uhowell - 2017-05-02 17:25:34

Very Impressive, this is the anime that make me change my avatar, I seldom change it.

I like the story, I can feel the sadness and happiness in the anime.
And the Illustration is great, P.A works really make good animes

freddie04 - 2016-07-22 05:20:17

Review contains spoilers and are my thoughts on the series immediately after finishing it.

       It's a hard ask to give this 5/5, but I decided that some of it's errors can be overlooked because of some of the really big stand-out points of this series. Starting with errors with the series, the writing in the first few episodes felt very unnatural and some of the character actions later in the show don't feel very realistic. In addition, at the start of the second cour, some characters like Nako and head waitress were developed but were later just neglected, I really think they should have some sort of role after being developed. Another point to note is that while Nagi-Asu had a world to build, this did not and had characters instead, because of this, while character design was relatively good, I wished that the designs showed more individuality, like making a larger difference in height, different skirt lengths to show their preferences and personality, this would have made up for the amazing world building this lacks when compared to Nagi-Asu.

        What I like about this series is the extremely well constructed characters like Ohana, Grandma, Minchi, Nakochi, Beanman and Ohana's mum. The actions of beanman and grandma all speak of experience and old age, as well as their motivations being distinctly different from the younger generation. Nakochi and Minchi were both great additions to build Ohana as a character as they managed to bring out Ohana's issues and unhappiness with her life.

       Ohana is brilliant as a character and easily one of my favorites so far, how she starts off discontent with her life and lack of a role model because of her crazy, free-willed mum and how Ohana does not really have a goal and how she did not deal with Ko's confession all coming back to eat away at her subtlety throughout the series, leading up to her complete breakdown, in which you felt was a result of all the factors that she never bothered to properly address, the use of the phrase Bonboru/ festing it up as something that cannot be understood initially but as you go through Ohana's journey, changing and eventually moving back to Tokyo and understanding her way forwards, you start to understand what she means by using it on a emotional level. It's something like "being happy as you work towards your goal". I absolutely loved how "festing it up" is used as a phrase that means nothing and becomes something event the audience can understand at the end.

   The development in the characters for this show is also very subtle but shows large shifts in attitude at the end, one does not realize a change until Ohana has become another person, only keeping her bubbly nature and the familiarity of her being Ohana from the start. Couple with the ending which provided a strong sense of closure through showing understanding between the crew and the grandma, a realistic romance which wasn't over the top (Coupled with yet another great confession scene by PA Works), I was able to overlook the previously mentioned flaws and give this show a 5/5, albeit one more slight error might have caused me to change it to 4.5/5

abbott.floyd - 2015-01-24 22:00:10

heaney.demond - 2014-08-12 04:26:28

This series had a few common clichés here and there, but it still keeps me interested throughout each episode. Well done.

forrest85 - 2014-07-30 23:33:46

This review covers boththe anime series and the movie.  Nospoilers will follow.  Scores will be for the anime and movie, respectively.

HanasakuIroha is an anime that is built from the ground up on compromise. 

Compromise.  That word has a positivering to it, doesn't it?  Everybodygetting what they want.

Well, withHanasaku Iroha, no one gets what they want, because the different aspects ofthe anime are trying to crawl to the foreground while pushing everything elsedown to get there.

You see, HIis a combination of drama, romance, and slice of life.  Well, the word bastardization of those threegenres would probably be a better way to put it.

So sit back,and let me tell you how PA Works screwed the pooch again.

Story - 4/10, 2/10 – avg.3/10

Anime

PA Works, incase you weren’t sure, is actually short for “Progressive Anime Works.”  This is the ironic statement of the century,as they tend to churn out what amounts to be the same anime over and over againwith just a different coat of paint (they are doing it again at the time ofthis writing with Glasslip).  They havebecome experts at turning out poor quality dramas that have been disguised bypaper thin layer of slice of life elements. The slice of life elements are not strong enough to be enjoyable ontheir own, and only serve to get in the way of the drama, which, in itself, ispoor.

I waspromised that Hanasaku Iroha would break the mold and give me a beautiful sliceof life story with the careful development of characters, with just enoughdrama to give the anime some serious backbone.

That was notat all the case.

HanasakuIroha follows Ohana as she works at her grandmother’s inn.  She ends up here because her slutty, good fornothing mother runs away with one of her dozens of boyfriends and literallyabandons her young teenage daughter. She, Gendo, and Ragyo should all have a contest for best animeparent. 

It is atthis inn where she learns to be a hard worker… or something.  The majority of the screentime for the firstdozen episodes is her getting yelled at by Minko, a girl with a stick so far upher ass you can see it when she opens her mouth to sling some nonsensicalVietnamese insult at someone she perceived to inconvenience her slightly.

The settingis actually very conducive to a beautiful slice of life, but every characterhas made it their life’s mission to ruin the viewer’s enjoyment by shouting ateach other, crying, committing suicide, being a huge pervert, being a massivemanipulative two faced slut, or just an absolute bitch to everyone aroundher.  The characters destroy any chanceof redemption because the story brings them into this spiderweb of romanticinvolvement, which fades in and out of the picture as it pleases.  One episode may be about cleaning theswimming pool, but then Ohana might receive a text and spend 2 episodes withher face buried in the pillow crying. This anime has a serious case of bi-polar disorder; it cycles throughlighthearted and serious plot themes with almost no transition and withoutrhyme or reason.

Did Imention that all of the time spent on these romantic and dramatic elements cometo absolutely nothing in the end?  It’s26 episodes of trash just to blueball you at the end.

Movie

Havingsuffered through so much of the anime, I figured I might as well finish it alloff with the movie.

The movie iseven stranger in its bi-polarity.  Withno transition at all, years can be rewound and fast-forwarded as if a drunk Godgot his hands on life’s remote control. The movie seemed to want to put a focus on the origins of the inn andthe characters, but again was too conflicted to see it through.  Instead, it would shift back to the randomslice of life elements seen in the rest of the anime.

We also seelove plots that are started and extinguished faster than I could finishingtaking a sip of my drink, but they at least confirm that Ohana’s mother waswilling to sleep with anything or anyone with a pulse from the time she was anelementary school student.

Why themovie doesn’t follow the semi-cliffhanger ending of the anime utterly eludesme, but I would have forgiven it had it provided some grounds or basis for theanime proper.  Sadly, it is even morenonsensical and adds nothing but confusion to the entire experience. 

Animation- 8/10, 8/10

Theanimation is one thing I can’t fault the studio too much for.  It was obvious a lot of work went into thebackgrounds, and the animation is relatively fluid.  Nearly all of the character designs areunique and well detailed, and the color pallet is warm and diverse.

Somethingworth mentioning are several random moments of fanservice that seemed as thoughthey belonged more in a high budget ecchi than a “heartwarming slice oflife.” 

The use of CG, which is especially noticeable during the openings, is a slight turnoff.  

Sound - 7/10,4/10 – avg. 5.5/10

Anime

I have verylittle to say here.  Good voice acting,well done Ops/EDs.

Movie

While thequality of the voice acting was on par with the anime, it’s like they just flatout forgot to add background music half the time.  I thought I could hear metaphorical cricketschirping.  It was awkward not to hearanything at all during many scenes.  Noextra work was put into new music.

Characters- 3/10, 3/10

I wouldcongratulate Hanasaku Iroha for making an anime where I was able to detest eachand every character, but they made Ohana likable enough for me to withholdthat… praise.  While she does have anumber of problems, including the most half-assed and pathetic romanctic subplotthis side of your favorite anime (oooohhhh!!), she does grow and developthroughout the series as she becomes accustomed to her new surroundings.  This is especially impressive, consideringher mother could probably be charged with child abuse and she was then sentinto what basically amounted to forced labor for pennies an hour.  She is certainly not my favorite SOLprotagonist, and probably not even a good one, but she gets by in stringingthis charade along.

The rest ofthe characters will get no praise from me. Every one of them is almost completely one dimensional, and that onedimension is usually their being a dick. I’ve already touched on Ohana’s horrifically incompetent and sluttymother.  Minko is an assistant chef who wantsthe D from a minor cook character, so she shits on everyone around her who somuch as talks to them, but for some reason decides to be Ohana’s friend whenthe plot demands it.  The manager is acruel, unrestrained bitch to everyone around her, including her family, andtreats every worker like a slave.  Ohanahas another friend, Nako, who has so little presence on screen I often forgotshe existed.  The same goes for the restof the relatively small cast; they are so boring, and have so little presenceor use, that I forgot they existed until they popped up in front of me onscreen.  Of course, we also have Ko,Ohana’s… not-boyfriend-thing, who has so little personality I don’t think hisbrain functions at more than 2% capacity at any given time.  We also have theslutty classmate from the inn next door. Her personality is being perfect… and kind of a whore (although shecouldn’t hold a candle to Ohana’s mom). Ah, and how could I forget the perverted writer who writes disgustingerotic novels about the girls at the inn? 

This animehas one of the worst casts for a slice of life I have ever seen.  I think it’s fair to say most people watchslice of life to take a break from the harsh reality of people being assholesaround them; HI just gives you the opportunity to see people be assholes toeach other in 2D.

Enjoyment- 3/10, 2/10 – avg. 2.5/10

HanasakuIroha tripped over its own feet when it tried to combine slice of life anddrama.  Despite being overly long at 26episodes plus a movie, there was essentially no conclusion for any of thecharacters.  Each of these characters wasquite unlikable, and some downright detestable. 

Theatmosphere was broken by the rapid transitions between serious drama andlighthearted nothingness, and any character interaction was moreoften a punishment than an award.

There are alot of good slice of life anime out there. I would strongly recommend staying away from this one, and probably mostof PA Works’ material in general.

citlalli16 - 2013-07-09 21:14:41

I enjoy slice of life. I really do. The problem I have with them is that it’s incredibly difficult to find one that isn’t terrible. The two biggest pitfalls I find with the genre are the lack of compelling plots and the lack of depth as the episodes get drowned in clichés. They often end up simply being boring as the episodes drag on to the formulaic beach/school festival/holiday routine in an attempt to entertain. Needless to say, I’m usually turned off by the introduction to a slice of life anime before I can even get into the series.I watched Hanasku Iroha with massive heaps of cautious optimism. The entire premise sounded a little worrying. It tells of a teenage girl, Ohana, who experiences a set of circumstances that would send her to live and work with her grandmother, who owns and manages a hot spring inn of a small town. A hot spring inn staffed by mostly teenage girls? With that setup, fanservice seemed to be primary driving force.Watching the first few episodes, I was pleasantly surprised. The characters had depth and were likable. The stereotype of the doting grandmother never got played out, settling for the minor stereotype of the “tough love” grandmother instead. There were actual obstacles presented to the characters. The events of one episode held consequences over the next episode. And for some bizarre reason, the anime that least needed fantastic animation had some of the best animation of the season.The central message of Hanasaku Iroha is one about purpose. Ohana is pulled out of her comfort zone and sent into an unknown town. Here, the insecurities of her life are magnified. Here, she suddenly is faced with the uncertainty of where she wants to go in life. Here, she is forced to grow up, just a little bit. However, she embraces her new life and tries to find her place as one of the waitresses of the inn. She begins to learn more about herself, her place in life, and her family. Her resolve to face these challenges serve bring about change in the staff of the inn. Each member of the staff are faced with a crossroads on where they see themselves heading. As the story progresses, there is legitimate growth in each character. In the end, even the status quo of the inn is changed as a result of this growth with Ohana’s grandmother closing the inn to allow the staff to pursue their own dreams.One of the best points of the series is how well they understand their audience. Each point that needs to be made is clearly made without underestimating the audience’s ability to understand. They show character development and conflicts rather than telling us about it. Some of the best scenes have no words at all, something that can easily be afforded with the animation quality. As a result, the plot doesn’t get too caught up in its own complications. They focus in on a situation just enough to get us tied to the characters before attempting to tug at our heartstrings.As captivating and dramatic as it is, Hanasaku Iroha has its drawbacks. Remember that fanservice I suspected a few paragraphs back? It’s certainly here. It never completely dominates the series, but it doesn’t add anything either. My stance of fanservice is a disapproving one. I’ve never felt that it’s truly necessary for the female characters to disrobe for whatever reason or to include all these bath scenes. At best, it’s an odd scene to inject into an otherwise good episode; at worst, it is the entire series. Thankfully, the episodes that do include fanservice use them with a decent amount of restraint. Like I said earlier, it doesn’t harm the series as a whole. It’s just a bit unnecessary.The romantic dramas within the series are a whole mixed bag for me. I enjoyed the drama they added and how it complicated the situation at the inn at times. Yet, the infuriating pacing and lack of closure on some of the stories really got to me. I know that the focus is supposed to be on the characters themselves while the romance is used to contrast their growth throughout the show. Then again, with the possible announcement of a second season, there should be plenty of time to flesh out those side stories in addition to showing us what the staff is up to now.Hanasaku Iroha has reaffirmed my belief in slice of life series. It’s raised the bar for what will pass as entertaining and engaging and hopefully, it’ll continue to do so in its possible second season. I’m still going to approach these shows with cautious optimism, though. There’s just too much crap out there sometimes.

ona.cassin - 2013-05-22 09:19:55

So hey, let's talk Hanasaku Iroha.Hanasaku Iroha is a 26 episode s'life drama about a bunch of teenage girls with incredibly poor listening abilities working in an inn as waitresses while trying to overcome their crippling urge to yell at everything that they don't immediately understand. Well, OK. This is a touch unfair. It's only Ohana and Minko who do this, Minko doing the yelling of the angry variety while Ohana covers the obscenely unaware side of the yelling spectrum, but most of the show is focused on these two. The thing with Hanasaku Iroha is that, asides from the drama side of things, it's hard to find any faults. The humour is surprisingly clever and never doubts your intelligence by pointing out the jokes for you. The animation is incredibly pretty. The characters are well rounded individuals who almost never fall into stereotype. It's just it's most interested in being a drama and that is precisely the area it fails at.For now though, I feel like talking about the positive, specifically the one area I will throw myself to the floor in gratitude for: The humour. HanaIro isn't primarily a comedy, so don't go expecting to be struggling for breath through fits of giggles, but what jokes it does have, it never feels the need to have someone point them out for you. It recognises that you, the viewer, are an intelligent person (a rather dangerous assumption to make on behalf of the general population, it has to be said, but treat someone like they're a doofus and they'll start acting like one, self-fulfilling prophecies and all that) and recognise the humour behind Ohana constantly running away from the Heron when it blocks her path. We do not require a second character asking her why she ran away. We can see the Heron with it's freaky little beady eyes and shockingly large wingspan and fully understand why Ohana has decided to take the alternate path to prevent confronting the beast.Hanasaku Iroha assume you're intelligent enough to notice this sort of stuff in other areas too, such as symbolism. Using our friend the Heron again, there is a scene in the final episode where Ohana is confronted by the Beast again but, instead of running away like she normally does, she marches on by it. It's a symbol that she has finally gained up the courage to focus on her problems and not run around them like she usually does. Simple, but it does this without feeling the need to monologue why this scene is important. Also fanservice. It's nice to have a series where I can ogle attractive female anime characters without insulting my intelligence by hovering the camera over their underwear in case we were too busy scratching our arses to notice (apart from this one lingering shot of a wet t-shirt in episode 3, but that episode was generally retarded so we can forget about that).I also liked how there were little stories revolving around the minor characters in the show. Any personal conflicts that I enjoyed watching with characters tended to be any of the characters that weren't teenage girls because they were the conflicts that were treated with a sense of humour about them (and didn't yell all the fucking time). Some of them are incredibly simple, such as the head chef's Ren and his desire to become more confident. Once they had established that he gets nervous very easily, it was a reoccurring joke that he would try to man up, such as buying Yakuza jackets with a proud look on his face. Or the Beanman, the old codger who appeared in the background every now and then, who seemingly was the only person who knew how the inn worked. Personally, I'm convinced that he could make the inn sprout legs and move to a more tourist friendly area, like Howls Moving Castle, piloting the building from inside the boiler room.I can't go talking about the characters without mentioning Ohana's mum. MILF to end all MILF's. Absolute star of the show, particularly impressive when she only appeared for episodes 1, 12-14 and 24-26. It was only when she was around that the drama started to actually click because she had a sense of bloody humour about her own insecurities and flaws. Best scenes of the anime were Ohana's mum drinks alcohol with Ohana's granny and Ohana. Or how about Ohana's mum pretends she's going to watch porn with Ko, Ohana's bland boyfriend. Underneath the story about Ohana's growth and the growth of the other teenage girls, there's a story about her making up with her family and becoming a (slightly) more responsible parent. There's never anyone going "LOOK GUIZ, SHE'S A BETTER PARENT NAOW" because we can spot that for ourselves.I should also give some lipservice to the animation. For all their other faults, P.A. Works always have incredibly good animation and artwork. It's more of the shiny variety than the free-flowing movement of the works from Bones or KyoAni, but don't mistake this for an inability to animate movement. I found myself wondering this after a few episodes, whether I was simply being suckered in to thinking the animation was good simply because of scenery porn and attractive shiny female character designs. But no, the actual animated movement is gorgeous too. Hair moves when the characters shake their heads about. Clothes crease and fold when they move their hands. It sounds like a weird thing to focus on, but often having shiny pretty character designs hides the fact the characters are completely static, so bravo to HanaIro for that.But the drama. Christ above, the bloody drama. I know teenage girls are stupid and refuse to listen to each other and get into the most irritating fights, so I guess I should congratulate them on accurately depicting typical teenage girls, but it does not make fascinating viewing. Minko deserves a mention here. She also deserves a kick in the stomach and a boot to the face and various other forms of pain. Every single damn time there's something to talk about, she gets angry and yells at everyone. I thought maybe her anger with Ohana and crush on Tohru would be a short lived thing, but it ran throughout the entire show, getting more screentime than any other plot point. Ohana isn't much better, being so braindead that she barges into every situation thinking talking really loudly and being energetic will get her through. You might be forgiven for thinking Nako is better because she's so quiet, but don't let that fool you. She solves any problems she encounters by quiet yelling, spouting off single phrases without listening to what other characters are saying. None of them bloody listen to each other or what anyone else is saying, making any dramatic confrontation lead nowhere because there's no logical process in the dialogue.Plus there's the fact that what they're arguing about isn't in the slightest bit interesting. Now this may be a personal thing, since I struggle to get into melodramatic anime involving minor human problems, but did you really ever care about the future of the Kissiuso Inn? Like, really? I didn't, yet they spent hours arguing over the future of the bloody place. This really dragged down in the final bunch of episodes, because that became the main talking point. I liked the characters internal conflicts with their own faults, but there seemed to be a disconnect between their own internal faults and what the issues on the outside were. This drama is pretty much my only fault with the show, but it unfortunately happens to be the central focus, so it really dragged down my enjoyment as a whole. Again though, this could be just me. If you're the kind of easily emotionally manipulated loser who thinks Ano Hana is one of the best shows of the year, then maybe you too will like the drama in HanaIro.I didn't like the core of Hanasaku Iroha. The drama that was like a giant gaudy painting of a fat poodle in the showroom that was meant to be the living room's centrepiece. But I liked all the décor surrounding it. I liked the picturesque potted plants of the attractive animation and character designs. I liked the stylish coffee table of the clever humour. I liked the comfy leather sofa of Ohana's mum...err, don't think too hard about that final metaphor. Anyway, I liked enough of the various aspects of Hanasaku Iroha to get me passed the dull drama and enjoy the show as a whole.

berta40 - 2013-03-15 15:51:42

I am not going to pretend that this is an unbiased review. I will say it up front: I loved Hanasaku Iroha! I found it compelling, radiantly beautiful, tender, endearing, and intensely satisfying. Now for the breakdown:Art: The first thing that will strike you in this anime is the art, in particular the background artwork. From the very first episode, the artwork was astounding in its depth of detail and realism. There were scenes that, as a professional photographer, I would have been proud to have captured their like in a photo, and it was hard to tell they were not photos! The portrayal of everything from the city streets, the passing scenery from the train, to the quaint and pastoral tourist village where the main portions of the show take place were rendered with exceptional care and quality.Story: The place where the show comes the closest to not performing is in the story. It is a slice-of-life tale, which is not to everyone's liking. I happen to like them when they are well done, because they concentrate on things like character development and the relationships of the individuals involved and I get caught up with the characters, feeling like they are people that I know. This is where Hanasaku Iroha really drew me in...Characters: Yes, the characters are the real prize here. In particular, the growth of those characters over the 26 episodes and the realism of the relationships between them. There are one or two "clunkers" in the batch, the perverted writer and the strident management consultant who drops English phrases like they are the names of celebrities that she knows personally stand out, but most of the characters are well wrought. The protagonist, Ohana, is a particularly well done character. She grows from a fairly shallow girl with unrealistic expectations of life, to a strong young woman who knows where she is going and how far she has yet to go. There is similar development in many other characters, with time spent on each as you get to know and love the lot of them. Sound and Music: Excellent for the most part, the only downside I found was the original ED, which I liked well enough when listening to it, but found it unmemorable in the long run. The various OP, ED, and insert songs by Nana.RIPE were well done, some to the point of hummable infectiousness. The incidental music and sound effects were all well done, adding emphasis to the story and knowing when to let the natural background noises hold court to emphasis a moment or simply carry the mood.Overall, this is one of my favorite shows. It may fade as time goes by, but fresh off the end of the show, I find it a wonderful series that I will look back on fondly and purchase on BluRay if it becomes available here. The ending was a marvel for anime, in that it didn't try to magically resolve all of the issues and chose a realistic ending that, while a bit bittersweet, left you feeling like the characters lives were on the track they belonged on to get where they want to go. That was really the touchstone of the series. Realism. There were some contrived circumstances and typical plot mechanisms in play, but the way the characters interacted and developed had a strong sense of "rightness" about it. The characters seemed like real people and interacted in realistic ways that brought them to life. In the end, this sense of familiarity with the characters is what brought me back from week to week and makes me feel that I will miss them now that I am out of their lives. In fact, the sense that I am out of their lives and not the other way around is the strongest indication of how well the writers did their job.