Hanasaku Iroha

[Kraco]

I'm not so sure of that, although it migth turn out that way. She uttered some pretty emo words of not wanting to tie people to the inn that was her and the late husband's dream. I wonder if she could have been so superficial that just changing the name would really change anything. I wouldn't want to think so badly of her, but it looked more like she had decided a long time ago to simply take the inn to the grave with herself and not hand it over to anybody. Who knows if the reason is purely sentimental or if she finds it unacceptable that anybody else could ever love the inn like she and her husband did. Normally people should be happy to hand things they built over to their offspring, but now it's deeply complicated by Okami believing she did great injustice to her children and leaving Enishi with the inn would only hurt him further.

Ko was quite a smooth talker in this episode. He must have studied some suitable books while working at the bookstore to accumulate such wisdom... He certainly left Ohana speechless. Jolly good. If the inn is saved and Ohana gets together with Ko, it's going to be a winner ending. I do hope to see some scenes with Ko meeting the other staff before the end, as well.

[RyougaZell]

I think I understand what the Okami is saying... Enishi is already making bad decisions by getting on the bad side of all the other inns just because 'they are busy'... when its practically a requisite to help on the festival. Heck... after all... most are reserving the day of the festival. She wants them all to succeed... and if doing so means to close the inn she is willing to do so unless they prove her wrong. So far no one has done anything to convince her... Enishi can't carry the burden of the inn with his half-thought decisions.

[Ryllharu]

It's a lot simpler than that. This is all Sui and Satsuki's fault, 25 years in the making.

As Sui told Ohana, she feels bad that she essentially forced her children to be miserable in order to keep her own dream. When Satsuki rejected her and Kissuisou by fleeing to Tokyo, Sui finally realized what she had done to her children. Enishi might have become a film maker, he might have gone into his own business, he might have gotten married to Takako earlier. Instead, he was forced by Satsuki's decision to flee to fill her place. Sui didn't have the help she has now, so someone definitely had to fill in the gap of losing her successor.

Now Sui feels guilty forcing yet another generation into taking care of her dream. She doesn't want a repeat of Satsuki. It's not so much that she thinks Takako and Enishi couldn't handle it (though Satsuki is in general all around more competent than the pair combined), it's that she doesn't want to force more people down a path they don't want.

Worse, Satsuki has put them in a bind. She felt guilty she trashed the inn earlier in a publication without re-evaluating it. She wrote the earlier piece only from her bitter memories from before she fled. Her network is obviously large enough to know a great deal about her old home, and the results of the film scam certainly told her that Kissuisou was now hurting. As Enishi properly recognized, Satsuki took pity on the inn as recompense for what she had done earlier. Now they're caught between honoring the Okami's decision, and honoring their reputation.

The current problem is the same as with Satsuki, only the other way around. Sui disregarded the wishes of her first born, and now she's disregarding the wishes of her second as well as the rest of the staff. She's misguided in thinking that the solution to her previous selfishness is closing the inn. In fact, it is yet another selfish action. Satsuki, in trying to help in her own way, is only creating a larger schism.

Ohana, Satsuki, and Sui all force their beliefs, views, and wishes on others without thinking about the consequences first. It must be a genetic trait of the Shijima women (and amusingly enough, the one who just married in to the family as well).

[Kraco]

Episode 25 - HS




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I guess Ko didn't jump onto the first train... I was waiting for him to appear but he never did, with the Bonbori coming and going. But I guess he finally will in the final episode, judging by the preview.

Quite an interesting episode all in all, although it was exceedingly predictable. It was a good detail it wasn't Ohana who managed to remind the staff of what running a quality in is all about, even if it was her who noticed the wrongness first. Takako slapping Enishi back to the reality was a really fine part of the process. He's always so stressed and desperate it's fitting he was the most blind as well.

[RyougaZell]

Heh... overbooking... changing what the customers like... acting rashly... they sure know how to keep an Inn by themselves. And they even had the guts to ignore Ohana who was the first to notice the wrongs? And accuse her of siding with the Okami? What good co-workers =P

Takako's slap to Enishi was literally a bitch slap. Can't believe she had the most sense in the end... even she noticed things were going to the drain.

[MFauli]

Hm, weird episode. I don´t think you can make a clear cut as to say that the way they changed the inn because of the overbooking was inherent bad. We had a scene where customers praised the unusual high quality buffet. And even though it might have been part of being polite, the wife of the one customer who complained about the buffet-style food thought it was fun that way, too. I think this episode gave a glimpse of the Kissuiso´s potential future. What we saw was simply a rough draft of "what could be".

What I definitely did NOT like was how Ohana´s mom came to the rescue. I still hate her smugness, and seeing her appear like some kind of goddess in bad times was, once again, a slap in the face. She sucks as a mother, she somewhat failed as a daughter and her ethics concerning her professional career didn´t seem so great either. It´s not like I want her to die, lol, but I´d be very disappointed if she didn´t receive some kind of emotional payback in the last episode, making her cry without any backups.

Was surprised to see the Bonburi-festival already starting. Guess they can focus on a fleshed out ending-episode, including Koh-chan.

[Kraco]

It's rather interesting why Ohana's mom decided to visit the inn and moreover help them. She might have actually guessed they would be in trouble after the overbooking made possible by the praising article plus the financial problems. However, as bad a mother as she was, I think living away from Ohana, seeing her work so hard for the inn, telling Ohana about her own past romance and then meeting Ko might have actually made her purely want to do something for Ohana or simply to see her. She was a useless mom - and even a human being - but nobody should complain if she want to get a little better now. At least Ohana should appreciate it. It's also possible she was academically curious how the inn is now running, after the changes.

[shinta|hikari]

Ohana's mom was crap, and her helping out this time does not change that. Still, it does not make her any worse so I welcome it.

Sui is awesome.

[Buffalobiian]

Takako slapping Enishi back to the reality was a really fine part of the process. He's always so stressed and desperate it's fitting he was the most blind as well.

Enishi took the bitchslap that I wanted to give everybody, lol.

It was a good detail it wasn't Ohana who managed to remind the staff of what running a quality in is all about, even if it was her who noticed the wrongness first.

It certainly has more impact and sway for Nako to say it, as someone who wasn't "siding with the Madam Manager"....

@MFauli: the first day of the buffet worked, but soon afterwards people started complaining that the staff weren't doing their jobs properly. Okami was right in saying that they couldn't run the inn being understaffed like that and biting more than they can chew.

Sui is awesome.

Aye, yet her forcefulness is scary (physically, mentally and socially). I'm still shocked from the bath scene (in perhaps more ways than one). :P

[David75]

The bath scene was some kind of joke I liked, with the horror movie like setting and happenings. I loled hard that day.

Regarding today's ep, well, it's a pre-ending ep, so it's more of a little emo here and there and creating the right setting for the end.

[fireheart]

HorribleSubs - ep 26

[RyougaZell]

And so... it ends...

Seems everybody found a closure and a promise to fulfill one day.

[fireheart]

I'm satisfied with the end though wish we could have at least a couple of seconds of this promise being fulfilled.

[Kraco]

Quite an ordinary ending, but not bad by any means. Although any kind of ending with Ohana and Ko getting together would have fulfilled my requirements...

A pleasant series. Much more enjoyable to watch than any regular high school drama.

[Ryllharu]

It was a nice self-contained series. I would have liked a little bit of a time-skip at the end (even if it was only a 10-30 second flash), but overall I enjoyed the series quite a bit.

[MFauli]

An overall enjoyable show, but I´m a bit disappointed by the ending. Maybe because it´s yet-another uneventful ending like Usagi Drop recently (where that was more fitting). It is true that we kind of got a glimpse of what all the characters are doing now that the Kissuiso was closed. But I would have liked to see more fleshed-out happenings. This episode contained pretty much just some wibbly-wobbly "everyone feels good", and then we get those short clips about what they´re doing from now on. Even the one "real" scene was ruined by the pervert-author eves-dropping.

Instead of all the general, nice-looking vista shots, I´d have preferred several longer scenes for each character. Ohana confessing to Koh-kun, Minchi confessing to Tohru, Nako-chan doing something, Enishi and his wife doing something, etc.. Don´t know if you get what I mean, but I guess the finale is "okay" as is. Could have been better though.

Only thing I hated was the final scene of Ohana being back in Tokyo and going to school ... like nothing ever happened. Yeah, I´m sure some of you will argue that this is some kind of stylistic tool, that she is different from the beginning because of her experience etc.. But the visuals just were too similar. That one scene almost had me thinking "meh, what a waste watching this was", simply because of how non-evolving that felt. Ohana going to school in Tokyo, her mom being the exact lazy-girl, and Koh-chan not even holding hands with her. sigh. If they thought they had to make it that similar, they should have at least changed some tiny bits to make some kind of development apparent.

[shinta|hikari]

The ending and the show itself is about the future. Ohana even said so herself, so I think this is a fitting end. It is about possibilities, and showing a definite conclusion robs that from the viewers.

Excellent show.

[Buffalobiian]

The ending was nice. "Ordinary", (not in a bad way, since I didn't need an extraordinary twist), but nice.

The fact that everybody wants to come back eventually does prompt a thought in my head though. To me, it can also sound like you're waiting for the place to open, and not really moving forward in the meantime. (maybe not "moving forward", but becoming a different person entirely).

Nako, for example, will have to give up her swimming-teacher job to come work at the inn again. Swimming doesn't really help her job as a waitress, and if she devotes any significant amount of emotion into her swimming job she'll get emotionally attached to it like she is to Kissuiso.


I thought Tohru got a job with Ren, though his scene doesn't exactly deny that possibility.

[Idealistic]

I enjoyed the ending too. What touched me was the goodbye between Ohana and Sui. She says she'll return and Sui will be waiting, but it seems like they both know that by the time Ohana returns Sui will probably have passed away by then and her soul will still be waiting for Ohana's return.

That's how I saw it at least. Though Sui could probably just only be like 60 years old or so. They never really said how long until Kissuiso will reopen anyways.

[Kraco]

It's true that Nako might end up coming back only as a customer, depending on how her life develops otherwise. It's true we saw her teach swimming, but that's something quite a few students do on the side, earning some money to support their school lives. However, how many can actually do it for living later, is another question, especially in a country like Japan with a declining population. Realistically speaking if she manages to pull that off, I wouldn't expect her to return to the inn anymore as a worker. No matter how much she loved the place, for a young person in a few years it will feel more like a fond memory than a future career choice.

For the others it's an entirely different thing, though. They already were doing the very thing they wanted to do at the inn. So, for them it could be returning to the ideal workplace. Although with Tohru it would depend on the position he had advanced to. He might not want to return to be the second cook if he had already gained a higher position elsewhere (that didn't suck as a workplace either).