PopSyndicate.com

A title with a start most promising, how did a title that changed the way we saw robotic house servant characters end so wrong! Find out inside this review!

Hinadori Girl Volume 1 to 3
When it comes to titles like this, quirky comedies with a bit of an innovation in it’s delivery, I usually have a soft spot for them. So why am I over feeling rather average about this read when it’s all said and done! Thing is while this title does innovate, it doesn’t follow-up on it’s innovation!

How does this innovate? Well it takes the whole robotic maid slash servant concept and breathes fresh innovation into it by changing the gal in question who is the robotic “maid”. Now usually when you have a series like this the robotic maid girl in question is usually either a sexy cute little morsel of yum or a smoking’ hot piece of yum… one or the other.

This title innovates by making her a cute spunky yet not in the fan service dept. gal who “Grows” into her role, but not as much a role of sexy maid but as family and sister to the people she lives with. Which is a great start, but falls short. How so? Let me tell you.

In Volume 1 you meet the brother and sister combo of Yoshiki and Akira.
Yoshiki is a dysfunctional male who is obsessed with technology, robotics and “virtual girls”. Akira is obsessed with—her brother… and getting out of hand at the drop of a hat (or the slightest irritation, which means it doesn‘t take very much to get on Akira‘s bad side). Their mother is gone (which is important to understand how the secret of Sally No. 1 comes about in Volume 3 and it’s significance) and their father is working on building the first lunar colony on the Moon… and apparently no matter how “attached” Akira is to her brother he still thinks they need something more, so he pulls Sally No. 1 out of storage and brings her back on line… with optional add ons like laser eyes and fire berath. And non-optionals like her operating system aka the “Hinadori Program”.

The “Hinadori Program”, is like a robotics version of a growing AI system, which “matures” as the unit “matures” (just like a real child would mature as she grows up). Thus Sally is capable of growing and learning things she never knew before, which makes for a most interesting concept as she “learns” her way into her life (first as a “support” bot then as a member of the family).

Of course they’re barely out of Volume 1 and already somebody (Akira’s homeroom teacher) is out to capture Sally anyway she can. She apparently knew of Sally and the Hinadori program while the father was working on it, and now that Sally is activated she wants Sally for her own selfish purposes. A start of a long running “gag” which later becomes the “delivery agent” of the secret of Sally’s purpose. But that’s a thing you can find out when you read it.

Up next the mysterious father returns, and Yoshiki quickly tries to hide Sally before father finds out he activated her (because of some fear of some sort of “punishment”).
Then there’s another theft attempt on Sally, and the rest of the volume covers the foibles of her “maturing” including her and sweets (which she can’t eat because she’s the kind of robot like that one from AI (the evil Spielberg movie)), her and playing tag, her and her “rebellious” phase, and finally a change of clothes for Sally (which is associated with a certain aspect of the story).

This volume also introduces Akira’s friend Nao, who seems to have this weird almost nonchalant attitude about everything that happens in the title (and a stranger attachment to Yoshiki). Another problem of the title, by the way, is the secondary characters. Why? Well, as you’ll see as you read this they seem to just fill space but contribute very little to the actual story development. Even the character I’m about to talk to, who first appears in Volume 2 and plays a vital part in a later part of the story, contributes very little to the actual overall development of the story (less than a good secondary character should).

In Volume 2 Yoshiki’s strange man-woman crossdressing annoying brainiac friend Sasayama (the weirdo) whose main job is to trade “blows” with Akira (calling her “Brother lover” a lot during the read), and to later show up at a critical moment to “save” Sally No. 1 (later on). For a strong secondary character both he (and Nao) really should have had more impact in this title then they had, a bit of a bummer for the title.

After another story with Sasayama we have a story where Sally becomes obsessed with having her picture taken. Then Sally gets a new outfit, though it seems to fit Akira better. After that Sally enjoys her first festival, learns to love being complimented, and becomes obsessed with touching the breasts of the scientist woman who’s trying to kidnap her… weird!! Oh, and then the 2nd Volume ends in a cliffhanger as Sally becomes seriously damaged from being hit by a vehicle and lies near—doom!

At the start of Volume 3 Akira is in a bit of a pickle. Sally has fallen into unconsciousness after being hit by a truck in the previous volume… so where is Yoshiki during all this? Glad you asked, it seems he’s off surveying this college he’s interested in going to and he left the house (and Sally No. 1) in Akira’s hands… which promptly went south the minute Sally tried to follow Akira to school and was struck down by a truck!

So Akira is left to get all emotional over what happened, though in the end Sasayama (the boy girl cross dresser) and Yoshiki (who returns from his trip) fix Sally as good as new… too bad that’s all that happens. Other than Akira bonding with Sally (which is already in progress from volume to volume) nothing else happens! Oh? What was supposed to happen? I don’t know—maybe Akira and Sasayama get past their “witty” banter and move to some next level of relationship! Something like that!!

After Akira tries to get Sally to take the day off to recover (which doesn’t work out so well, only until Akira actually needs Sally then she seems content to not work), we find Sally at the mall (still obsessed with squeaking her would be abductors breasts). It seems her assistant (who is near criminally obsessed with Sally in a creepy sorta way) is hanging out with a “girl” today and it gets on his “boss’s” nerves… yeah, guess who he’s with!

After that how about a Merry Christmas episode of Hinadori Girl! How about it! Wouldn’t you like to see Sally dressed up as a reindeer obsessed with Christmas?!? Wouldn’t you??? … no? Tough! Here it is, now hush up or it’s carbon producing planet unfriendly non-green coal for you!!

Another disappointment. Right after the Christmas episode Sally picks up a new stalker slash “rival” in the form of Luna, the girl (of the same height as Sally) who… well, a few pages into her first appearance Akira comes home to find Sally “captured” (wrapped up and bound with robotic frogs), with a strange girl trying to “hack” into Yoshiki’s computer. The girl in question, Luna, is the daughter of the President of the company the father works at so he invited her over… and then left her to her own devices because he was apparently unaware of her “capturing” Sally or her hacking endeavors… or was he.

Anyway from this point forward she becomes obsessed with Sally so she can find out how she works… by taking her apart piece by piece. Obviously since it would not be a nice thing to watch her dissect Sally she’s going to be denied her fondest wish, no matter how many fits of rage (and robotic frogs, her trademark) she throws at the situation.

Why is this a disappointment? Because Sally would have to get a “rival” her own size at the moment the title is nearing it’s end, taking what could have been a situation that would have greatly changed the dynamics of the series and wasting it since there isn’t enough time to really develop the dynamics between Sally and Luna past her brief appearances which really could have gone longer (and with more depth).

And that is the overall failing of Hinadori Girl. So much potential for development, so little actually done in that regard. The series doesn’t really make any attempt to really develop it’s characters! Instead it places the cast in amusing (but quickly repetitive) scenarios and lets it run all the way to the end. Sure, at times the story does divert into interesting moments (the incident with Sally where she lies near deactivation at the start of Volume 3, or the arrival of Luna in Volume 3) but nothing is really done to flesh these out past just these things happening!

For instance you’d think that (after the incident with Sally from the end of Volume 2 to the start of Volume 3) that something would begin to synch between Akira and girly man
Sasayama… yeah, you’d think that but you’d be wrong. In fact Sasayama seems to fall from grace from that point forward delegated to background tertiary character after this point forward! But at least he’s that, as Nao (the one interested in Yoshiki) seems to vanish just about completely from the title in terms of any importance as a character!!

And as the title wraps we find that the characters—well, the title leaps forward a year and nothing much has changed. Sure, there is some growth, but in the end you still feel cheated by the ending as a lot of what should have happened didn’t happen (leaving you feel unfulfilled in the way the title wrapped up as it did).

So in the end it had a spark of innovation, but it’s follow through wasn’t what it should have been. Secondary characters that should have developed and grew with the cast fell to the wayside, while the story wrapped with a disappointing end that I wish was stronger.
Do I recommend this? Actually yes, it is still a cute somewhat original take on the robotic girl in the household plot which is worth owning. Do I wish it was better done, that the innovation was more well rounded, and that certain faux pases like the weakness of the secondary cast or the way Volume 3 ended up could have been better? Sure I do, but it doesn’t mean I still didn’t like it.

Still, with all said and done, the good and evil of this book kinda neutralize each other out, leaving us with an average read that could have done better (but could have been worst all the same). So while I wished for better, I can at least recommend this even if I do have some misgivings with a score of 3 plagues of robotic frogs out of 5.

Want to see more? Sure you do! Head on over to DRMaster’s website at http://www.drmasterbooks.com to see the latest and greatest out now!

3