I really don’t care about the 90210-esque love triangle between Tohru, Minko and Ohana. Thankfully, there’s a far more fascinating plot running in parallel.
Enishing and Takako?
Since when are these two in love? Well, I always pictured the couple as a somewhat one-sided affair, with Enishi being the sad, loyal puppy. While I’m sure Takako is somewhat charmed by his devotion to her, she always struck me as a person who couldn’t really be tied down to the simplistic sentimentality of Enishi and the inn he calls home. I wouldn’t exactly accuse Takako of being fake, but she doesn’t exactly fit in at Kissuiso. Takako’s heavily caked in garish make-up — nothing against make-up but she clearly wears too much — and she regularly mixes in English words as she speaks. She’s not for the quiet life in the country, is she?
So I thought it was an interesting gambit for Sui’s to require that they hold the wedding at Kissuiso. Is Takako really in love with her son or is she after something else? After all, once the wedding planning began, Takako’s interactions with Enishi suddenly became all business. Where’s the love? It’s not as if Takako’s a bad person, though; she’s just a little more goal-oriented than most. While the girls at Kissuiso seem as though they’re just happy to roll up their sleeves and work hard for the collective good of the inn, Takako seems like someone with plans to conquer the world. It wouldn’t hurt to, y’know, inherit an inn as a starter. But as Takako observes everyone going all out to make her wedding work, wouldn’t Takako start to feel a little guilty? Maybe that’s why she wanted to call the wedding off with Enishi.
Who knows. The adults in Hanasaku Iroha aren’t quite as transparent as the main characters. I wonder if Sui is testing Takako to see if the woman’s feelings for her son is genuine, i.e. will she marry Enishi even if she doesn’t get the inn? — cause there’s a good chance she won’t.
Minko’s love
While I did say I don’t care for the love triangle, and thus wouldn’t really touch it, this episode still had one interesting exchange between Tohru and Minko alone. It becomes quite apparent that while Minko deeply admires Tohru, she hardly knows the guy. She has him on a pedestal, so to speak — someone to admire and venerate, but love requires a deeper level of intimacy.
Tohru casually remarks that he would like a loud and boisterous family; he would love to have a lot of kids. He also cares more about Ohana than Minko would like. Just what else would Minko find out about Tohru if she got too close? On the one hand, it’s obvious that Minko’s jealous of Ohana and that’s why she’s all mad and petulant this episode. I think something’s deeper at play here as well, however. By asking Ohana to go out on a date with Tohru, Minko is essentially committing self-sabotage, but why would she go and do a thing like that? I think she’s afraid to close the distance between her and Tohru. The more she learns about Tohru, the higher the chance that her image of him might be shattered.
This reminds me somewhat of the ambiguous ending in City Lights when the tramp finally appears before the young woman:
“…it is easy to love one’s neighbor as long as he stays far enough from us, as long as there is a proper distance separating us. The problem arises at the moment when he comes too near us, when we start to feel his suffocating proximity — at this moment when the neighbor exposes himself to us too much, love can suddenly turn into hatred.” — Zizek
As a co-worker and a mentor, Tohru seems like the perfect guy for Minko: hard-working and determined. But what perfect guy of Minko would like Ohana? What kind of life would she have with this guy? Does she necessarily want five children? Minko doesn’t come across as the type to sit at home and tend after the kids. Why work so hard to be a cook or chef if you’re going to retire early for the family anyway?
That’s a good theory though. A lot of unhealthy obsessions and unstable crushes revolve around the fact that they only see the good qualities of the crushee without bothering or knowing the major flaws and accepting those. Hell, this is why the Twilight relationship between Bella and Edward is considered especially unhealthy!
To me (since this IS Hanasaku Iroha where running the inn is the ultimate Japanese dream and developments and complexity are only visible in adults while the children become festering moeblobs and archetypes), Ohana would probably hook up with someone who will be fully dedicated to the inn as much as she does. The only problem is that Ohana is TOO nice and in times a pushover, and while many people can ADORE her for that, it will only take incredibly lazy and bad writing to make her go with a fairytale ending/soulmate relationship with any man without giving Ohana a major flaw.
To be honest, no one should hook up with anyone because no one in this series has had a healthy, balanced romance with anyone else. What kills me is when these shows try to squeeze in some love subplot without really exploring the implications of what a relationship entails.
Or better yet, because there was about little to no breakthrough of character to even make any friendship or relationship realistic. And even if they do, someone would just push them back to the status quo and said breakthrough never mentioned again (Yosuke stopping Yuina for pursuing outside the Hotel business because he finds female slavery attractive, Nako’s secret nothingness never shown because the grandmother says it’s better that way, Minko’s attempt to be the leader stopped with a little help from the Moe Crew).
whoops, I mean “secret outgoingness”. XD
Well, that’s just how it goes. Early in the season, everyone kept going on and on about how this was 2-cours so character development was going to take a while. In reality, however, Hanasaku Iroha follows the development curve of your average sitcom without the laugh track. The only major change I can honestly see down the line is Sui finally giving up the inn. In essence, this means the anime should have been about her all along.
Maybe they can give Sui a backstory episode then? The retro-vintage themes can give off a comparison between the younger lives of Sui andher daughter/
Probably too late for this. In the meantime, more naked Minko-Ohana fights in the bath.
I think that Minko’s desperate request to Ohana to go out with Tohru comes from two mixed feelings:
1) “I want Tohru-san to be happy, even if it’s not with me”
2) “If they go out, I can finally accept that my crush is over”.
Currently Minko is frustrated because she believes that Tohru has the hots for Ohana but Ohana is oblivious to him. Ohana could have what Minko desperately wants, yet she doesn’t act on it. That’s why Minko is extremely pissed off at Ohana. Of course this is a childish behaviour since Ohana isn’t at fault here. Minko disappointed me, she showed how immature she still is.
Minko’s behavior becomes more childish and inexcusable with each passing episode. I’ve almost gotten to the point where I want her to be unhappy because she’s so mean spirited to everyone except her precious Tohru. And then everyone in the moe schoolgirl group seems to find her obstinate bullshit endearing. I just don’t get it.
I just think of this show as a sitcom without a laugh track. As a result, characters never have to grow. Minko has a bitch button that the writers can push at any time to stir up some conflict, character growth be damned.
Well, Takako did say that a marriage at that time wasn’t financially sound. I wouldn’t say that she only cares about money, because she does keep Enishi close for a reason that’s more than business, but she is very financially savvy. As for Sui, I think she’s aware of this, but knows that she isn’t the type to run an inn.
Well, I think I touched on it briefly, but Enishi pretty much worships the ground Takako walks on. It’s not hard to imagine that she might like to keep someone like that around.