Hokkaido Gals are Super Adorable!

 Okay, I got this series in my Winter Anime League, for some reason I think / hope this could be the new My Dress-up Darling.

And if not, I at least got to watch a series filled with jokes and adorable girls.

When Shiki Tsubasa moves to Kitami City, he meets a "gal" or gyaru (a popular japanese subculture) at the freezing busstop.  Barelegged, she is waiting in the snow for the bus.  She is called Minami Fuyuki, and he immediatly is intrigued by her.  They take the bus together, as he tells her he moved from Tokyo just that day, reminiscing how nobody knows him yet.  They seemingly attend the same school, and she immediatly attaches herself to him in the cold... and he is so stricken he forgets to get on the actual bus, arriving to late at school.  

They are in the same class, where he learns he must bring his jacket or a blanket as he isn't used to the cold, but as she makes flirty remarks he doesn't know how to react to her extravert personality, especially when she invites him over to her house a day after they met.  Later on, he repays the favour after going on a kind of date with her to the Winter Festival, but as they have an awkward talk inside a snow fort, his grandma overhears them and draws wrong conclusions.  Yet when she sees Tsubasa smile over at the house, she decides to give Fuyuki a chance.

 

 

During a skying trip with class, Fuyuki tells Tsubasa she wants to get to know Akino, a closed-in gyaru in class, better.  As bith Akino and Tsubasa are the big beginners in the sky-class, they spend the day together and Tsubasa breaks into her shell, learning she is a gamer at heart that tries to fit in but is afraid of talking with people.  Later during a blizzard, after he met Fuyuki's mom, who sees her daughter brighten up near Tsubasa, they visit the shopping mall with Akino.  Fuyuki and Akino bond, and Fuyuki teases Tsubasa later that night as she takes a bath. 

When they all go out for karaoke night, the topic of Valentine comes up as it is rapidly approaching.  Akino wants to try to make chocolates for the first time, and is aided by Fuyuki, but an accident during the phone call ruins the latters chocolates.  This causes her to burst out in tears with Tsubasa, but he comforts her playing her favorite cheer-up song on the piano.

After a study party he hears from her mother she was all talks about what he did for her, as he spots a beautiful yet slightly odd girl in his neighbourhood.  This turns out to be Rena, the prettiest girl at school and winner of various pageants, and she lives next door to him.

 

 

Distracted by all the girls, his grandmother tells him that unless he ends in the top-10 ranking he must return to Tokyo.  Rena, who also happens to be the school's number one student, tutors him in exchange for a date if he achieves his goal.  He ultimately comes in third in the exams rankings, but as he and Rena go out he tells her he wanted to reach his goal to stay close to people he started caring about a lot.  But Fuyuki's mom spots them on their walk in the village.  Fuyuki and Akino follow them as they go to the arcade and a movie.  Having a drink later, Rena shares her insecurities with Tsubasa, but the others barge in as he tells Rena how important they are to him.  Fuyuki's mom arrives, taking them out for a Yakiniku dinner, after wich Fuyuki tells Tsubasa that his next date must be with her.

But White Day is arriving first, and tsubase helps Matsuo make up to Fuyuki and Akino for some mean things he said during Valentine's.  He goes smelt fishing with Tsubasa, only to find Fuyuki present on the lake as well.  Though they have a great time, Tsubasa comes down with a serious cold and Fuyuki comes to his place to take care of him.  He feverishly holds her hand, the next day wondering he imagined it all, while Fuyuki wants that feeling to last forever.  

As spring, and the new school year, is around the corner, Fuyuki fears she might no longer be in the same class as Tsubasa, a fear that proves unfounded as they are all classed together again.  Matsuo nominates Tsubasa as class president, and Fuyuki becomes his vice-president.  Later, she confides with him she did that to spend more time with him, and asks him to keep one day free during Golden Week for her, as she has to tell him something.

As the day comes, she takes him away from Hokkaido.  Here, they go enjoying various little things like driving karts, taking a friendship picture at a shrine, and enjoying the blossoming of the sakura fields with some icecream.  As Tsubasa gives her a friendship bracelet, he chickens out to tell her his true feelings, but she takes the word.  The important thing she had to tell him was that she is going abroad to study make-up.  When the day arrives, Tsubasa finds her hairpin in his backpack.  She had put it there after they had rented a hotel room on their day out due to the train no longer riding, but she had snuck out during the night.

He convinces himself to bring it back to her, arriving just in time before she boards the airplane.  As he tells her he will be waiting for her no matter how long she will be away... she tells him it's only for two weeks.

This was a fun innocent series, and some nice relaxing evening entertainment.  Just like Dress-up Darling, it just has that attraction that wants you to watch that next episode for reasons you can't put a finger to, and that makes something nice and enjoyable in my book.