Yuina is just too much. Hot pants, a spy and a zombie in one episode.

This episode was mainly devoted to Enishi and Takako. Takako began as the most annoying character in Hanasaku Iroha. In all honestly, she still is, but in combination with Enishi I do like her. She’s the type of person who takes charge, and Enishi is the kind of person who gets taken charge of.

In one scene, Enishi was about to hit Takako  for making fun of his sister, but she slapped him instead. And he liked it and begged her to lead them in their comeback. I think that in this way Takako is very similar to Ohana’s mother, and that’s probably why he likes her. Enishi’s unbelievably clumsy (see the pool scene) and a terrible businessman. But in spite of his unassuming appearance and his lazy-looking appearance, he certainly doesn’t lack in enthusiasm or effort. “WE SHALL RETURN!” Totally GAR. I actually thought it kind of made sense the way he said it too.

I’m still not entirely sure what to make of the grandmother’s role in all this. She wants to give him some freedom, sure, but you’d think she would give him freedom with something she didn’t know would turn out disastrously. There’s the possibility she didn’t know, of course, but she didn’t seem too surprised when the director skipped town. The manager also tried to play a motherly role in this episode. And we discovered (or already knew) that Enishi is a momma’s boy. The pool scene was cute too. (not sure what the planes had to do with anything though) Any bets on whether the manager will ever tell Ohana to call her grandma?

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.

This episode just blew me away. I think it was one of the best episodes of Hanasaku Iroha we’ve had so far. Yuina truly came into form as a main character, as Ohana’s can-do attitude has begun to rub off on her.

The scene in the bath with Yuina and her fiance was spectacular. The socks. The SOCKS. Then her fiance tells Yuina that he only wants to marry someone who will work there with him, like Ohana. And Yuina’s jealousy sets in. When you have a character who has been so indifferent towards everything up to this point— her many confessions from classmates, telling her fiance she didn’t want to work at an inn, and not helping when the part-timers quit— it becomes all the more effective when they do show some emotions. Even when it’s such a mild display compared to what Ohana does all the time, it has so much more impact because of how different it is from how Yuina usually acts.

Their reconciliation was touching, as Yuina attempts to work but fails miserably, and Yuina decides to become an inn manager after all. She claims she has been opposed to the idea due to having an inn as her home all her life, so I’m guessing that next week she’ll be coming to Kissuiso.

As an aside, the use of the evening light falling into the bath room during Yuina and her fiance’s conversation was a great touch. I loved the evening colors and how one side of Yuina’s body was in shadow. It made everything feel much more dramatic.

As for the rest of this episode, it’s interesting to see (but not all that surprising) that Ohana’s grandmother has such a reputation. From Ohana, Minchi and Nako’s helping at the inn, we had an aha moment when Ohana realized that she had actually learned to be a waitress. But honestly, this entire half episode was worth it just to show how Yuina wasn’t offering to help so we could have that bath scene.

I’d mentioned before that Yuina has been largely neglected, and this episode rectified this.  Ohana’s school visits a hot springs for the class field trip, and it turns out that the hot springs they’re visiting are managed by Yuina’s fiance. Their inn can host a large number of people, but doesn’t have as good a staff or management as the Kissuiso. The entire part-time staff quits the next morning, and Yuina dumps her fiance by telling him she doesn’t want to run an inn.

Typically beach episodes are cliche and pointless fanservice, but the trip in Hanasaku Iroha was actually a good idea. It allowed the characters to escape to a new setting where they would have a reason to interact with Yuina. It also added some impetus to the inn management side of the story by allowing us to see a completely different management style. Ohana and Nako’s reactions to being guests in another inn were priceless, with them arranging the shoes automatically, criticizing the staff and waking up early to set up the futons.

Yuina’s development was good— it fleshed her out, but didn’t really surprise us with too much about her that we didn’t already know. She has almost the opposite personality of Ohana. Ohana wears everything she’s thinking on her face, but Yuina always appears indifferent, even when she is being confessed to or dumping her fiance.

Minchi’s confession scene went pretty much as expected. This is the problem with making up your own words, as Ohana also found out this week with her “fest it up” and Yuina’s usage with lesbian undertones.

As you may have guessed, I’m back from my trip, and there will be a flurry of updates on Iroha and Steins; Gate today. Since I’m late to the party, I’m planning to do a single first impressions post for the new season instead of one per show like I usually do (once I catch up, that is). I’ll decide what to blog next season after watching the first episodes.

This ended up being one of my favorite episodes of Hanasaku Iroha so far. Ohana’s mother certainly managed to stir things up. The highlight of the episode was seeing Ohana’s mother interact with the staff, especially her mother and brother. Seeing the grandmother become all agitated and slapping her son silly was great. Although yeah, he definitely deserved it for inviting his college friend. *shudder* Even the head chef is afraid of Ohana’s mother. The only one who isn’t cowed, surprisingly, is Nako, who loves her.

The drinking scene in particular was very well done, although becoming drunk on soda… well, whatever. A drinking party spanning three generations of the family. It’s rare that we get a chance to see something like this, since so many anime characters don’t have parents at all, much less grandparents. Old people just aren’t cool, I guess, but I think it’s a shame. They can really add a lot to a show. Take Summer Wars, for example, where the grandmother stole the show.

I’m not sure why Ohana thinks she was dumped by Ko. From my perspective, that seems like the exact opposite of what actually happened. Ohana has decided to not give up and try again, but it’s more like she decided to try for the first time. Oh well, at least she seems to have realized that she does like him.

Next week looks like it’ll be a Yuina episode, so I’m looking forward to it. Yuina seems like a very interesting character, but she’s gotten the least screen time so far. I’m guessing she’ll have a heavier role to play in the second half.