Deja vu. I get the feeling I’ve seen this all before… In the late 90’s, TBS started a long-running afternoon drama, Onsen he Ikou! about a woman in he waning years of her marriageability showing up at the onsen-yado run by her estranged mother. After her wedding plans fall apart, the heroine seeks to reinvent herself by taking on a job as a live-in maid at the inn. Of course, cattiness, tension, deceit, and eventually heartwarming moments ensue. Fast-forward a decade in real-time, take a decade off the age of the protagnist, and you’ve got Hanasaku Iroha. As the “turning-thirty” heroine of Onsen was meant to resonate with the early-afternoon housewife audience demographic, the middle teen protagonist of Hanasaku is designed to appeal to girls about to go through (or are going through) that transition between middle school and high school. Because of this, I’m sure it’s not really going to be a direct ripoff of the drama, but I can’t imagine that there will be any storyline or literary twist that hasn’t been previously explored in 5 seasons of Onsen he Ikou!, or the 2008 reprisal, Onsen he Go!, or even Asakusa Fukumaru Ryokan or the multitudinous seasons of Hotel.
The character design is ordinary at best, but not unappealing. Colors are not bright and oversaturated like kid’s shows, but not faded to the point of the muted pastel colors of the Hourou Musuko anime. Where this series shines artwork-wise is the very nice background art. I give the character animation a B- and the BG artwork an A. Writing gets a C after the first episode, and direction gets a B-. We’ll see how this one runs out after a few more episodes. So far, I’m not putting it in the “wonderful” basket, but it probably doesn’t help that I’m not in the target demographic.
Currently running on Crunchyroll on the USDM.
Give it a try if you’ve run out of things to watch and need a shoujo fix.
Undecided
Two out of Four fujoshi monkeys
OK, got through ep 3 and things improved. There’s some naughty fanservice, though nothing explicit, for the guys! The novelist guest storyline is carried further and with the aforementioned fanservice, goes beyond what you’d see in a l/a, unless it were one of the midnite doramas. The resolution is fairly predictable though.
After watching four episodes, my rating still holds, in particular the C for writing. It isn’t terrible, but it really isn’t all that original nor inspired. It brings this kind of story to an audience that may not have seen it before. I’ll watch it through the end, but I have not great expectations.