Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu centers around Yūto Ayase and Haruka Nogizaka. Yūto is seemingly ordinary, but Haruka is attractive, intelligent, and rich, which prompts other students to idolize her and even give her French nicknames like "Nuit Étoile" (The Silver Star of the Night) and "Lumière du Clavier" (The Shining Princess on the Piano). One day, Yūto wanders into the school library in order to return a book and accidentally stumbles upon Haruka's deepest, darkest secret: she is a diehard fan of anime and manga, in other words, a regular otaku. Promising Haruka to keep this a secret, Yūto becomes her advisor and confidente of some sort and hangs out with her more, though earning some viciously envious glares from his fellow schoolmates. Just as the title suggest, the anime is about the secret of Nogizaka Haruka. Another anime based on a light novel series, which I will be reading later on. Comedy, romance, fanservice, high school and of course... Otaku. The latter coming from Nogizaka Haruka herself. Her secret? she's a closet otaku. Unfortunately for the series, that part of her character does not really develop, which is quite a disappointment. Furthermore, her secret is exposed rather early, then again, I'm guessing that was the only way for the main female and male characters to introduce themselves. That being said, the title kind off loses its meaning when her parents approves of her hobby rather quickly. Basically, the 'himitsu' part kind of just goes away as soon as that hits. Characters... Well, Haruka is smart, cute, clumsy, big expressive eyes, apologetic and has the typical big breast for a main female lead. To sum it up, what most otaku go ga-ga for. Especially in 2chan, I guess... Her otaku side provides scenes that are both cute and funny and her naiveness brings about more of her cute aspect. However, sometimes it kind of gets annoying, since development could have been made, but instead postponed for another long while. Yuuto? well, the typical nice guy with glasses and gets in an annoyingly high amount of embarrassing situations. Like I said before, Haruka's naiveness sometimes gets in the way with their relationship development, but at least it was not rushed like some others. Added the fact with the constant interruption of Mika and the maids. Later on with other characters added in the mix. Shiina, second love interest, does not really fit the role. Instead of the typical 'I will fight you for -insert male/female character', Shiina is more laid back and likes the two main lead. Mika and Nanami, the little sister plus maid combo who are mischievous. The former being the one that sets multifarious moments to advance the two characters' relationship, but both of them always ends up interrupting whenever something is about to happen that'll further Haruka's and Yuuto's relationship. The irony of it all... Hazuki, another maid for the Nogizaka family, basically is there to provide protection for Haruka and watch out for her. Nothing much to say except for her being stoic and blunt. Ruko and Yukari-sensei, well... they just eat up screen time. Seriously, whenever they're there, they just end up getting drunk or annoy the hell out of Yuuto. Episodes, well, they're the typical ones you'd see in this genre and setup of an anime. With the added scene where Yuuto is dragged in Akihabara to shop for some anime goodies with Haruka. For the art, I approve and the animation was rather OK in my book. Music wise? not really memorable to me... All in all, the anime is rather mediocre at best. I mean, we've seen millions of these type of anime and done even better. Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu doesn't really have any bad quality nor does it have any overly good ones to take note of. If you enjoy watching how this develops or think that a closet Otaku girl is interesting, then go ahead. Some may be disappointed, some may like it. If you just want to watch for some fanservice, then go ahead since they are present! View the Rest
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