After watching the tenth episode of Hanasaku Iroha, Soramimi Dreams, an old “friend,” and I decide to engage in a short and totally objective debate over the merits and demerits of the anime.
: There’s rarely any tension in the plot. There’s rarely any danger of things going wrong. Hanasaku Iroha never turns the screws on its characters. We are stuck in a holding pattern until the creators of the anime decide to call it quits. Until then, everything unfolds as clockwork with each character on the show fulfilling very specified roles. If the characters could evolve within their formulaic roles, that would be one thing, but what character development can you honestly attribute to the cast?
We are led to believe that Ohana is now more dependable than she was at the start of the anime. We rarely spent anytime with Ohana before she got shipped off to Kissuiso, however, so it’s not as if there’s a lot of contrast to draw from. Minko starts off as a prickly personality who dislikes Ohana and her lack of work ethic… and now slightly likes Ohana more. Sui, Ohana’s grandmother, starts off as a prickly personality who was willing to slap her own granddaughter over a tiny mistake… and now slightly likes Ohana more. Tohru, a sous chef with a prickly personality who loves to tease Ohana, now, uh, just plain likes Ohana. After ten episodes, are we truly okay with such miniscule changes in the cast?
Almost every single episode is self-contained with little to no impact on later stories. Everything eventually returns to the status quo. Will the rival inn poach the young and talented Tohru away from Kissuiso? No. Is Tohru dating another girl, forcing Minko to come to terms with the uncertain and volatile nature of first loves? No. Is Sui finally too old to play the matriarch to her inn? Will Kissuiso finally have to modernize or call it quits? No. Since those Sui-designed dresses made such an impact in episode six, will we see them ever again? No. Will Ko take a stand and demand Ohana to stop being so wishy-washy about their relationship? No.
People might say that the series is far from over and actual change may occur later in the anime, but ten episodes is still ten episodes. With approx. twenty minutes per episode, that’s around 200 minutes of Hanasaku Iroha hitting the reset button over and over. Now that’s change I can believe in!
Take the latest episode, for instance. What did we know by the end of the episode that we didn’t know before we watched it? That Kissuiso and its staff need Ohana? Of course they do; after all, Ohana just saved their asses only a week ago. That Tohru likes Ohana? We could have guessed that back in the fifth episode — perhaps even earlier. That Minko has soften around Ohana? Didn’t we already go through this at the very start of the anime? That Ohana loves Kissuiso? And this wasn’t evident from the first nine episodes… why?
If it sounds like Hanasaku Iroha is repeating itself, it is. As the series continue, the story can’t help but dilute itself unless it is willing to commit to change. The creators need to actually remove the chess pieces from the board and not merely shuffle them around until it’s time for the penultimate episodes. Is Hanasaku Iroha in danger of falling into a rut? It already is in a rut.
: Hanasaku Iroha is like the fresh salty spray of the ocean breeze.
It is fun; it is refreshing. Sometimes, people don’t want to watch yet another anime with rising tension or drama. They just want to sit back and relax with a couple of uplifting tales about normal life. You feel good and calm after watching Hanasaku Iroha. It is the perfect end to a long week. When you sit down and watch the anime, you feel as if you can finally unwind.
: So Hanasaku Iroha is “Chicken Soup for the Otaku Soul?”
Fair enough, but no one would ever claim that the Chicken Soup books were examples of great literature. Anime fans, on the other hand, seem to attribute greatness to anything that simply makes them feel goo-
: 
HHHNNNGGGHHH!
: Wait, what?
: 
HHHNNNnnnNNNGGGHHH!
: …what the hell? Do you need to go to the bathroom?
: 
HHHNNNnnnNNNnnnNNNGGGHHH!
: Dude, she’s cryin-
: 
HHHNNNnnnNNNnnnNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGHHH!
: Oh come on! That’s a bird for Christ’s sakes!
Bonus:
While searching for positive opinions of Hanasaku Iroha, I learned a few things:
1) That Ohana is a strong female lead. Okay… I’m reluctant to agree, but I don’t really care to debate this.
2) That the anime is full of “dynamic character interactions.” Wow, really?
3) That people found the latest episode, with its straight-forward dream sequences and not-remotely-confusing shifting of perspectives, surreal. I’m speechless.
Whoa, what is this doing here?
If anyone asks why I dropped Hanasaku I’ll point them out to this post. 10 episodes of so little happening is mildly offensive. Compared to the other shows of the same length and started at the same time. (Excluding Nichijou, because it doesn’t even have a plot) Let’s see:
1) Tiger & Bunny want to get into each other’s pants now.
2) Rin is in Hogwarts.
3) Akihabara disappears.
Feels bad man.
Who should play Tiger and Bunny in the American adaptation? After last night, obviously Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson. Who’s with me!
Who should play Tiger and Bunny in the American adaptation?
I need research on this and keep in mind that one is a single dad and the other one has sand in his vagina.
obviously Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattison.
OMGURWHITEWASHINGANIMU!!!
If we went with notable Asian actors in the US, we’d have Ken Jeong and… I’m drawing a blank here.
It’s when people say stuff like this about Tiger and Bunny that I find myself suddenly queuing up the episodes again.
Regardless an American adaptation will become a hit thanks to it’s /heterosexuality/.
Thank god, I drop this.
I feel like celebrating over balut. Want some? :)
That and durian are two acquired Asian tastes my parents could never trick me into trying.
lol your parents must be from south east asia, which country exactly?
I don’t eat durian but balut is pretty good~
My mom’s Chinese but has spent some time in the Philippines and Vietnam in her youth so she loves their food.
It’s strange — I think century egg is pretty good, especially in congee, but I’m a bit squeamish over the look of balut (or maodan).
Does a Hamburger sound good then? :)
I’m highly perturbed you immediately think something as dull as a hamburger just because I don’t want to eat duck fetuses!
Hamburgers are boring, bibimbap is where its at.
Then what the heck do you guys want to eat?
Tteok mandu, it’s safe and tasty.
”Anime fans, on the other hand, seem to attribute greatness to anything that simply makes them feel goo-”
Couldn’t have said it better. This kind reasoning that a lot of fans employ is to put it bluntly, a blatant copout and nothing more. All they’re doing is describing the tone of a story. It’s like saying something is good due to its bleak and cynical attitude while ignoring the childish pandering, underdeveloped themes (or lack thereof), laughably stupid and inconsistent characterization, and atrocious writing.
But of course, barely anyone does that. It’s usually a ”certain” subset of fandom that’re hellbent on whitewashing the quality of whatever they’re currently watching and adoring. For example, I utterly love Cobra and his campy adventures, but I’m also fully aware that it’s nothing more than a guilty pleasure designed to push all the right buttons, and therefore, don’t feel like defending it by stating just how entertaining it actually is.
I’m curious now — are you describing any specific anime in particular? ;v
E Minor, that’s the description for most anime.
/lolololol I kid.
Most anime are bleak and cynical? No way! Definitely not recently anyway. It feels like we’re in happy fun time land all the time nowadays.
@ E Minor
It’s like saying something is good while ignoring the childish pandering, underdeveloped themes (or lack thereof), laughably stupid and inconsistent characterization, and atrocious writing.
FIXED.
Yeah yeah, but I was and still am curious about that bleak and cynical anime that everyone’s praising.
The first thing that comes to my mind is Eva. The other one is Elfen Lied.
Yeah, both are pretty (relatively) old though so I was wondering if he was referring to anything recent. I mean, I’d guess Madoka myself but y’know…
elfen lied?
shit i was too late
@ E Minor
It might be Madoka given how huge it’s become. Funnily enough, the magic does wear off in a few months. I still don’t think it’s /that/ bad though but certainly not god-tier.
Yeah, I agree. The community seems to have short term memory and they move on pretty quick. I think Nichijou is pretty much the flavor of the moment. I’ve seen that damn deer suplex too many times.
Well for me, Nichijou is like Spongebob. As long as it’s humorous, I’ll watch it. Physical humor is international humor.
I haven’t bothered writing about Nichijou ’cause although it’s not to my tastes, there’s nothing to really criticize about it. It’s either funny or it’s not.
I dunno, there’s nothing wrong with being an episodic series that showcases a mood rather than a traditional character/plot arc. Your argument here is sort of like complaining that Now and Then, Here and There isn’t funny enough.
Now, Hanasaku Iroha also happens to fail on its own terms, and is a pretty terrible series. But I don’t think the show it’s trying and failing to be would be so bad.
C’mon, this is nothing like “complaining that Now and Then, Here and There isn’t funny enough.” You’re reaching a bit here. Nobody expects comedy from Now and Then, Here and There. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s unfair to expect some decent storytelling from HanaIro. Actually, you could even argue that proper storytelling would go a long way in helping HanaIro “showcase a mood,” whatever mood that is.
Now, did I not concede, as others have argued, that HanaIro might be one of those relaxing, “healing-type” shows? Yes, but that still makes HanaIro far from great.
Hm…
It’s so strange, sometimes I wonder why would people appreciate moe shows, I mean, it’s just a bunch of characters interacting together stupidly with no development.
Then I remind myself I like things like Hetalia to understand that everyone has its guilty pleasures!But not everyone does it for the guilty pleasure…
X likes this anime series that has almost nothing going on except girls doing stupid things(that no normal girl would ever do, unless she’s severely dumb), but X thinks that it’s just a frivolous, silly series, nothing serious, but Y is so serious, deep and devoted to this series and its little 2D girls!Not only he pretends them to be deep characters, but also he pretends them to be their waifus(aka sex dolls)!And no way if you dare to critique his life style!Especially if he’s serious about his marriage with Mio!
And no, no matter how many times X asked Y if he’s going to get a girlfriend, or talk to a girl at least, Y will be like LALALA I WON’T HEAR YOU.
Sorry for that…I want to get to the point ASAP:
I seriously wonder if those kinds slice of lives are written for the poor otakus who just don’t know how social life and social interaction are. Maybe that’s why they defend them so badly!It’s like attacking a part of their soul!Or something like that.
I seriously can’t find anything attractive about this genre, and I still think that if ANY moe slice of life had their underage girls replaced by sexy men in their 20s-30s, they wouldn’t still be interesting: it would only be a guilty pleasure, because the characters would be so silly and unreal that they could only serve as simple entertainment. What’s so deep about moe slice of life?! NOTHING! Why do moe fans keep on saying deep things about these shows? There’s nothing deep in wearing striped panties, I do too. The only thing deep they find in these shows is an unreal life that they will never get with their escapism!
Now, don’t get me wrong after all of this:
Someone can watch and like moe slice of lives, but he/she can’t pretend it to be deep, unless some holy day a moe slice of life with a deep story and good characters will come out.
But wait!That would kill the point of it all!
Because moe fans don’t wanna get thrilled by story or character development, all they want is their *insert cute japanese girl name here*-chan to do moe, stupid things!
I admit it clearly, I have deep crushes on fictional characters, but how can I fall for a character that’s so boring it hurts? I mean… he at least has to be cool and do awesome things, and get development and be charming in his own way etc. etc., not eat cakes 24/7 and talk about his striped boxers and his stupidly homo-incestual adventures.
Maybe they don’t want to face a deeper character that might resemble a real girl more!THAT WOULD BE TERRIBLE!Because girls are evil and will steal your bucks.
Seriously, what’s wrong with those people?I’ve been bragging this for too long!And I could go on for hours. Heck I don’t even know if this is On Topic.
TL;DR
Hardcore moe fans are silly.
Well, there’s certainly a lot here to parse. I know what you’re getting at, and honestly, I might have structured an argument in a similar way two years ago. The only problem is that it’s very difficult to make any broad statements about the audience of anime without causing a lot of people to shut down instantly and ignore you. Even if you have solid evidence or good premises, readers are very quick to label you a troll, etc.
Eh, I don’t try to defend this show as a whole. It entertains me, not a lot’s going on, there needs to be more of a drive to the plot for it to reach the lush territory of compelling narrative. I find enjoyment in it because… actually, I’m not exactly sure why. The characters are stuck, nailed, and riveted to their archetypes, you could’ve easily skipped four or five episodes of this and not missed much, and Minko still makes me somewhat murderous. The list of problems could obviously go on and on and on (And it does), but said problems don’t faze me much with this series.
Still, I don’t question why I don’t look at how much time I have left to watch it, since I know a show’s doing something right when that happens. It may have stupid plot points, it may have unfathomably inane character interactions, and it may indeed have a layer of realism so thin and tenuous that it snaps in a gentle spring breeze, but there’s some element that leaves me coming back for more each week.
Addendum: How the hell was this episode surrealist? Those people need to have their brains checked.
Cause Shaft is surrealist.
Just… how? Eraserhead was surrealist. That episode of Futurama where Leela was put in a coma after the bee sting had surrealist dreams. I don’t get how a girl in the midst of a storm of fever dreams acting the part of a zombie is surrealist.
Hey man, it’s confusing, okay? Made my head hurt.
I know. It took me a few times to wrap my head around it. I had to analyze it for hours on end, contact our top philosophers and literary experts, and finally bounce ideas off my cat to finally understand the stunning complexity.
If you think the show has plenty of problems, but that you like it anyway, sounds like a guilty pleasure. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it sure sounds like you’re describing a guilty pleasure.
If the Persona games were anime, I’d find them rather trite. But as an interactive video game, I enjoy it. Guilty pleasure!
I wouldn’t quite classify it as a guilty pleasure, more as a shiny rock encrusted with industrial waste that gleams every once in awhile, so I stare at it until my efforts pay off.
It being a guilty pleasure would imply that I know that there’d be nothing redeemable under normal circumstances. The inner optimist in me is still holding out for some plot progression.
Mnemosyne is about as guilty a pleasure as I have, and this is nowhere near that degree of absurdity. Granted, it’s not quite as entertaining either.
I just don’t see the point in judging an anime on what it could be instead of what it currently is.
And there’s plenty of merit in that argument. I see potential in this though, and I never let potential for something to be tolerable go to waste.
I mean even School Days was good in the last fifteen minutes, and I found that worth sitting through the entire frustrating ordeal.
Who knows, maybe this will have Ko go yandere on Ohana as a twist ending. I’d stay with it ’til the end to see that.
And if Ko does go nuts Ohana, I’m sure I’d hear all about it from others that I have no need to keep watching — though I will, ’cause it’s fun to mock.
Hey, more power to ya. Your posts, and the arguments that spew forth as a result, are entertaining week to week, and I have no intention of asking such exchanges/witticisms to stop.
Doesn’t guilty pleasure imply you feel guilt over enjoying it? I don’t think guilty pleasure is synonymous with mindless enjoyment. Just knowing a show has flaws but still enjoying it isn’t enough. For a person to feel guilt they must do something that goes against their principles. If your principle is to only watch shows that you deem enriching and then you watch Seikon no Qwaser you’d feel guilty. If you enjoyed it anyway it’d be a guilty pleasure. If you have no such principle Qwaser would just be mindless entertainment or entertaining perversion.
Grand Theft Auto is a guilty pleasure. Persona 4 is just a fun game.
“I shouldn’t be enjoying this, but I am” is close enough to a guilty pleasure for me. I don’t see a need to take such a technical interpretation of guilt as something that goes against one’s principles.
I did not mean to imply that Persona 4 wasn’t a guilty pleasure for you. If it came across that way I apologize. I was just trying to juxtapose a game like GTO (which I think is unequivocally a guilty pleasure) with a game that I would consider just fun. I was just trying to show why inunshinde might not consider HanaIro a guilty pleasure. I do see the need to use a technical interpretation of guilt in order to properly understand it and understand whether a person is feeling it. If I understand what guilt is I can better determine those things that might feel like a guilty pleasure. Not to mention the intertwining with the definition of shame. That is doing something you feel society would shun you for. In the above example someone who feels no guilt for watching Qwaser might still feel shame. Being able to distinguish makes it easier to identify and manage since it tends to be a more difficult to understand emotion than just fear, happiness, etc.
Anyway “I shouldn’t be enjoying this, but I am” IS a good definition of a guilty pleasure. It implies that there are certain standards you would normally hold yourself to. It’s a value judgement of your own tastes. However simply enjoying something despite it’s faults doesn’t imply any such standard. It implies a level for something to be considered good, but it doesn’t make any statements as to the value of good or bad. To me the distinction is between a value judgement and a non-judgement.
Yeah I’m probably overthinking it, but how else am I to justify my love for Qwaser. It’s a fucking funny show.
I think you’re assigning more of a negative connotation to ‘guilty pleasure’ than I am. I’m not sure I’m following you on the guilt/shame distinction either but that’s just probably laziness on my part. If either you or Inushinde want to say that neither Qwaser nor HanaIro qualify as ‘guilty pleasures,’ hey, it’s your guys’ call. You guys should know best how you feel about the anime you guys are watching. Nevertheless, I offered my opinion. From my perspective, something that one judges as bad — not just flawed but bad — yet one enjoys it anyway, sounds like a guilty pleasure to me. If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine; I didn’t expect you guys to.
You make some very good points on Hanasaku Iroha, but I think that much of the root problem for what you’re noticing here is that it’s a two cour show.
I don’t think that PA Works has a good sense of how many episodes a particular anime premise and plotline calls for.
Angel Beats! probably needed two cours to develop its very complex and multifaceted narrative. Within its one cour limitations, it felt haphazard, rushed, and often jarring with its mood changes and character development.
Meanwhile, Hanasaku probably would have worked better in one cour, where the plot would have been tightened up a fair bit, and we’d have less superfluous and/or repetitive fluff.
I actually still think that there’s a good chance that Hanasaku will pick up a bit once we get into the 2nd half of the anime… but it does feel very slow and/or status quo reaffirming right now simply because the storytelling is so decompressed in it. Decompressed through having more episodes to work with than it should be.
Just to be clear, this isn’t me making excuses for Hanasaku (or Angel Beats!) for that matter. It’s a serious flaw of an anime company to allot way too much, or way too little, time for a particular anime.
One cour, two cour, who cares — even slow burning shows should have proper storytelling. I have no problems with a story that takes a long time to develop, but slow =/= we learn nothing new in the early episodes about either the characters or the plot. I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, just spinning it in harsher terms.
Yeah, more or less. Episodes 1 +2 *almost* made this look like it’d be “Spirited Away, but 2-cour long, and without the fantastic elements”.
Most of the positive feeling for the show on the part of at least some of the viewership seems to derive from viewers who can’t come to grips with the fact that what the show has revealed itself to be is something else entirely.
I don’t care what it has become. It’s just not well executed. Let’s take Sunshine, for example. It notably shifts from a slow-burning thriller to a slasher midway through the movie. People were also turned off by the movie because of what they perceived as a random genre change. I enjoyed Sunshine in the long run, however, because I thought the shift was well done, the thematic change made sense, etc.
On the other hand, Hanasaku Iroha is just bad. Even the animation, which has been its one calling card all season, has taken a hit in the recent episode.
Oh, to be clear: I’m not saying it’s good, or that you should think it is. What I’m saying is you see people write stuff in the vein of your (1) and (2) b/c that’s what you’d have to say about it if it’d gone for the long-form spirited-away-alike it seemed to start out as. So it seems like holding onto what they’d want it to be instead of looking at what it actually is.
My prediction is episodics for the first 13 episodes and either short arcs or overarching plot for the remaining 13.
Not that it will make the show much better. I only half watched this episode (I’ve started doing more of this lately) and I still enjoyed it even though it mostly played in the background of my brain (foreground of my screen). Usually when I do this I barely have any impression of the anime at all, but this time I enjoyed it.
I think the strongest things going for Hanasaku Iroha are it’s downright gorgeous in my opinion. I really like the girls character designs and the aesthetics of kissuiso. The other strong point is the acting. Being a complete seiyuu whore I relished Itou Kanae’s sick Ohana, but the other seiyuu are really good as well. I’m the type that can enjoy a show with just those few things. I’m not gonna call it a masterpiece but I’ll call it good enough.
That all boils down to hnnnnnnggggggg I guess.
Also I don’t understand how Nichijou is the flavor of the moment. Even when citing anti-humor I think Nichijou just falls flat. I don’t think I’ve laughed in 5 episodes. Fuck I enjoy A Channel more than Nichijou. All the cute Nano and Professor can’t make up for comedy that in my opinion does not translate well.
Hey, well, you’re preaching to the choir — I have no interest whatsoever in Nichijou. People love posting clips of the anime onto Youtube though.