The setting is a a number of neighboring onsens. Variety is a really nice spice. Now all we need is the best spice of all — fanservice! And … we get swimsuits? For an onsen???
Anime
Time to do some catching up with Halone-chan. But things are different from the first two episodes. So much so that there wasn’t much fanservice after episode 02 until episode 07 and it’s in the form of swimsuits!
Episode 03
The adult form of Hakone is fun. Too bad we don’t get to see grown-up Hakone very much…
Her name is Miya. She’s the blond from the OP that we have’t seen yet. She’s an onsen spirit just like Hakone. Not to mention, Hakone’s rival. And one of the prettiest girls in the show. Tsundre with a crazy crush too…
Finally some fanservice. But swimsuits in an onsen? Is that even allowed??? Still the girls look really cute. Too bad their outfits aren’t more revealing…. Oh, and Hakone seems to be way behind the times when it comes to swimwear. LOL.
Are they trolling us? This anime poster is more ecchi than the anime is. If only the anime was at least this ecchi!
Also still not seeing much in the way of fan art so far.
Overall
Hate to say it, but overall it’s looking like we got trolled in the first two episodes of Hakone. Hakone was never going to be a standout ecchi show but it was at least mildly ecchi and amusing including a boob grope in episode o1 and an onsen scene in episode 02. But starting with episode 03, the tone has shifted to cute and mildly amusing without ecchi overtones. Such a shame with such cute character designs. Took a while but at least we got to see the girls strut their stuff a little in episode 07. Still more cute than ecchi.
There is a mild onsen scene in episode 08 which will be included in the next and final fanservice review. But since then it’s been mostly cute-is-as-cute-does and mild comedy.
I did enjoy making stitches for the show, some really cute stitches too. But it’s hard to recommend for ecchi fans since the mild ecchi is few and far in between. It’s almost like the show takes place in a desert and it takes a long time to get to the next oasis, er, onsen. Sadly, I don’t see any potential nudity on the horizon for this show…
Notes
You can find the full version of the cover image for this article here. You can also find it in the stitches for episode 07.
All of my image stitches were included in the article.
All of my videos were included in the article. But for downloading, you can find my albums here: 03, 04, 05, 06 and 07.
