I love it whenever certain people refer to the patriarchy, they always use scare quotes like it’s this boogeyman concept that crazy, nutjob feminists have conjured up in their academic ivory towers. Of course, I’m not really writing this Hanasaku Iroha post to debate the merits and demerits of the ~patriarchy~. Instead, let’s just take a look at how decisions in the anime are dictated by the women.
Is Kissuiso really going to close after the Bonbori Festival? Or did Sui just employ a indirect motivational tactic? In either case, Takako isn’t going to sit idly by and allow the inn to slip through her fingers. I had an inkling she wouldn’t just go down without a fight. Takako, however, discusses Kissuiso’s future plans not with her husband but Ohana. Usually, dynasties go from father to son, but the fate of our inn rests not upon the shoulders of any of its men, but rather, the determined, gung-ho women. Interestingly, Beanman advises Enishi not to fret. Instead, he should just wait for Takako to return from, well, essentially “war.” Traditional gender roles are thus reversed or, in a way, deconstructed.
Likewise, we watch Ko squirm before Satsuki as she pretty much sizes him up. Think of the Western trope where a boy comes to pick his date up only to come face-to-face with his date’s father. The patriarch naturally grills the boy; after all, it’s usually the father who’s overprotective of the daughter. Ohana’s father passed away a long while ago, but even if he was alive, we’d probably still see Satsuki in this scene. She hasn’t always been the perfect mother, but Satsuki does care for Ohana. She’s obviously giving Ko a hard time to assess his potential as a boyfriend. Again, it’s a woman who’s in charge — a daughter is handed down by her mother rather than her father.
Satsuki makes pointed remarks to test Ko.
Typically, your average sensitive shounen is paired up with a tsunderekko. The tsunderekko, while abrasive on the surface, will come face-to-face with some problem she can’t overcome all by her lonesome. This is thus the shounen’s time to shine and assert his masculinity! For all of Ohana’s air-headedness, however, she isn’t weak; she does take charge. If we’re going to encumber ourselves with outdated notions of binaries, Ohana would be the more masculine of the two. Of course, we need not do that; we could just appreciate the fact that both characters somewhat defy the norms of how boys and girls should act in a relationship. Don’t get me wrong — Ohana and Ko’s relationship isn’t exactly shattering gender boundaries by any means, but I guess it could be worse.
Status Ko
I’m just disappointed in Ko. Tsk tsk, all this time, you’re still in that lousy bookstore and all by your lonesome too. I guess I don’t think it’s really fair that Ohana could disregard Ko’s feelings for an entire season, but when she finally needs him, Ko’s just in the same place she left him. This isn’t about masculinity or femininity.
I’m just not a fan of weak-willed characters who always look like they’re on the verge of tears every single time they appear onscreen. This applies to Ko but also Nako as well. We’ve seen Nako flourish at home, however; we haven’t seen anything from Ko to suggest that he isn’t one giant loser. Hell, he even looks like Narumi of KamiMemo….
Everything else
• Yeah, I don’t even know how to react to Takako throwing that shady director over her shoulder.
Go go, girl power, I guess, but he’s not exactly a small man. He’d be tough for anyone — man or woman — to shoulder throw!
• I didn’t really get the point of Ohana and Takako ooh-ing and aah-ing over Minko’s lunch. Who cares? Oh, she’s a good cook now? I never got the impression that she wasn’t a good cook before. Without this contrast, I just don’t think this scene really makes much of any point. It’s just kinda there.
• Man, I know TV anime has limitations and all, but this just looks like a pile of stodge:
Through the contrasting lunch meals, however, the anime does set up a bit of a dichotomy of how city folks eat versus country folks. Posh, Italian-inspired dishes for Satsuki and Ko versus homemade bento boxes for Ohana and Takako. I guess if one could glean anything from the bento scene, it might be that the cosmopolitan Takako is ready to embrace an inn like Kissuiso — what better way than through the food?
I saw the discussion about Minko’s lunch as a sort of awkward conversation filler between Ohana and Takako, like talking about the weather. So more intended for the purpose of establishing the awkwardness between a new aunt and niece than to say anything about Minko. It still felt kind of pointless though.
I guess, but awkwardness between the two is obvious anyway. Hell, Takako and anyone else is awkward.
Eh, the food-conversation was almost the best part of the episode.
SPINACH.
Do you remember episode 2 and 3? Well, Ohana was going to make the food Minchi and Nako disliked the most, and Minchi didn’t like spinach! And now she made it herself…
That’s almost funny. I mean, instead of Minko becoming a better person who doesn’t pick a fight with her best friends over a boy as character development, the anime opts instead to have her cook spinach well.
Agreed.
I really do wonder about the order of events. I mean, it feels like it’s all over the place. Sure, we got this scammer and aunt this episode, but we also had the spinach and Ko back. During the school festival, Minchi got all mad again, even though she had been a somewhat nice person for a while! And the deal with Tohru just come and go. And everything. What even happened with glasses-girl? What about Tomoe? Beanman? Why did Minchi hate Ohana when they first met? And so on and so on.
Ohana pulled out Minko’s flowers or something and since Minko’s a bitter, hateful person, she’s resented Ohana ever since.
Those flowers were Minko’s food source. Ohana tampered with her food source. Wouldn’t you bitter if someone tampered with your food source?
Only if Minko’s an alpaca.
It’s not like those flowers were so rare that the only place growing these things is in that certain garden. Minko needs a big slap in the face if so.
It is worth noting that traditionally in Japan inns have been passed down maternally instead of paternally. There’s a whole joke in Here is Greenwood about how one of the guys and his brother being raised as girls because they had no sisters and their family owns a traditional inn. Even without his ineffectualness, Enishi never would’ve been considered an ideal candidate.
Ideal candidate or not, the job was there for the taking, but he had to go screw it up and get himself scammed. I’d give a more thoughtful reply about the inns being handed down through the women, but it’s Labor Day and I’ve got ribs.
Whatever happened to Bookstore girl? Do you think the mother paid her a large sum of money to leave Ko alone so that Ohana will end up with him?
She was in the anime to add extra tension. Now that she isn’t needed, she just disappears.
I’m just gonna guess that it will involve the mom bribing her to leave Ko alone. XD
I wonder why Ohana was struggling about what to do if Kissuiso shut down. What about her mom?
We know Ohana’s a grinder. In the school trip episode, she felt antsy just watching another inn struggle, so she strikes me as a type that just likes to put her nose down and work — no thoughts, no nothing, just work. Without Kissuiso, Ohana loses her drive, which is why Sui then instructs her to develop a plan with her mother. Thus far, Ohana only does what other people tell her to do. Maybe now, she’ll do what she wants to do.
Which is… work, right? Ever since episode one, she’s been working. I, sadly, cannot see her doing anything other than that. Maybe she can handle the housework for her mother i guess, I don’t know. Working’s in her blood man.
I like how anime characters never seem to worry about college despite the fact that almost every Asian student is obsessed with university entrance exams around Ohana’s age.