Hinamatsuri

I watched this for an anime club I'm in... and I liked it! I heard a lot of good things about Hinamatsuri over the years, both for the anime and the manga. It's a shame it didn't get a second season, I've had the manga on my ptr since it finished in 2020 though so maybe I'll finally read it...

Hinamatsuri is a comedy about an alien girl with super powers called Hina, who crashes into a yakuza's house and the yakuza guy (Nitta) ends up adopting her. At first you get the feeling the story might go in a total "she's a loveable but extremely destructive dumbass and Nitta needs to learn how to deal with that" direction but the character growth is actually really satisfying and with the addition of so many entertaining characters the story and their dynamic never get stale. Best way I can describe the setting is that it's an idealized world where everyone knows of bad things that happen, but the really bad things never actually happen, in a way. The adults in the show are absurd and unreliable or just plain evil. This allows for the comedy to build up and it leads to frankly insane and hilarious situations which could never happen irl because... bureaucracy, laws and common sense. But if you suspend your disbelief by the right amount I think the show becomes great. Now I went online and read some convos about the anime and holy shit people were PISSED at some characters for being bad people when like.. everyone is ridiculous in this anime you're not supposed to take it seriously! Yeah Utako forced a kid into child labor and to run away from home but there's 0 repercussions for it because the anime has been completely unrealistic from the start omg!! And the pure ridiculousness of these characters allows for the stupidest shit and twists to happen.

My favourite character was Hitomi, all plot lines with her were 10/10, stupidly funny.

This anime is very positive in a way I can't explain properly, so if you want to watch something lighthearted, entertaining and funny - go ahead. It's kind of similar to Gintama, Daily Lives of High School Boys and Saiki in terms of humor. It's very idealistic in many aspects but that's fine, it never claims or tries to pretend it's portraying real life. What if we pretended that homeless men aren't dangerous at all and that the yakuza are actually just a nice group of bros and went along with it?