Hinatazaka46: "Koeharu" drama, episode six recap

 

 Air Dates: April 28th until June 30, 2021  Wednesday nights at 1:00 am on NTV

Subs are a joint project of Broken Subs and Team Hinata.... 22 minutes an episode

Main Cast: Top seven are all Hina members, first six are all first year students at the Kirameki Voice Actor's School. Bottom person is another member but we don't see her as she does some narration and often for Meiko's thoughts. All save for Amasaki live at the school's Doremi dorm. 

Mirei Saski as Meiko Hinowa.... Quite a shy nineteen year old who is such a fanatic about the "Namidairo Senki" weekly manga series. She's such a fan of the manga that she enrolled in the school when Meiko heard there would be an anime of it. It'll be a long shot for her to voice the role of Tya as Meiko is a bit inept at most things.

Akari Nibu as Mana Tendou.... Such an energetic student who is so talented at seemingly everything. She's become Meiko's best friend and it was revealed in the second show that Mana was a champion at Kendo until a tragic car accident.

Miho Watanabe as Amasaki Amane.... Went to high school with Meiko but Amasaki can't stand her and has bullied her for so long. Her father is quite wealthy, in high school she was the Queen of Snobs which has continued on to this school.

Miku Kanemura as Yukina Tsukikawa.... Her dream was to be a J-Pop Idol but failing all auditions thought going to a voice actress school would help her Idol career. After graduation she'll continue heer training at the Akaichi Pro Agency.

Hina Kawata as Tae Honda.... Simply idolizes Yukina. We never knew much about her until episode four and still don't but she was the first of the bunch to land an anime role.

Hinano Kamimura as Airi Kusuma.... In episode three has became a fashion model but will continue with her voice actress studies. She's such a quiet female and because Meiko is like that too Airi really looks up to her.

Ayaka Takamoto as Chizue Harukaze.... Doremi Dorm mother and still in VA training but does get an occasional voice acting job.

Aya Hirano as Iwao.... The student's main teacher and what a peppy woman! In real life Aya is known for being a singer and also a very busy voice actress.

Koichi Yamadera as Odawara Genmai.... Headmaster of Kirameki Voice Actor's School and also the creator of the Genmai training program.

Naoto Takenaka as Kinkakuji Enjo.... Older popular manga artist, writer of the 'Namidairo Senki' series published in the Weekly Hop magazine.

Sarina Ushio as the narrator.

Previous recaps:

Episode one .... Episode two .... Episode three

Episode four .... Episode five

 May help to read those other recaps as the first trio were posted on May 23rd and the second pair on June 14th. So that's a bit of a gap and as I won't be discussing too much of what's taken place may help to read some of them and none are that long. Starting this on the 17th but won't publish this or the below recap until the eighth episode is subbed which means it'll only be a two week gap until the final three shows are recapped.

 Will give the details in the next post, though this is just the sixth episode the time has flown as already about 21 months have passed. On a different note the actor wo plays the headmaster at the voice acting school is quite a popular voice actor in real life. Hs name is Koichi Yamadera and cannot not believe how many animes he's done over the years. But what made me notice him was that on June 14th he got married for the third time, three days later he turned sixty in age. His new wife is an ex-Idol who is just 28(!) so guess I picked the wrong line of work!

 Tragic news for the show's 'heroine' Meiko to end the fifth episode. She enrolled at the Kirameki Voice Acting School when she heard her fave manga 'Namidaira Senki' was going to be turned into an anime and Meiko really wanted to do the role of Tya so she enrolled at the school for training. But that dream has been smashed as the project has been cancelled as the writer and producers are at odds how the anime should turn out. So what's Meiko to do now that her life dream is no longer a possibility? That's to be in another anime and just by chance she met a young artist named Tanabe while she was moping about the streets. He's also a student and is making an anime for his senior exam but will need more help on it along with voice actresses. Hearing that news has sparked Meiko once again who said she was willing to help, she presumes she'll have the lead role and asked her mates at the Doremi dorm to join her.

 The girls were leery at the idea but then again none of Meiko's four housemates have worked on an anime yet. One did who was Tae but she had to move out two episodes ago to live with her new Idol group. Kind of taking her place at the dorm has been Amasaki who was the focus of the last recap. She's not living at the dorm but after being at odds with the girls, especially Meiko, has joined their mini troupe. So the girls agreed to be in Tanabe's anime "Majouko Pampiron" and Meiko will be acting as their go between until the project is complete. Meiko had no clue on how an anime is created and there's a reason it takes so many skilled workers as it's a difficult and time consuming process. Seemed Tanabe wasn't really aware of how much work it would take too as he can never meet his deadlines, that silently has worried Meiko but she's kept quiet on that towards Tanabe and her mates.

 But of course the girls are still enrolled at the Kirameki school and are still attending classes. It's a two year program and there's only three months to go in the second year, as I mentioned time is really zooming by. Most students won't get any voice acting jobs after two years so it's important to have an agency in place after graduation, more on that at the end. Meiko has been spending too much time on this "Majouko Pampiron" anime and seems she's doing more work on it than the creator Tanabe. Above in the second to last screenshot she's asked the school's headmaster Genmai if he'll take a look at the work she and Tanabe have done, if he thinks it's good would be be willing to do a part? To that Genmai agreed but he's been noticing what Meiko's friends have, that she's been devoting so much time to this project she's become a bit gloomy and isn't the fun gal she once was.

 Tanabe can never meet those script deadlines and it's only supposed to be a short anime. Meiko finally spoke about that and said just to finish it, from there she or Tanabe can alter the script. He stammered about with no answer and that's when Meiko took her first glance at the roles everyone would be be voicing. With all of her hard work on the anime Meiko naturally thought she's have the lead role as the Magical Girl Pampiron. But to her shock Meiko's best friend Mana will be doing that role, Meiko will only have the minor part as a cat! She was naturally furious at Tanabe who really couldn't give an answer to why he chose Mana but to me it was the right decision as she's much more talented than Meiko. So for now the project is at a standstill until Tanabe can finish it, the question then is will Meiko and her housemates still appear in it?

 Mana in that top screenshot says the girls should forget about the project which they all agreed to but we will be hearing more about it in the second half of the next recap. As was mentioned near the beginning the two year program is coming to an end and the students really need to sign with an agency or enroll in another school. Three of the group of friend's futures were still up in the air but that was soon to dwindle to one. Above you can see that Amasaki has been accepted to the Kirameki school's agency where they continue with the training and help the girls land voice acting roles. She had been told two others were going to be admitted and within a minute Mana received a call that she too will be joining the agency. All eyes were then on Meiko as they were expecting her to get an acceptance call too but to her dismay it never came and to date none of Meiko's dreams have worked out.

 The following day Meiko went to the headmaster's office asking why wasn't she accepted? The headmaster Genmai had always been on her side and has seen hidden talents which no one else did. Genami told Meiko that since she started working on that anime with Tanabe all her enthusiasm had evaporated and seems like she wasn't having any fun these days which was the main reason for her not getting into the school's agency. Meiko was in tears and screamed 'I QUIT!' as she stormed out of his office, on a sad note that'll be her last time ever seeing the headmaster. Outside of his office was Mana who overheard everything.

 She pleaded with her best friend to continue on with her voice acting dream and there has to be more options than just this school or the now cancelled 'Namidaira Senki' anime. There was no talking to Meiko who did say some overly harsh things to Mana such as she hoped her 'friends' would also suffer some bad luck and that just didn't sound like the Meiko everyone knew. As the episode ended she fled away in tears and is Meiko serious about quitting school? That you can read about in the next post and also why it was her last time seeing the headmaster.