Hanamaru is my best girl! I actually have 3 best girls in Aqours: Riko, Hanamaru and Chika. I just can't pick one between the three. But Hanamaru has this special spot because she was my best girl before I picked the other 2, so I try to make sure I always do something to celebrate her birthday.
To celebrate Hanamaru's birthday this year, I wanted to take her with me to Thailand, since she was picked as the poster girl of Thailand, and she said she would "feel at home" if she went there! (Watch her side story, it's cute). Unfortunately, things happened and my trip there got postponed to the end of the month, which will be too late for the Fan Awards :(
I almost gave up on entering, but then on the last day (today lol), I decided to take her somewhere else instead, in my city.
Can you guess where it is from the blurry pictures? (The answer is under my profile's details :D)
One thing that made me like her at first was her love for food. I'm quite a foodie myself, as you could probably tell from my entry to The School Idol Café a few months ago, where I showed you how to make some Japanese dishes. Japanese food is my favorite kind of food, in case you didn't notice :D
Hanamaru seems to like western foods and Japanese foods equally, so I decided to take her on a date to a kushikatsu restaurant!
Kushikatsu are tempura skewers! It's a specialty from Osaka. Various vegetables and meats are covered in panko (Japanese style bread crumbs) and deep fried tempura style. You can order many different ones so it's really fun!
On that day, the restaurant we went to had a special "Kushikatsu Taiyaki". Taiyaki are fish shaped pancakes filled with sweet red bean paste (or other fillings sometimes). This one is a smaller version of the Japanese sweet and was deep-fried tempura style, just like the other skewers.
After that, we walked for a while in a park, which is what I like to do on dates~
When we got back home, I spent some time drawing. I draw a lot of small illustrations for both people who support me on Patreon, for winners of Fan Awards like this one, or any other giveaways Sukutomo organizes. It's always nice to have her with me!
I share the progress of all my drawings on a dedicated Instagram account. If you use Instagram, it would make me very happy if you could give me a follow~
Here are some drawings I made of Hanamaru:
I also cosplay her sometimes. I feel like I don't do her justice, but I know cosplay is about having fun so she would be fine with my cosplays of hers.
Here are some pictures of conventions, live/delayed viewings and other events I attended with cosplays of her. The recent ones were in Singapore, and the older one when I still lived in San Francisco.
HanamaruFanAwards2019
Sadly I also need a disclaimer because I got a lot of hate in the past for entering giveaways that I organize. Yes, I am allowed to enter. No, I am not eligible for rewards and prizes. More details about staff entering giveaways in the Giveaways FAQ.