In this episode we took a step back from the heavy drama of the previous episodes for a return to the more lighthearted slice of life as the inn prepares to film a movie. It’s probably good to have a balance of both seriousness and more lighthearted moments, and Hanasaku Iroha has done pretty well in this regard. The biggest disappointment for me this week was the lack of Yuina, but I’m sure she’ll be back.
And for a surprise, Ren gets the starring role for the film! Ohana, Tomoe and Nako begin fantasizing about what role they will have in the film. Nako’s fantasy of being a spy who is an ex-Olympic swimmer was hilarious. Minchi will have none of it, and wants to be a chef in the movie. But she knows that Tohru would look good in the starring role. We even get an intense boy’s love scene! Pretty clear who the seme and uke are here.
Aside from the fun slice of life antics, this episode did a good job at developing Ohana’s uncle and Takako further. Ohana’s mother really did have a big influence on him, and it must have been somewhat of a shock when she decided not to run the inn. It seems like Takako is filling part of the role for him that his sister used to. And I certainly never would have predicted that he once had ambitions to direct a movie.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there may be more to this movie than meets the eye. Takako and her friend seemed rather evasive in letting anyone meet the director and writer. And why would they be so interested in having the inn members take part? Plus, why choose Kissuiso in the first place? My guess is that someone we know is involved, perhaps Ohana’s mother? The grandmother did seem to agree rather readily as well, so perhaps she is in on the plan too. I’m probably just reading too much into things though.
I wouldn’t be surprised if your predictions came true on this one. Ohana’s mother is involved with this project somehow – I just know it!
It may be my own ignorance but I didn’t notice the BL angle until you mentioned it. Maybe I’m just numb to that sort of thing, but I kinda just took that part at face value.
Though I enjoy this series, I kind of hoped they would use the inn to tell the story of Ohana and how she is develops as a person. Just from watching the first few episodes, I got the sense that this anime was about Ohana – NOT traditional Japanese-style inns. I thought Iroha would use the Japanese inn setting as a tool used to tell a story in a similar way Honey and Clover used the college setting to explore ideas relevant to a good slice of life story.
Here we are at episode 16 and Ko is gone, Ohana’s feelings haven’t changed and little progress has been made in her growth as a character.
I guess I’m somewhat disappointed the anime focused more on the Kisuiso than Ohana, but that’s a minor complaint compared to how entertaining this series has been to watch.
That’s a very good point. The first few episodes and the more dramatic episodes where she went back to Tokyo were all about Ohana, but for the slice of life / comedic episodes they’ve focused on the Kissuiso. Ohana hasn’t gotten much development in these episodes.
I probably noticed the BL things because I have…. *ahem*… some experience reading / watching those kinds of things, or at least things that reference them. They are all pretty similar with very clear signs, so when I see them the BL interpretation is the face value interpretation for me. (see the latest episode of no. 6 for a bunch of these signs)