me. I will give this show its flowers, though. Usually, when the “third wheel” character gets introduced, it’s painfully obvious that they don’t have a shot, and while Uta clearly didn’t have a shot… the show made you actually believe that she did. That’s not easy to do because this angle has been done to death in romance series. So, good job at that front, but a third wheel is still a third wheel. She was my least favorite character of the bunch.

Tatuysa Nagiura

He is the one Haibara looked up to. It seems they were friends in the first timeline, but then something happened, and Tatsuya got upset and annoyed with Haibara. This is why Haibara tried so hard this time around because he wanted to become someone who didn’t embarrass or burden Tatsuya… to pay him back for his kindness, but that ended up causing jealousy to brew, and it almost ended their friendship for a second time. Tatsuya can be cool, but he has an ego, for sure. When he’s bested, that ego comes out, and that’s when he becomes a bit hot-tempered. Everyone understands that about him, which means his jealousy of Haibara isn’t the first time they’ve probably seen him get that way. Like Miori, he kind of disappears later on in the show, but just not for as long. That kind of hurt things a bit because it was a bit confusing that he just hung back and almost let Haibara steal his girl. I just thought that was weird.

Yuino Nanase

Cannon Fodder. Plain and simple. She’s a warm body that they needed to round out the group. Aside from appearing with them and adding some lines here and there, I honestly kept forgetting she was ever a part of things. She was introduced as Hikari’s childhood friend and guardian, but… yeah… outside of that one moment when she yanked Hikari over to her house when she was dealing with her father, she didn’t come off as much of a guardian. I felt that her character could have been utilized more, but it wasn’t… and it’s sad to say, but the show probably wouldn’t have been any different without her in it. That’s a bad place to be in as a character.

Reita Shiratori

He’s the calm, level-headed voice of reason for the group. Whenever things are going screwy, he just slides into frame with that calm smile, offers a hand on a shoulder, and just says stuff to smooth out everyone’s feelings. I guess every cast needs a guy like that, and here, Reita’s your man. Thankfully, this show made him into something more than that, though. He developed feelings for Miori and actually turned to Haibara for advice! This is something new, here! The advisor needs advice! I liked that little twist, but his character arc was concluded really hastily in the final episode. Still, a decent, likeable character, though.

Serika Hondo

A late addition to the show. She likes music and always wanted to start a band, but she’s the only one who shows up to the music club. That is, until she meets Haibara and discovers that he likes to play guitar (in his past life, that is). She coaxes him into joining the club. They then recruit Iwato, a drummer, and Mei, a bassist, and make some music together. Serika is very soft-spoken. She tries to hide her emotions, but even through her monotone responses, Haibara can sense how she feels about music and how appreciative she is of his help in making her dream come true. At first, I thought she would become a fourth wheel, but it never happened… thank God.

Speaking of Iwato and Mei… nothing much to write home about them. Iwato is a bit standoffish, but simply misunderstood. He speaks harshly, but is kind. Mei is the opposite. He’s severely introverted and needs help breaking out of his shell, and the band is just the thing to help him achieve that.

Art, Animation, and Sound

Okay… I was just going to give you my usual spiel about high school slice-of-life shows looking generic with average art and animation, and while that still applies to this show… I do have to point out the super cringe final episode’s animation during the concert.

Look… I get it. Anime studios love blowing budgets on concerts. They want to have flashy lights, possibly some CG, etc. They want those concerts to feel special, like they are some big payoff to the previous eleven episodes of effort they poured into the show. Studio Comet shot for that… and missed horribly.

The concert started with typical standard animation. Everything was going fine… and then… they show this shot of Haibara singing, and they attempted to go the sakuga route by adding a ton of extra frames, and it just looked WAY out of place… almost comical. Then, it went right back to standard animation. This happened again right before they introduced themselves before the second song. Each band member had a solo riff, and they attempted sakuga once again. While it wasn’t as bad as Haibara singing… that rapid switch between the two animation styles was super jarring. It made me wish that they had just copped out and used bad CGI. I don’t know who was responsible for producing and/or directing that episode, but that was just a swing and a miss. Everything else was about what you would expect from a show like this.

As for the sound… nothing stood out from the OST as one would expect. All of the memorable parts came from the insert songs that were produced for the band, which was called Mishmash Leftovers, by the way. I will admit, the songs were good, but vocally… not so much. I know that the Japanese love to use a lot of vibrato in their vocals, but this just felt way out of place. The last two insert songs sounded a lot better than the one they opened with, though, so it was salvaged… but I was not a fan of Haibara’s singing voice. I’m not sure if it was the actual V.A. who performed, or if it was someone they brought in, but it was about as jarring as the bad sakuga moments during the concert.

Overall Thoughts

The show started well. Of course, I am a sucker for time travel, so it caught my interest almost immediately. I loved the concept, but outside of Haibara remembering moments from the original timeline, the time travel aspect wasn’t truly capitalized on as much as it could have. It just boiled down to a standard slice-of-life romance show.

Probably because I didn’t like Uta as a character, it was not a good feeling watching her interject herself into things. What’s worse is that Haibara actually considered going out with her, which destroyed the entire point of him changing his life around. He flat-out said that one of his biggest regrets was feeling like someone unworthy of his crush… so to actually consider someone else made him come off like a giant prick rather than someone who was doing all of this to get his happily ever after with the girl he liked. Then, when Uta admits she took advantage of the fact that Haibara wasn’t there yet and tried to wedge herself between them, that just made me hate her even more. I think that was the lowest part of this show because it just didn’t make much sense.

If the show were more realistic with things, Haibara wouldn’t have even entertained the thought of dating Uta at all. Now, it just makes Hikari seem like a consolation prize more than his main objective. Also, where the hell was Tatsuya in all of this? Sure, he got jealous, but to just disappear, then come back and say, “If you made her happy, I would be cool with it,” was super weird. Why would you admit defeat like that? Then, why would you get upset when you realize that you had a shot at Uta now? And why didn’t the show ever give us that conclusion to his character arc?

Maybe there is a second season coming, but if there is, what are they going to show? Everything seems resolved (for the most part)… and given the final scene that we got, the ONLY direction they could go it would destroy everything these twelve episodes built… and it would make some characters look even worse than parts of this show had made them already.

While the storytelling wasn’t the best in some parts, it was fine for what it was. If you can overlook some of the plot holes, it’s still something you can enjoy if you are a romance fan. Just curb your expectations if you think it’s going to use the time travel aspect as some deep story mechanic because it doesn’t. For everything it did give us, I’ll go slightly above average on the score.

Overall Score: 3 / 5