Today we come to the final episode of one of the best shows of the past few seasons. A searching, touching, elegiac mediation upon love, life, friendship, and most of all, family.
What They Say:
“Finale: To Bloom One Day”
Ohana expresses herself, Enishi makes a final decision, and the Madam Manager surprises everyone. Everybody is festing it up. Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
“Watching you made me realize that places aren’t there to begin with. You need to find them and build them yourself.” –Ko
As this is a final episode, I will be dispensing with plot summary. Suffice it to say, Ohana meets up with Kouichi in town and they head to the festival together to…eat yakisoba. Because that’s what you do when you’re deeply in love and want to tell the guy that. Or not. She does eventually spit it out, however, while they share a plate of noodles seasoned with love. We get some interesting glimpses into the near future, and some indications of where people wish to be further on from that.
When we began this journey half a year ago, we came upon the self-reliant and over-confident Ohana Matsumae being thrust out of her natural environment and placed into a very different landscape: both literally and figuratively, as she left the bright lights of the big city (Tokyo) for the slower pace and more relaxed atmosphere of Yunosagi, a vacation spot some distance away. Ohana, who had been forced to grow up in certain respects more quickly than many other teens, as she had to become self-reliant in response to her mother Satsuki’s utter unreliability and unpredictability, brought her self-confidence and faith in herself to her new environment. What she learned was that these “assets” were actually liabilities in her new home. If there was something that was lacking in her upbringing, it was any strong sense of family. It is not surprising. Satsuki had the misfortune to fall in love only once in her life, misfortune in that the man she loved, Ohana’s father, died soon after Ohana came into this world. Completely self-absorbed, and probably emotionally haunted by her loss, Satsuki did nothing to give Ohana a sense of family, a sense of belonging, and the understanding that you do not have to be alone in this world.
And this is where Ohana’s journey to Yunosagi is a necessary journey in life for her. For it is living with her cold and distant grandmother, Sui, engaged in a long-standing feud with her daughter Satsuki, where Ohana, contrary to expectations, learns about the bonds which tie us to other people. Both those bonds that are given to us from birth, and those which we ourselves forge. Ohana comes to Kissuiso, the traditional Japanese inn (ryokan) which Sui runs, with expectations formed from a sheltered life: she thinks her grandmother will be a kindly old woman, and the inn a fantasy land where she can simply bask in its exotic charm.
She finds herself thrown into the deep end of the pool, with a grandmother who is a harsh taskmistress and a group of employees who see Ohana as an outsider. Over the course of the next 24 episodes (the first episode introduced us to the dramatis personae, the final episode brings things to an end) we saw Ohana slowly grow from a headstrong young girl who only believes in herself into a more sensitive, less self-absorbed young woman who understands the ties that bind people to each other, herself becoming one of the strongest bonds that holds the people of the Kissuiso together.
But this show was more than just the coming-of-age tale of Ohana Matsumae. In fact, Ohana has not even fully come of age by the end as she herself would be the first to admit. She thinks of herself as still nothing more than a bud, but one who earnestly wishes to bloom. What this show really was about is the effect of isolation and disconnection on a person. While Satsuki and Ohana lived together in Tokyo, they were only inhabiting the same space. Satsuki had her world of magazine articles and revolving-door boyfriends. Ohana had her world of going to school, performing household tasks, and trying to clean up after her feckless mother on occasion. The best thing to happen to Ohana, who seems to have had few friends in Tokyo other than Ko, was her separation from the barren wasteland that was her life with Satsuki. In the more lush climate of Yunosagi, Ohana made friends (Nako, Yuina, and yes, even Minko who would blush and deny it) and learned the importance of having faith in other people. It is not an isolated struggle. “No man (or woman) is an island.”
Without giving too much away about the ending, hopefully, I have to remark upon the interesting use of ring composition in this series. In one respect, Ohana winds up at the end exactly where she began. But that is only a factor of physical space. In her emotional development and maturation, Ohana is now a completely different person from where she started. She was unfocused before, only living for the moment. While she gave the appearance of being more organized and mature than her mother in certain respects, she was just as emotionally stunted and immature. She had no goal in life, no dream. In Yunosagi, she found her dream.
This show succeeded with more than just the writing, which was strong throughout, providing characters which, while they strayed into the realm of farce at times, never destroyed the illusion of realism to the point of caricature or parody (with the one exception of Jiroumaru, perhaps). PA Works did a very good job with the animation, as the backgrounds were detailed and intricate, while interiors, especially the Kissuiso, seem very much drawn from life. I would not be surprised if there is an inn, or perhaps a few inns, which served as a model to shape the “inn to make Sui happy.” When there was action, motion was fluid. The character designs by Mel Kishida and Kanami Sekiguchi were attractive and appropriate. Ohana was believable, though designed to be cute, certainly.
Another strong mark for this series was the voice acting. Kanae Itou brings to very audible life another girl who is trying to find her way in life, as Ohana in certain respects is similar to Amu Hinamori of Shugo Chara. What the two share is an energy and determination to help others that in the hands of a less talented seiyuu might run off the rails into spastic frenzy. It’s not just energy, however, which Ms. Itou managed to project so strongly. The full range of emotional highs and lows were given depth and meaning by her performance. Matched against her was the mature gravitas and august bearing of Tamie Kubota as Sui Shijima. The story is, in many ways, as much about Sui as it is about Ohana, for Sui is not just the overbearing manager but also the guiding spirit of the inn. Ms. Kubota shows us Sui’s softer side at times, as we learn that while her strict work ethic is central to her character, she does not set out to be cruel, even if that is how she appears to others at time. The harsh tones give way to a more nostalgic softness. The entire cast is solid in this series, from Junichi Suwabe’s clownish Jiroumaru to Chiaki Omigawa’s tsundere Minko, who veers from strident harpy to sobbing crybaby with believable ease. There are no wrong notes in the vocal performances.
In all, this was one of those wonderful anime experiences that make one regain faith in the medium.
Series Retrospective:
Hanasaku Iroha in 26 episodes shows a brief segment in the life of a girl on the cusp of adulthood, Ohana Matsumae, without actually bringing her fully into the adult world. That is of little consequence, as this time in her life becomes a formative period for her, as she undertakes an emotional journey from a seemingly self-sufficient person who is actually cut off from the world around her to being part of a larger group with whom she can truly be herself, upon whom she can rely and in turn be relied upon by them. While the coming-of-age tale of Ohana forms the basis for the story, the real meaning of the show comes from the journey from isolation to belonging, the forming of bonds with other people. It’s about family, not only the family one is born into, but also the one that a person makes for themselves in this life. For in the end, it is family which allows us to pursue the dreams that we have for ourselves. In an anime landscape that is overrun with cookie-cutter erogame adaptations and bland action shows aimed at young teenage boys, HanaIro provided a nice alternative, bringing us a look into a life that while not entirely realistic, was to a great extent believable. This series is highly recommended for anyone who wants to explore what anime can offer outside of explosions and pneumatic body parts.