Honobono Log
a review by groggy1
a review by groggy1
Are you tired of reading wall after wall of pretentious text?
Do you just want to know if you should watch the darn show?
Me too.
This show is 20 minutes long from beginning to end. I wish it was a little longer. If you like super wholesome, cheesy, fluffy romances then this is for you. Gave me diabetes from how sweet it is.
Wholesome counter: used 10 times in this review
Honobono log has 10 episodes, with each being 2 minutes long. There isn’t much content you can cram into 20 minutes in total, and Honobono Log doesn’t try. It’s more of a loose collection of events than an actual show (if you want to get fancy you can use the word 𝓋𝒾𝑔𝓃𝑒𝓉𝓉𝑒𝓈). Each episode has a different cast and scenario with most of them being very wholesome. Only one episode didn't have the pure and sweet vibe and it actually managed to make me a little emotional. There was a non-zero amount of thought put into the order of the episodes, as the finale was clearly the climax of the show (that doesn’t have a plot), and was a perfect end to the series. Unfortunately, the whole thing was so short I forgot about it the next day.
There are no characters in this show. There are only heartwarming moment delivery vehicles, and I want to inject that shit straight into my veins. My vocabulary isn’t large enough to have an alternate word for “wholesome”, so I’ll just keep using it. The characters are wholesome. They look wholesome, they act wholesome, they say wholesome things. Everything about this show is super sweet, and the characters are no exception. Watching this made me feel very alone. Considering the length of the episodes, don’t expect any major character depth. Objectively speaking, they’re flat and one dimensional. But if you watch the show and come out of the experience actually complaining about that, you’ve missed the point of it entirely and have no heart.
Episodes are only 2 minutes long. So why is there a 20 second OP and a 10 second ED? That’s a quarter of the run time wasted for nothing. And what’s worse is that the OP and the ED are the same song. And what’s worse is that sometimes the ending won’t even use a different section of the song. They’ll play the same section of the song they used in the opening AGAIN, even though I just listened to it 1 minute and 50 seconds ago. The show also has no soundtrack that plays during the actual episode. This isn’t really a big deal and I never found myself wishing that there was music, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
The quality of the voice acting is pretty standard, but they don’t scream attack names or use annoying high pitched voices which is a huge plus. In general, the characters are very quiet. Absolute silence is pretty common but that’s not a complaint. A show like this is supposed to showcase the cute, simple moments in everyday life (according to google translate honobono means heartwarming), and having some dumb shit like a group of anime girls going “EEEHHHHHHHH?!?!??!” at the top of their lungs would have felt out of place.
The art style is hand drawn and cozy, adding to the vibe of the show. It was often simple to the point where it felt like there was too little on screen. Everyone just exists in a beige void and the most detail you could expect from the majority of the episodes was a table or a window or something. It honestly reminded me a little of Evangelion episode 26 when they ran out of budget.
The character designs fit the look of the world but are more detailed. The designs of the females are varied, but a bunch of the guys looked exactly the same to me (just watch the OP and see if you can tell them apart).
They make good use of fast, snappy character movements for comedic effect, and the roughness of the animation kind of complements the hand drawn style. The rest of the animation is pretty smooth, and animation is good in general.
If you like watching things that make you feel lonely (also known as wholesome romances), give this a shot. If you have 2 minutes to spare, give this a shot. This show requires so little time investment that literally everyone should try this. It’ll only take 1 episode to know if you like it.
If you’re looking for another super cute, super wholesome, super short romance with no drama, check out I Can’t Understand What My Husband Is Saying. If you’re fine with something that has normal episode lengths, consider Tonikawa or Wotakoi.
Short but sweet. I wanted to give this a higher score but because it was so barebones and short, I couldn’t justify giving one. The show’s main problem was that it lacked substance and was very forgettable as a result. It really broke my heart to give Honobono Log the score I did, but you should know that it reached 100% of its potential given the constraints it had. I gave it a 66, which is the minimum for the rectangle thing with the score to be green. There is no universe where this show deserves an orange rectangle or below.
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