What Happened To The Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun Anime?

Key Takeaways

• Hype for Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun didn’t match the original, with missed critical plot points in the first season.
• The reboot wasn’t well-received due to little maintenance of fan excitement between seasons.
• The anime industry changed a lot with the rise of seasonal anime, older fans, and shifting viewer habits.

When the first season of the Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun anime came out, it took over the anime mainstream. It was going viral on social media, it has over ten million copies in circulation as of February 2024, and even dominated online meme spaces for a while after its release. That being said, the first season premiered in 2020, over four years ago. What has happened since then?

There’s been a chaotic set of updates since the first season’s release. Many viewers simply missed the attempted reboot in Fall of last year, and the announcement of a second season of the original anime slated to come out next year. So why isn’t the hype online seeming to match the hype for the original season of Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun? Other supernatural comedies like Jujutsu Kaisen and Dandadan are performing well, so why isn’t Toilet-Bound?

Hype Wasn’t Maintained During Break

Little Was Done For Fans Between Seasons

When it comes to the original show, very little has been done to keep excitement up between seasons. By the time season two comes out, the first season will be nearly five years old. There are only so many pieces of merchandise or Japan-only events that can be released during this gap of time to keep fans from being bored with the show in between seasons. With the sudden rise in anime’s popularity, especially in the case of seasonal anime, shows can become easily left behind for being too far apart.

The reboot wasn’t as big a hit with fans either, despite being made by the same producers and team as the original season. After School Hanako-Kun only had one-tenth of the viewers who logged episodes watched for the anime through MyAnimelist on part one compared to the original first season, and even fewer viewers logged episodes watched for part two of the reboot. The interpretation of interviews lead a lot of reporters and fans to assume this was a full reboot.

“After-School Hanako-Kun, Lerche’s first installment of its Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun “restart project”, will hit Japan’s airwaves…”

It was more of an extended edition to the original first season, but due to the English-language marketing calling it a “reboot” this update to the show was ignored or shunned by fans who didn’t know what it was. A “revival” would have been a better translation, but it’s a little too late to make that fix.

The First Season Lost Manga Fans

A Rushed First Season Missed Critical Plot Points

Even when the first season of Toilet Bound Hanako-Kun came out, manga fans were vocal about missed plot points that would be critical to events theorized to be in the second season. Different events were placed in different parts of the anime’s timeline, and even multiple arcs that explain the backstory between Hanako and other spirits, as well as important character-growth arcs for the main trio. So why were these critical elements completely dropped in the first season?

Originally, the first season came out as a way to advertise the manga. It wasn’t intended to be a full-fledged adaption of the manga series, but like a large majority of seasonal anime, is meant to draw attention to the cheaper-to-produce, time-sensitive nature of an anime series. The original season’s popularity changed the producer’s plans regarding that, but by then they had to rectify the plot holes and missed elements, hence the aforementioned reboot.

The State of the Anime Industry, Then and Now

The Landscape Surrounding Anime Has Drastically Changed

Back when the first season aired, the anime industry was just beginning to change. The industry was knee-deep in the Isekai craze, the COVID-19 Pandemic had just transitioned into its first round of lockdowns, and everyone was home with nothing to do. This caused an anime craze that launched it into the cultural zeitgeist as genuine entertainment in English-speaking markets, finally normalizing the medium of anime and catapulting Crunchyroll into the top 3 most subscribed subscription services at the time. During this time period, with activities limited and anime booming in popularity internationally, fans were more willing to watch large volumes of anime.

Keeping up with seasonal anime is typically popular with the younger crowds, although people of all ages will watch them. A large portion of Toilet Bound Hanako-Kun‘s fanbase are now older. They have graduated from high school or college, and now have jobs or responsibilities taking up time that didn’t before. Older anime fans have to pick and choose what they watch in their free time now, which tends to stick to ultra-mainstream or continuing series, leaving little room for current anime fans to go back to an anime from four or five years ago that isn’t active in online spaces.

Toilet Bound Hanako-Kun‘s second season will likely bring back a portion of the audience from season one, but will anyone else watch? There’s not been much word on whether the second season will follow the reboot, or the original first season, which will make things difficult for new anime fans to get into the franchise. Despite that, however, the anime’s unique art style and lovable cast may be able to power through and bring back the hype Hanako once had… but only time will tell.

Toilet Bound Hanako-Kun: Season 2 will premiere in January 2025, on Crunchyroll