ひ and ヒ
Pronunciation
“HI” sound in "He".
ひ Memorization Story
The hiragana ひ very much looks like a horseshoe to me. Imagine a farmer choosing one with the largest tips cutting back.
ひ Continued...
HE walks over to what you assumed was a horse… But no… He’s about to horseshoe a HIPPO.
ヒ Memorization Story
The katakana looks like HE, the farmer, is smiling, as he admires his work horseshoeing the hippo. The LOOP of the horseshoe is on the HEEL of the hippo, opposite of how you’d put it on a horse.
It’s important to remember that the SOUND of HI is more of a Hi in HE than HIPPO, but you also shouldn’t be horseshoeing hippos, so…
Writing
The hiragana ひ is not QUITE a straight up and down horseshoe shape, but sort of tilted to the right. And the final cut back is longer than the first, and drawn downwards, because as I mentioned in the は writing section, we make our final strokes flow BELOW towards the next character we want to write.