I knew I was going out on a limb with Hanasaku Iroha. What did I find? I'm still not entirely sure.
PA Works is clearly doing their best to make this 10th Anniversary show, visually, one they can be proud of. The scenic land scapes of the Japanese countryside are beautifully rendered with lush greenery and traditional architecture as appropriate. The cast is mostly focused on a small handful of girls. Usually this is a recipe for bishoujo pandering but it is an original work (not based on an eroge or ecchi manga, for example) and early word indicated a different focus.
Many have described this show as being "slice-of-life" but that's really not accurate. While the setting and the characters are generally realistic, the show isn't focused on a description or representation of every day events any more than general fiction. Hanasaku Iroha is really a long-form character drama. The emphasis is squarely on the characters and their relationships.
Hanasaku Iroha follows sixteen year old Ohana as she moves to the country side to live in the hot spring resort run by her estranged grandmother. She imagines a romantic and idyllic setting where the dramatic story of her life willl unfold.
The first two episodes were beautiful and engaging. Ohana struggles to reconcile her expectations of a storybook existence with the reality of a chef's apprentice (Minko) who irrationally hates her, a softspoken housekeeper (Nako) who can't assert herself enough to tell Ohana what not to do on the job, and a Grandmother with the extremely strict values and customs of traditional japanese management. Similarly, the viewer struggles with their expectations of how Ohana will deal with the shattering of her world view. It was truly an excellent start.
The third episode, however, has given me pause for concern over the direction of the story. In the opening scene we find Ohana tied up by one of the resort's guests (an aspiring author of trashy novels) in an attempted bondage pattern. It's played for laughs, and it is indeed a bit funny. The viewer is shorly treated to a scene from the author's book, featuring yuri innuendo involving Ohana, Nako, and Minko in a bath house or perhaps a hot spring given the setting of the show. Later in the episode, Nako (the aforementioned housekeeper) removes her kimono and jumps into the ocean to save a drowning man. She emerges and is displayed kneeling, soaken white undershirt clining tightly to her skin, exhausted, breasts protruding, and appearing quite helpless in a rather provocative pose. The scene was story-appropriate, but the specific portrayal of the character felt pandering.
As eye-roll inducing as this episode was, I'm not completely put off yet. I hope this was a one-off, because I really don't think that overall this is PA Works' style. I'm bracing myself for the eventual (inevitable?) day at the beach episode.
No comments:
Post a Comment