I haven’t talked about Akame ga Kill! on my blog, so let me give you a short gist on how I feel about it: I love Akame ga Kill! It is a fun, edgy battle shounen with dark undertones and a surprising amount of emotional tension. Oh, and of course, the manga’s better than the anime! So with that out of the way, let’s dive into Akame ga Kill!’s sequel series, Hinowa ga CRUSH!, published in English by Yen Press.
The nation of Wakoku has been caught in a civil war for, basically, ever. Our main character, Hinata- who changes her name to Hinowa, taking after her mother who died in battle- dreams to end said war (pretty typical). It’s definitely a lofty goal. But fortunately, a familiar face washes up on the shores of her village, and just so happens to be pretty stinking powerful. (Spoilers: It’s Akame! *fan gushes*)
Despite the whole, you know, war going on, Hinowa is noticeably lighter in tone compared to its parent series. The first thing that’s easily noticeable is the fact that Hinowa’s friends don’t get slaughtered to death within the first volume, which is what happened to Tatsumi’s redshirted buddies in Akame. In fact, not a single protagonist dies in the volumes that I’ve read, other than Hinowa’s mom way at the beginning. This is a huge tonal shift compared to Akame, which had been memed as the “Game of Thrones of anime” while it was airing.
So while Akame got backlashed for having too many deaths “just for shock value”, Hinowa seems to suffer from the opposite; plot armor. We only see bits and pieces of training throughout the story, and it mostly comes down to them getting whooped by Akame in mock duels. It’s not enough to show how darn good these kids are during their very first battles. One particularly bad example is when this redshirted commanding officer gets one-shot by some other guy, while one of Hinowa’s friends- who’s still a greenhorn- manages to hold their own against the same exact guy. Maybe the author responded to the backlash in Akame? Or is this all a red herring before a dark tonal shift later?
Unfortunately, the characters have been downgraded from Akame. The whole cast of Akame either had a very expressive personality, memorable character design, or a creative ability. In contrast, the titular Hinowa and her buddies are just generic teenagers, and seem to handle being in the military as well as going shopping at the local mall; no moral quandaries here! The weapons in Hinowa are similar to the ones in Akame, but are nowhere near as interesting thus far.
But what about the character we all came to Hinowa ga CRUSH! for: Akame? It has been a couple of years, but I remember her being way better than she is here. Akame goes from being a “tough-exterior-unstable-interior” type of girl to kind of a “perfect girl” type; powerful, but kind and supportive. While it is possible to follow Hinowa without reading the prequel, the context of Akame is important, or else you might think it’s strange that such a powerful woman just magically turned up when it happened to be convenient.
Another concern is the change in the artist. Overall, the new artist did a good job making Akame recognizable, but there’s a noticeable lack of oomph compared to the previous artist. All the over-the-top gore and expressions are toned down a lot, which makes Hinowa more “grounded”, but I’m still not a big fan. It could’ve been worse, I guess.
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Current Verdict: 7.25/10
I don’t want to be one of those fans that’s like, “It’s not EXACTLY like the original series I loved so much, therefore it’s objectively bad”, but I feel like Hinowa ga CRUSH! is lacking the chutzpah that made Akame ga Kill! so great. With how different it is, I definitely can’t easily recommend Hinowa to Akame fans. Honestly, I’m gonna have to sit on this one for the time being.
Weeb Revues 