Back
Where to Watch
Links go to search results. Availability varies by region.
Hana-Kimi
花ざかりの君たちへ
6.96(10K votes)
Ranked #4980Popularity #4459episodes
12
Type
TV
Status
Finished Airing
Aired
Jan 4, 2026 to Mar 22, 2026
Studios:Signal.MD
Romance
Synopsis
To most people around Mizuki Ashiya, her sudden choice to move to Japan from the United States comes as a shock. Her sole reason for the transfer is to attend the same high school as her idol Izumi Sano, who stole her heart after she saw him compete in a high jump competition. However, there is one problem—Sano attends an all-boys school! That does not stop Mizuki, though, as she is committed to getting close to Sano by changing her appearance and demeanor. Mizuki luckily ends up in the same class and dormitory room as Sano, but her ideal plan is shattered when she finds out that he has quit high jump. Nevertheless, Mizuki is determined to learn more about him and rekindle his love for the sport, all while navigating her new life in high school and keeping her true gender hidden. [Written by MAL Rewrite]
32,636 Members
Worth Watching? — Global Verdict
5.8/10
Average Review Score
31%
Recommend It
13
Reviews Worldwide
International Reviews
KANLen09
Mixed Feelings
6
Hana-Kimi - Is old-school Shoujo finally back from the grave for a modern resurgence? Yes and no... The "direct but not so direct" opposite of the Shonen genre, the Shoujo genre has its fans too where the former precedes action and intensity, the latter precedes romance, rom-coms and the like. It wouldn't be fair to say that Shoujo is the way it is today without some big names throughout history, and for one such mangaka by the name of Hisaya Nakajo, the late veteran who passed away in late 2023 would become one such figure that would shake the Shoujo genre in the early 90s. Apartfrom her rather short-lived 2-volume manga series Sugar Princess which was serialized in Hakusensha's famous Hana to Yume imprint in the mid=2000s, it's her other work of Hanazakari no Kimitachi e, otherwise known as Hana-Kimi from 1996 to 2004, that finally got an anime adaptation 3 decades later that's seeking to adapt the entirety of its 23 volume, 144 chapter long series. And the first result of that with the premiere season here...it has its good and bad. It's fair to say that series like mangaka Bisco Hatori's Ouran High School Host Club went viral during both its manga run and its eventual 2006 anime release, not just for what it does as a work on its own, but it's also lessons learnt from works like Hana-Kimi (that was seralized in the same publisher through its follow-up LaLa magazine imprint), which the former was released 6 years later in 2002, and went on to receive its share of fanfare...which I can't exactly say the same thing about Hana-Kimi, which is pure Shoujo romance through and through, at least in terms of 90s style of romance. As for what Hana-Kimi entails, the plot is simple: imagine being a fan of someone from overseas, and going as far as to stalk the person him/herself so much that he/she becomes a part of their life from the very first day their lives are intertwined by fate. This is the story of Mizuki Ashiya, the orange-haired girl who hails from Japan, but is living in the US after moving there with her parents, and finds one such particular figure of interest: Izumi Sano, a high jumper who has earned awards and medals for his accolades, and is set to be primetime for a future athlete in the making. Mizuki's obsession with watching him on the TV screen, envelops her into an ordeal where she becomes the Izumi Sano encylopedia on what makes him tick, alongside his great performances. There's only one issue that stands in her way: the school that the professional high jumper is attending, is the Osaka High School, which is unforuntately, an all-boys school. Regardless, this does not deteriment Mizuki to convince being brought back to Japan just to attend the same school that he does, it just takes one chest vest to hide her sizable breasts for a rather slim figure, and a haircut which perfectly disguises her as a boy, and she's immediately into the school to seek out Izumi, and the rest of the boys, which she's integrated into a dormitory that's allocated under the sports/academic scholarship for athletes and scholars. From there on, it's getting to know who the all-star professional athlete is in person, and the drama that follows the central couple in the series. And believe me, this 90s work is every bit as pure as it gets for capturing what the Shoujo genre worked at that time. There's not really any wrong with the story, at least for this premiere season which adapts the first 5 out of 23 volumes, which for some reason, the school's setting is what struck me as the first notable and interesting thing, that's surprisingly better than the story itself. Because you see, the all-boys school itself is huge enough to have dorms allocated for everyone, since most students don't stay around the school area. Even more decidedly, these 3-by-3 grade classes (which count for a total of 9 classes) have totally different cultures according to the dorms they're placed in: Dorm 1 for purely athletical students under a sports scholarship; Dorm 2 (where Mizuki and the other main support characters are) for a mix of atheltical and scholar students under the mix of sports and academic scholarship; and Dorm 3 for students being artists and scholars under a mix of academic and arts scholarships. These 3 dorms operate their own sets of rules, terms and conditions, and inter-dorm rivlary is common and intense especially during key school events like Osaka High's cultural festival (which is prominently shown in this premiere season). So, with quite the environment about Osaka High, you'd imagine a nobody like Mizuki who dares to step in by infilrating as a guy on a sports scholarship, would get the attention of the regular boys who think of her as a boy and nothing else. However, the adults would be the first to sniff her out and her reasoning for joining the school to want to see Izumi, like the school nurse Dr. Hokuto Umeda, who has the Ikemen looks of a ladies' man and a player, but that he's a true doctor in every part of the detail. Even worse, is realizing that his new roommate (which his room has always been left to by himself alone) is not the boy who he seems, and trying to live on the fact that Mizuki sometimes shed her boy-ish looks to reveal her feminine traits, which Izumi has to always be careful and avoid overstepping his borders to protect her always like a guardian. Even with the other characters in tow, you can already imagine it's like Ouran High School with the harem trope (before it was even a genre at that point) but in an all-boys where looks can be deceiving. This is exactly the case for the support cast, of which includes Shuuichi Nakatsu who's always fantasizing Mizuki with her feminine looks (despite being a true female), her form's Resident Advisory Minami Nanba, as well as her classmates of Senri Nakao and the rest, who became her close clique trying to figure out what is going behind the scenes in Osaka High. And this story and its development, it's not the prettiest picuture for modern standards of the 21st century with its tropes that seem new for the time, but kind of overstayed its welcome with how much they're being recycled on and off. At least it's a TRUE Shoujo romance story, so I'll give this a passable grade. Hana-Kimi being the first-ever anime that's produced by Hayate, the joint venture of the Sony Music Entertainment Japan-backed companies of both Aniplex and Crunchyroll, you can think of this as the NEW Crunchyroll Originals label that's at least doing a much better job that what the latter did back in its heyday, which to say it was a mess of absolute measures. Normally, any animation company backed by Sony's 2 giants will show improved production quality, though in the case of this show, Signal M.D. is not one of those companies with a track record for good production. It's fair to say that quality was a hit-and-miss, though at least it feels consistent for a good showing. This is not to mention having famed composer Masaru Yokoyama for the series's OST, on top of Yoasobi helming both OP and ED theme songs, of which "Adrena" and "Baby" are decent hits coming off from one of the biggest names in modern J-Pop. But overall, it's decent and rarely (if not ever) shows up having key moments to define the anime...at least not yet. Despite the numerous live-action dramas that went before it back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, Hana-Kimi may not stand aloft on the top as a show that exist on the minds of the Westerners, and even to the Asians (of which not just Japan, but Taiwan and South Korea getting live-action adaptations of it, that I think frankly is a lot better received), it's a series that...if I may be very frank, just exists as a footnote in Shoujo history as one of the works that has a reputation behind it, but that it feels plain-jane at best despite being decent to good. Hana-Kimi may not be peak 90s Shoujo, but it is alright and fairly enjoyable, and should be given at least a try. Just try not to be overloaded with modern-day brainrot before coming into this one.
Episodes (12)
Filler Recap
Click an episode to read its synopsis.