Hanasaku Iroha

Hanasaku Iroha is a 26 episode comedic slice of life drama.  Made in conjunction with the manga of the same name by production company P.A. Works.  It aired in Japan in 2011.

   
    Ohana Matsumae finds her self living at her estragned grand mothers country inn after her mother ditches their apartment in Tokyo with her boyfriend to escape his debt.  Ohana is in for a surprise when her slave driving grandmother considers the girl to be an employee of the inn,  not a relative.  With no where else to go,  she has to put up with the abuse and the cold reception from the other works.  As she learns how to be a waitress in this traditional inn she takes it on her self to solve everyones problems too.  From convincing her roommate to stop telling her to die.  To trying to prevent the larger inns in town from running her grandmothers business into the ground.  Ohana is energetic,  somehwat dimwitted and true to her feelings.  She does her best to make sure everyone around her is enjoying life and not stressing about their problems.  Unfortunatelly her spunk causes more trouble than it solves and the other employees of the inn both dread snd welcome the spitfire in their midst.

    At the heart of it this is a romance as Ohana tries to figure out the feelings for her closest friend in Tokyo who confessed to her before she moved.  This plot takes the back burner for most of the show but shows up from time to time.  It is also a coming of age story as we see Ohana go from a semi responsible person who makes sure her mother eats and the house is clean to someone  that people can rely on.  As the show progresses we learn about the other employees of the small inn and watch them grow as well.  Yet at times the eternal optimism can be grating.  Ohana is full of ganbare and the fact that she typically gets her desired result can be a bit annoying.  But the characters stand out with unique personalities that are nicely developed through out the series.  In general this wasn't a bad series.  It was nice to not have a show laden with fan service and quality character depth.  Worth the time, but not one of the best shows ever made.  There was a follow up movie, but based upon the plot synopsis it doesn't seem to be a continuation of the story, just some filler material from sometime in the middle of the show...bummer.

    The series was released on DVD and BluRay in North America and is currently available for streaming via Crunchyroll.