Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu

Information of Anime

Haruka Nogizaka is a rich & intelligent high school.  She is like an idol & has the perfect image of a classy girl.  But Yuuto Ayase, a classmate of her's, finds out a secret about her when he returns a book borrowed by his friend Nobunaga Asakura to the school library.  He discovers that Haruka is an otaku.  Although he discovers this, he doesn't let anyone know & promises Haruka that he'll keep this a secret & help her hide it from others.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I have seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Ever since that Yuuto learned about Haruka's secret, he has been hanging out with her.  Most of the places involved are anime & manga related.  Yuuto, not interested about this otaku before meeting her, starts to understand this new world.  Yuuto later get involved with the Nogizaka family where everyone except Haruka's parents know about her otaku hobby.  Yuuto would later about Haruka's past & how she was bullied when the students in her past schools knew she was an otaku which caused her to move.  He also learns about how her otaku lifestyle came about when she was young.  When she was crying on a swing, a young boy approached her & gave her the first volume of manga magazine called Innocent Smile.  She still holds it up to now.

As the show progresses, the relationship between Yuuto & Haruka would cause some misunderstands about them being a couple.  However, it would slowly evolve to this stage.  The first step that triggers it is how Yuuto manages to persuade her father Gentou who disapproves her otaku lifestyle with the help of Haruka's mother Akiiho about how this is just a normal hobby like any other.

Later on in the show, Yuuto & Haruka would become a couple.  Or at least look like one & going beyond friends almost. In the last arc involving Haruka's birthday party being held on a private island, Yuuto begins to feel out of place.  Instead of getting Haruka a fancy present like the other guests on the island, he got her an anime related figurine to match her still secret to the public hobby.

As Yuuto is about to leave on Haruka's party, an old man that he met earlier in the day stops him & gives him strength.  When he presents his gift to Haruka, she is overjoyed.  The other guests make comments about how the way she's smiling as it's the first time for them to see it.  More shocking to them is how Gentou shook his hand & the guests talk about how he doesn't do that.  But what saves Yuuto more is the old man who is actually the previous head of the Nogiaka family, Ouki.

After the party, Haruka invites Yuuto to her room & stay a bit late.  When she retells him about the boy who gave her the first issue of Innocent Smile, Yuuto finally recalls it as he was the boy that gave her the magazine.  But he doesn't say it to her as he laughs & thinks if it's a coincidence or fate.

The show ends with the Haruka & Yuuto being more closer.  During the ending credit roll, we see the two at Akibahara on a date while encountering some family members & friends.

My Personal Review

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu was something I didn't know about at the start.  I thought it was some sort of yuri show based on the name.  Don't ask how I got that impression as it was mainly a feeling.  When I got some information about it before the show aired about an otaku girl, I decided to put this on my to-watch list.  I'm pretty glad I did. 

Animation

The character designs are pretty cute.  Although it's nice & nicely done, the female faces are so similar.  It's seems that this is very common now in many anime & possibly manga series.  As for the fashion sense, it's pretty common with nothing special.  Although Haruka is an otaku, you don't see her in outfits that would make it look like one.  The other otaku characters are like this as well, even though we do see some cosplay here & there at times.  Not much though.  But when the characters go SD, they are pretty cute.

The colours here are pretty bold in a dull way.  It's not bad with today's anime shows.

The background is pretty detailed & but nothing to be wowed about.  They are fairly nice & fit those high class atmospheres with elegance. 

The animation movement is okay.  The flow looks natural with some silly movements on the side.  There isn't much  noticeable choppy frames in the animation as what I've seen looks fairly smooth.

Sound       

The sound effects are clean.  It's got a nice mixture of realistic & silly sounds.  The sounds are played on cue.  Some of the sounds are cute too.

The seiyuus are pretty good here.  There are some big name ones here & some are fairly new as their resumes doesn't have a lot of work references under them.  But, they deliver a good performance to make their respective characters.

The music is matches the show's theme of the otaku world with cute pop related songs.  For me, I do like some anime songs here & there but the ones here doesn't cut it much.  But nevertheless, the songs fit the mood.

Story

The beginning of the show deals with Yuuto protecting Haruka's secret as he becomes her first friend.  Along the way, he learns about the otaku world & is slowly drawn into it.  There are some references of other anime series in the show, but I'm not otaku enough to spot out where some of them come from.  The story does move a little slow in developing the love between the two as they are thickheaded in this area.  It does take a long time for notice this.  But when they do, the relationship goes back to square one somehow.

As for the ending, it does complete the relationship between Haruka & Yuuto.  However, I was somewhat confused about how Haruka's secret was handled.  I don't want to give the ending or how it lead to it away for those wanting to watch it as it does play a big role in it.  I was expecting a different response from it.  Nevertheless, the ending was satisfying.

Overall Conclusion

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu is a great show to watch as an offer a somewhat new approach.  Rarely do we see an otaku girl from a high class family.  If you are somewhat an otaku yourself or want to watch something funny, give this a go.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu scores a grade of eight out of ten.  The show was a bit better than I expect as it had what I was looking for: comedy.  Another bonus is having an otaku girl.  One problem with the show is the fact it develops pretty slow & the ending approach may boggle some minds even though the ending is good for a short show.

Last updated on September 29, 2008