Anime Review #5: Hana-Saku Iroha (ongoing)

Here’s an idea: instead of reviewing completed Anime, why not make a dynamic/changing review of an ongoing Anime so everyone can join in the excitement of awaiting a new episode every week?

And to start of with this pseudo pilot post (PPP?), I’d like to start with an Anime that showed great promise right from the first episode – Hana-Saku Iroha.

Honestly, what drew me to this Anime at first was the fact that part of the show’s cast included two of my favorite seiyuus – Aki Toyosaki and Chiaki Omigawa. But what was revealed to me was not only a display of great voice acting, Hana-Saku Iroha is also nerve wracking, touching, heart warming, and best of all, full of lessons to be learned about respect and valuing others.

Read on!

(photo credits: http://anidb.net/)

Obviously, the Anime is full of your typical moe characters. Ohana is the energetic, righteous one. Nako (or as she is fondly called, Nakochi), is the perhaps the cutest one, and also the traditional housewife-type, while Minko (or Minchi) is your typical tsundere.

Right of the bat, the show follows the journey of Ohana from Tokyo, where she grew with childhood friend Ko, to Kissuiso (Kissui Inn) after her mother eloped and she was left to live by herself (in a comedic, very non-tragic way).

At Kissuiso, Ohana meets the two other main characters when Minko threatens to kill her (calling her “Shiine!”, or “die!”) while Nako tries her best to stop any murders from happening in front of her.

Ohana soon joins the two in working at Kissuiso, teaming up with Nako as a waitress. Minko, on the other hand, is a trainee chef.

Oh, and Kissuiso is owned by Ohana’s grandmother, who appears to be a tsundere herself, giving the two a relationship we haven’t seen since Cedie (Cedric Errol) and the Earl of Dorincourt.

So far the Anime has shown 13 out of 26 episodes, and I have to say, I haven’t been impressed with an Anime for this long. I mean, I’ve followed several Anime shows before, but after five or six weeks I tend to stop and wait for it to finish before watching them marathon-style.

With Hana-Saku Iroha, I’m always looking forward to Mondays, and to new episodes - Always have been since episode one.

That said, I can’t promise this would be a hit to everyone. But if you’re looking for a meaningful Anime, with hints of emotions here, lessons there, and even hints of ecchi, this could be the Anime you’re looking for.

I’ll end this review right here for now and update it once the series is over. But I’d like to end with this, though: When the show is over, Hana-Saku Iroha is definitely going to be in my top 5 Anime of all time.