Hinatazaka46: "Koeharu" drama, episode eight 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. She quit voice acting training in the sixth show but has returned with a vengeance in the eighth episode.

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 had continued on to this school. Had because she changed her ways after the fourth show and is best buddies now with the other girls.

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. He sadly died at the beginning of episode seven.

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 .... Episode six .... Episode seven

 May help to read those other recaps as the first trio were posted on May 23rd, the second pair on June 14th and the other two a week ago. So that's a bit of a gap between them 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. The original plan was to have the final three recaps together but that would have been a three week gap after the last pair was done. So thought if I did this one now it'd be easier to follow the story, not that many are viewing these recaps but I'm enjoying this series though their "Re:Mind" series was a bit better. As mentioned two posts ago the time has flown in this show, thinking it began in  April 2018 and three years have passed so it's probably April/May 2021 by now, on to the recap.

 Bit of a sad incident in the last episode as Genmai, headmaster of the Kirameki Voice Acting School, passed away. Our main seven characters really looked up to the man but are using his death as an inspiration to try even harder. Especially Meiko who had quit school two months prior to graduation and was working as a cleaner, she now wants to focus all her energies on being a voice actress again. The main reason is because her all time fave manga "Namidairo Senki" will be an anime, it was a project that had been cancelled but at the end of episode seven it's back on. Meiko badly wants to voice the character of Tya and to her amazement has been invited to audition for the role, four others from the Doremi dorm were also invited to audition for that and other roles.

 However two weren't who were Airi and Yukina who you can see above, why they were excluded will be revealed later on. But the duo were invited to an interview along with the others, that was held by the man above whose name is Kakizawa and he dropped a semi bombshell on the seven gals. He wants to film a documentary about their audition struggles and also what life is like back at their dorm. Naturally the girls were quite leery of this man but not after he told them he had been a close chum of their mentor Genmai. This documentary would be aired nationally and what great exposure it would be for the seven, Kakizawa also wants them to voice the anime 'Pampiron' again which was discussed in the last two recaps. The girls are now a bit pumped up about their future, even though Airi and Yukina won't be auditioning for the new anime they'll still appear in the documentary.

 First off after that meeting was to get Meiko back in voice acting shape. As she dropped out of school prior to graduation she's well behind the others who prepared a 'crash training' course for Meiko who had been doing some practicing on her own, few of the other girls looked like they needed more training too. One morning after they were recuperating from their long run popping out of nowhere in their dorm was Kakizawa with camera in hand! To him their dorm life may be the most important story of the documentary but he also had a pleasant surprise for the girls. It was their headmaster Genmai's final video and one where he explained the reasons why Airi and Yukina weren't invited to audition for the "Namidairo Senki" anime.

 Since the third episode besides voice actress training Airi has also been a semi successful model. But she had been disappointed that people looked more at her face then what her thoughts were. Genmai had discovered how talented she was at writing and has set up an assignment with Canteen magazine to write an essay for the next issue, more if that goes well. That pleased Airi to no end and her friends didn't realize the talent she had writing. Yukina is very skilled at sign language and with Chizue has a video channel set up to communicate with viewers. Genmai had been so impressed with her people skills so he wants Yukina to be the anime's ambassador where she would do interviews, appear at events, etc. which made her elated. So though this documentary is just in it's infant stage it's starting out well but there is one person of the seven who is a bit down in the dumps.

 In the fourth episode Tae was the first of the students to land a regular anime gig plus out of that a side Idol group Chocola Chocola was formed. But after two years their popularity is starting to wan a bit and was it because Tae was now starting to spend too much time with her old friends? She thought so as Tae wasn't practicing as much with her group and she really needs to choose just one activity to participate in. That ended up being Chocola Chocola and her friends could understand Tae's decision 100% but because of that she'll have to drop out of auditioning for the "Namidairo Senki" anime.

 Shortly after that the auditions began and it seemed like thousands of voice actresses were there to land a role. The first stage was a baffling one to the applicants as it was to separate black soybeans from the other varieties, the beans were all in a large bowl. The applicants looked bewildered at this test but not the students from the Kirameki school, they had done an odd test like this before. It appears Genami set up many of the activities the actresses would need to pass before his untimely death. The four girls from the school aced the test with flying colors, now it's on to the second phase where the writer of the manga will be on hand. There is where this episode ended.

 Glad I changed the plans on doing these last three recaps, they don't take too long to write up but know most viewers would rather not read three in a row. Two more of these to go so should have them ready in ten or so days. This started out as a too fluffy of a drama but has changed course a bit and has become a bit more serious. You'd think the 'heroine' Meiko would be in line to grab the major role of Tya in the anime but for some reason don't think it'll happen, we'll see how it works out.