Do hiragana stroke ends (e.g. "hooks") actually matter?


Like do native Japanese speakers even care about that kind of stuff? People
learning Japanese (especially on reddit) seem to be super anal about trying to
get perfect stroke ends with hooks and whatnot and will criticize others for
not including them or getting them wrong. There's also tons of resources that
tell you how to write them using a pen/pencil instead of a brush. But, looking
at some written reports from students in Japan, I don't seem to see them very
often. It looks more like a a mix of intentionally including them for visual
flair + a result of fast writing.

So is does it even matter? Is this just another one of those things that isn't
actually necessary but is constantly taught anyway (like regularly using
"watashi wa")? Obviously writing "sans serif" hiragana will still be legible,
but does it maybe look childish or something to a native speaker?

