BY ALICE FONTANESI
STAFF WRITER
Disclaimer: All of the information regarding Toilet-bound Hanako-kun comes from the first seven volumes of the manga, so if you are an anime-only watcher you have been warned for spoilers.
I’m going to say this now; this is more of a character analysis than anything else, but here we go. Nene Yashiro from Toilet-bound Hanako-kun is the main character of the hit manga series and is not a trash shounen girl.
Most people can agree that the representation of female characters in shounen anime sucks. Yes, shounen is a category aimed at young boys, but obviously, young boys aren’t the only people who consume shounen. Even if young boys were the only ones, the representation of women is still important as with any group.
Most female characters are, unfortunately, mostly there to be love interests and fan service. There has been progression in the media, and I believe that Yashiro is evidence of it.
Since Yashiro is most compared to Sakura Haruno from Naruto, I would like to start off my analysis of this. Despite how great of a series that Naruto is, it’s undeniable that Naruto failed in female characters. Sakura is no exception.
First of all, I want to say that I’ve only watched most of the first season, and it is already clear to me that Sakura sucks. Her infatuation with Sasuke is absolutely annoying and the way that she treats Naruto is honestly unjustified. There’s also the fact that she doesn’t do anything for the most part, and her only strengths seem to be her great chakra control. Other than that, Sakura barely serves any purpose to the story, and I want her to be thrown in a bin.
Yashiro does fit this description, but she is done in the right way.
There’s the discussion of circumstances first. Both Yashiro and Sakura are main characters in their series, so it’s expected that they can keep up with their male leads but neither of them do. Despite how Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto have been taught at the same school and are all trained ninjas, it’s Sasuke and Naruto who do all of the work.
Though Yashiro is just a high school student who wants a boyfriend while Kou is a trained exorcist and Hanako is an apparition.
It makes obvious sense that Yashiro would rely on the two of them, but she is still useful in her own way. Yashiro is the only one who can destroy the Yorishiros and she works with Hanako to keep the peace with supernaturals in the school like the time when she changed the rumor for the mokke. Yashiro also went through her own character development when she was introduced, and it ultimately saved her character.
Yashiro realized how selfish she was when she was trying to force Minamoto into a relationship with her, and that she was doing all of that to get a boyfriend to satiate herself. The character development wasn’t ignored since she stopped trying to go after every guy she met, and she is much more focused on trying to discover more about Hanako.
Her main goal is also a factor since it is not related to romance, and it is a goal that we can be invested in.
When writing a story, an important thing to do is make your main character’s goal a need and not a want. If the goal is a want then we don’t feel an urgency for it to happen, and TBHK was able to make Yashiro’s goal a need for both the audience and her.
Yashiro’s main goal is to discover who Hanako was when he was alive and why he killed Tsukasa, and even before she declares that is her goal we are already invested. The story shows us that Hanako has a messed-up backstory, but it is never the whole story and naturally, as people we are curious. Yashiro has a goal that we have already been invested in, and so when we find out in the Three Clock Keeper’s arc that Yashiro will die the next year we care.
It’s heartbreaking for the other characters which we care about, and we care because of the fact that Yashiro, the person we are following, might not reach her goal.
Then there is also her relationship with Hanako.
Personally, I don’t like to make the main male lead and the main female lead get together. Unless there is a plot-relevant reason I will not do it. Hanako and Yashiro are one of those instances where I am actually invested in the ship.
When we’re introduced to the two of them, we weren’t immediately made to think that they were supposed to be love interests. While I am a strong believer in first impressions, I do like how their relationship is handled.
Since they aren’t introduced as love interests at first, we aren’t annoyed with Yashiro because she won’t pay attention to Hanako since we all know how love interests are established. Then once Yashiro realizes that she doesn’t actually love Minamoto, there is an open spot for a love interest.
As the story progresses we can see that Hanako has built a relationship with Yashiro and it is obvious that he likes her. Their already existing relationship has not changed, but they have built a small romance that we like.
Obviously, Yashiro is not the greatest strong female character, but she definitely works much better than Sakura did.