Himouto! Umaru-chan – Series Review
Me at 4 am watching anime~
Wooooo! It’s time for a series review on Himouto! Umaru-chan because nobody reviewed this crazy series on Metanorn, I found it to be really funny every week and this is also from Doga Kodo which brought us such hits as Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, GJ-bu, Love Lab, Mikakunin de Shinkoukei and Yuru Yuri! So they have a great track record for me personally.
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Hamster Girls are cute
One day these four will be best friends.
Little sisters that love anime and have to keep it a secret is nothing new to the world of anime and Himouto-chan uses those themes with Umaru having to keep her otaku addiction secret from her friends while she lives a double life in and outside of school, but I think most people wrote this series off as Umaru being an annoying brat who uses her older brother to buy her snacks, manga and anime; however there was one episode that showed us a younger Umaru being left alone so maybe she has a tragic past? I mean sure I can’t deny that she didn’t take advantage of her brother because she is super guilty of doing that; however those moments quickly fade into the background once Umaru starts to interact with Ebina, Kirie and Tachibana! To my surprise a lot of those characters have their own set of secrets to hide from others and some of them also have older brothers so they can kind of relate to Umaru only slightly. So which girl had the most interesting story? That is quite tough since we only saw one on Ebina. I loved watching her episode because it was all about her family. I would have loved to learn more about Kirie who is actually related to Bomber who also works with Umaru’s brother Taihei? Oh and we cant forget Tachibana’s brother works with both them too!? What? I was surprised to learn about that fact, but I kinda want more stuff with Kanau since she has a crush on Taihei for a possible side romance. That said out of the high school characters I can’t pick any of them as my favorite because I enjoyed watching all of them together with Umaru, but for the hell of it I will pick Ebina as a favorite even though by the end I really started to like Kirie a lot and seeing her smile made me happy.
Insane characters
How can anyone not figure these two out!? Anime rules I guess.
While this series is filled with some great character moments I did get a bit CRAZY! Especially when dealing with normal Umaru and chibi Umaru since none of the side characters ever came close to discovering Umaru’s huge secret! Such as Kirie for example? For some reason she totally bought the lie about normal Umaru and chibi Umaru being two different people?! Seriously? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? Also why didn’t Tachibana ever figure it out? Like during the fighting game tournament? Was that mask really hiding her identity and the fact that she never tried to change her voice also bugs me! Yeah I know that is sort of the gimmick of the anime and it wasn’t ever going to be about them finding out; however I feel with the final episode Umaru should have revealed the truth to her friends especially poor old Kirie who practically opened herself to Umaru with her serious issues about talking to people and making friends! I can’t imagine how she will feel about being lied to for so long or would she be alright with that? Besides those issues I can’t really think of anything else that bugged me with Himouto Umaru-chan.
Extra Hamster Girls
Shark-chan vs Whale-kun the battle of the ages!
Umaru is a mix of things…
At least the girls packed the right beach toys.
BLUE FTW
End thoughts
So yeah if you love crazy series like Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun, GJ-bu, Love Lab, Mikakunin de Shinkoukei and Yuru Yuri I highly recommend you go back and give Himouto! Umaru-chan a shot or maybe continue watching if you dropped it early? Yeah Umaru might be a total ass who takes advantage over her brother to get what she wants day after day, but I honestly feel by the time you get close to the end you will start to realize like I did that the series is totally about Umaru wanting to make friends or am I completely off? I know they never outright say that Umaru wants friends, but the vibes were there for me! So what did you like about this series or do you absolutely dislike it? Either way I know it was a fun ride from start to finish for me personally! As for a possible season two I would gladly welcome one if it gets made even though Doga Kobo doesn’t have a huge track record for sequals besides Yuru Yuri and a few other series.
10/10 I need moar hamster girl in my life <3
About Foshizzel
Is huge anime fan from Florida! who loves to watch anime and also enjoys drawing and collecting pictures, my favorite genre of anime has to be Mecha, there is just something awesome about giant robots beating the crap out of each other! Other than that type of show, I love a good comedy or action series :D
POWUH: 800-899 and Self-proclaimed Manga Queen with 874 comments
~I would’ve wrote more on this series but it’s always so hard to write weekly posts on a comedy show ahh…
Anyway, I adore this series, even more so as an anime. Like Gekkan Shoujo, they did a good job adapting it and making it entertaining every week. It’s just so much fun and all the characters are lovable (Kirie was also my favorite)~ I think if you have siblings (especially nerdy siblings) the anime is a lot more enjoyable and relatable because I know for myself it reminded me a lot of how my siblings and I act at home (which is also why I didn’t find Umaru being a brat that annoying because LOL I
amwas that sibling).I do wish we got more info on the other girls, but even at the point when I stopped reading the manga (like a 1000 years ago lol), there wasn’t even that much info anyway. I’m not sure now, but if not, I hope so soon!
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
No worries! Trust me I know it can be hard to review straight up comedy series~
Yep Doga Kobo did an excellent job on Gekkan and this series as well and yeah Kirie is great <3 LOL so Hoshi is Umaru-chan! I'm the oldest sibling in my family, but yeah I can relate to Umaru in certain ways especially the need to eat snacks in a certain order while watching anime hahah.
SAAAMEEE! Maybe if they do another season we can get more focus on the side characters, but I also saw the manga was about to finish or it's already done? Either way I would love more.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
This show won me over with it’s Insane UMR LOGIC! I wish I could chibi transform. I can sit here with a pile of comics or manga on my tablet and it just….doesn’t….happen.
This was a great show, and one I looked forward to every week! By no coincidence it did come out on New Comicbook Day. So it was fun to get that groove.
Ebina was fine, and Princess Blue Whatsername was OK most of the time. But Kirie and Bomber almost stole the show. If they do a S2, I would want more focus on those two.
Kudos Doga Kobo, and kudos Fosh!
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Hahaha well every anime fan has a inner Umaru-chan~
I was happy that every episode had something hilarious about it and once it gets over the whole “Umaru uses her brother to get something” plot it really picks up and opens the doors for fun.
True at the start it was Ebina, but after Bomber and Kirie appear I was like OMG those two need a spinoff series.
Yep Doga Kobo is on a roll with comedy! I can’t wait to see what they do next.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…that would be…
POWUH: 600-699 and LN Enthusiast with 623 comments
Ebina placing her arms in front of her really emphasizes her assets a lot. If I didn’t know any better, she’s doing it on purpose to seduce Onii-chan and not what Umaru thought as her excuse to cover her stomach and how hungry she always is.
The thing I observed in some works by Doga Kobo is that they like to cast some newbie seiyuus with veteran seiyuus. Here, they casted a newbie seiyuu, Tanaka Aimi(who did an excellent job doing two voices for Umaru) with a veteran seiyuu Nojima Kenji, with some veteran support casts of Kakihara Tetsuya, Yasumoto Hiroki and Koshimizu Ami. Other works which they’ve done that is Mikakunin de Shinkoukei, where 3 new seiyuus had a veteran seiyuu(Hatano Wataru) as a male lead. Another is Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun with a newbie seiyuu Ozawa Ari with veterans like Nakamura Yuuichi, Okamoto Nobuhiko, Nakahara Mai, etc.
It’s an interesting thing to do. The newbies could learn better with a veteran close to them when they’re casted as main characters since they always appear together in the show. I look forward to seeing the seiyuus of the 4 girls in this show in other series, preferably getting casted more in main roles. Ozawa Ari who started in Nozaki had since gotten a lot of main roles then.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
LOL I think a lot of anime characters do that to show off the goods in a secret/innocent way or something…
Wow you are so right pairing a newbie with a veteran actor totally works wonders and I noticed that Doga Kobo launched Ozawa Ari’s career, but I hope we hear more of Tanaka Aimi in the future~
Speaking of Ozawa Ari I think she is in at least 5+ series in the fall? Damn she might become the next Hanazawa Kana, but I think I say that all the time when certain actors appear everywhere.