A Shojo romance featuring HanaKana and Chiaki Kobayashi as the leads? Sign me up
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The OP is pretty fun and breezy, featuring Hotaru and Hananoi together and enjoying each other amidst bountiful amounts of cherry blossoms
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Hotaru has never experienced romantic love or been particularly interested in it, being content with just her simple life and being with her family, so she's never felt that pull of falling in love or experienced it the way others have, like her own friend who just got a boyfriend. Though when she comforts a boy after a bad breakup, things begin to change
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Wow, Hananoi wasted no time confessing to Hotaru! That's some Reiwa Shojo romance energy for you
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Hananoi is a passionate romantic, believing in soulmates and giving your all to the person you love, even if it means changing yourself or going above and beyond to be close to them or make them happy, something Hotaru can't really understand especially when it seems like Hananoi doesn't place much value in himself outside what he can be for Hotaru
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Wait, is that Maaya Sakomoto as her other friend Shimabun? Never expected to see her as a Gal Pal in a Shojo romance
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Things come to ahead when Hotaru finds Hananoi foraging late at night in the snow to find her hairpin and she doesn't want anything to do with a one-sided love that benefits only one person...but Hananoi was only doing it to make her happy, because he knew how important the hairpin was to her more than even she did
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Hananoi believes in a love that is you giving your all to someone else, but Hotaru appreciates a love that is mutually beneficial to each other, and Hananoi caring about her so much and treating her so preciously begins to stir feelings inside her chest...and makes her not want to give up on this chance to fall in love by going out with him and seeing where things go. And thus begins the two's relationship, two people with different understandings of love coming together to learn about what it means to be in a relationship, complete with a full embrace right in front of their classmates
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The ED is pretty nice with Hotaru and Hananoi walking through the events of the episode...while holding hands :heeehe:!