Tsuki wa Higashi ni Hi wa Nishi ni: Operation Sanctuary

Naoki Kuzumi, a junior in high school, had lost his parents in an accident five years ago, and is living with his aunt, uncle, and cousin Matsuri. He always thought his life was ordinary, besides the fact that he can't remember what happened in his youth. One sunny day as he is taking a nap on a bench, a redheaded girl -- Mikoto -- literally falls on him from the sky. For some reason, she thinks he's her younger brother. Naoki's time period is a temporal shelter for those in the future, when many are suffering from an incurable disease. When she heard her younger brother Yuusuke had been taken to Naoki's time, Mikoto herself had gone back in time.

(Source: ANN)

Amagasaki, Mikoto Main

Nakata, Junko Japanese

Kuzumi, Naoki Main

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Fujieda, Honami Main

Kanda, Rie Japanese

Akiyama, Fumio Supporting

Hatamiya, Kanoko Japanese

Usami, Rei Supporting

Honma, Yukari Japanese

Shibugaki, Matsuri Supporting

Kajita, Yuuki Japanese

Nishina, Kyouko Supporting

Iwai, Yukiko Japanese

Nonohara, Yui Supporting

Inokuchi, Yuka Japanese

Shibugaki, Genzou Supporting

Bifu, Hitoshi Japanese

Fukano, Junichi Supporting

Matsumoto, Yasunori Japanese

Nakamura, Makoto Producer

Yamazaki, Asuka Producer

Takechi, Tsuneo Producer

Hatanaka, Toshio Producer

Reviews

May 3, 2008

Livira

Recommended

Tsuki wa Higashi ni Hi wa Nishi ni - Operation Sanctuary, or otherwise known as Hani Hani, is another one of those series that is better than it seems to be and has recieved very little love, and that's why I'm writing a review on it ^w^

Story

Hani Hani is about a high schooler called Naoki who lives a normal life with his cousin Matsuri and childhood friend Honami. One day a girl called Mikoto appears before him with big white wings and falls on him, and in an instant his life changes, mainly for the better.
Basically, the story starts out a a typical slice of ... life and school anime with each episode lasting 12 minutes, and if it had continued that way then I think that the story would have deserved a 4/10. However, in the last few episodes the real story comes out and makes everything a heck of a lot more interesting. Had this happened a bit earlier, then I believe that the series would have been far more successful.

Art

The art of this series isn't too bad, considering it was made 4 years ago. All of the characters' faces look a little round and fat at some points, but on a plus side the girls' hair is always drawn with great detail and beauty. The backgrounds are beautiful and often brightly coloured to fit in with the genre of the series too. Overall = nothing to complain about ^^

Sound

The sound.... well, the opening has a very shoujo feel to it and fails to reach a climax in the chorus, despite the build up to it. However, it is a light hearted song which matches the first arc of the series, so I can't complain about it much ^^; the ending theme was standard and I couldn't listen to it the whole way through because it bored me. The background music was hardly noticed, which can either be a good or a bad point.

Character

Yes, the characters were cute, but my god they were so standard! They had no depth at all and were absolutely not unique. For example, Honami is Naoki's childhood friend but is in love with him: sound familiar? That's because it's overused, and Honami does all the things you would expect her to do like wait for Naoki even though everyone else says he's not coming and other stuff. It bored me, to be honest. The characters were given a base personality and nothing was developed from that. That's why I gave it a 5/10.

Enjoyment

I enjoyed this anime for the same reasons as I did in the last series I reviewed, although this time it's the characters that bored me rather than the storyline. Basically, I knew that I could just sit and relax while watching this series after a hard day without having to concentrate too much. However, I would have liked to see more development in the storyline as it was actually good at the end and looked very promising. I think this series should be either re-made by a different company, or should have a second series.

Overall

Overall I gave Hani Hani a 7/10 simply because I enjoyed watching it. Yes, the characters are a bit boring, but for a 13 episode long series with only 12 minutes to an episode, I think it could have been a lot worse, and thankfully it wasn't.
I recommend Hani Hani to all of those people who don't want to watch a serious anime and just want to watch something short.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 23, 2026

soloship

Not Recommended

Operation Sanctuary has a Lupin III-homaging car chase and some time travel stuff at the end. Is it actually good?

Wait a minute, this is an eroge adaptation, right? Was I actually expecting it to be good? HAHAHAHAHAHA

As anime fans, we've all heard of Nyan Neko Sugar Girls. Some of us have even seen it to the end and yes, we can confirm that it is the best animated series ever, surpassing the likes of LOGH and Disney's golden era. But building up to that pinnacle of art was crap like Operation Sanctuary.

I struggle to call this a harem or a romance anime (even though ... it technically is) because the characters are so freaking bland and lifeless they're barely capable of emoting. Operation Sanctuary is a thesis on why slice of life/high school anime are bad, and it's because they're nothing like a slice of real life and humanity! All the characters stand lifelessly doing nothing, while the plot goes by idly. It's like these characters are alien observers on Earth or zombies waiting to strike. Indeed, they are zombies who rot the brains of the viewers with coma-inducing boredom, an incredible feat for an anime with 10-minute episodes.

Like August's other eroge adaptation, Crescent Love, this has a sci-fi twist at the end. This could have been cool if the entire plot was about it and it wasn't delivered via the dreaded infodumps! Oh, infodumps! How you manage to make time travel and what should be a deeply human story filled with difficult decisions into bland, cookie cutter slop! This is so poorly executed that the last episodes aren't even worth watching for the twist!

Radix does manage to show off their "distinctive" visuals here a few times. The beginning has a lazy CGI effect, and there's lots of color oversaturation and reflection. The character designs also have this weird 2000s feeling you don't see much anymore and, combined with the primary colors, are somewhat appealing for moe art. Sadly, none of that makes this show remotely interesting.

Operation Sanctuary is pure timeslot filler and it shouldn't be seen as anything else.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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