Saturday, June 25, 2011

Hanasaku Iroha 12/26 Episode Edition


Quickly typing this off the top of my head because I like fulfilling 'personal stupid requests'. Here's my two-cents on the recent happenings in P.A. Works' on-going original anime.

The only reason I picked up this anime was because I was browsing through some anime blogs for others' first impressions and I saw a screencap with this amazing picture. The beginning was not so bad and I'd hoped it would improve. Sadly though, I feel as if it's turned into a generic romantic comedy. I guess there's not much you could expect from the slice of life genre. I mean how much do 'realistic' situations vary? To be quite honest, I don't think I've seen enough of this genre to call this generic. (I tend to go for shounen/seinen anime. Why? I'm not quite sure myself.)

Ohana's naivety is starting to get old now. It's almost midway and if what I think should happen actually happens, then she should've learnt something by now. However, she's still as childish as ever. It's not only her though. This show feels as if it’s lacking in character development which I feel is kind of an important aspect in this type of show. Otherwise you're just telling a pointless story. The only character in which I’ve seen some change is Minko. After 12 episodes, I think there are a few plot elements that take too long to resolve such as the issue between Ohana and Ko. The romance is also incredibly predictable. 

The melodrama is starting to feel repetitive and it doesn't have the same effect as it did at the beginning. In the foreseeable future, I don't see this show going anywhere but hey, I might be wrong. I seems like quite an average show with no lasting impact. There's still a long way to go though, so I guess we'll see.

1 comment:

zak4994 said...

The slow-paced feeling and repetitiveness is probably because of the fact that the anime is 26 episodes long. If the show had been shortened to 12 or so, the main plot would be a lot clearer and things would progress far quicker.

The character development for this show is quite "bumpy" in the sense that they only develop the characters every couple of episodes.
When Ohana had the fever we saw a newer side of her grandmother, for example. Now that Minko is finally understanding Tohru's position when referring to Ohana, I wonder what she will try to do? Ohana's naivety is what makes this anime so good to watch; it makes me want to yell at her but this is what makes the show so good; all because of the emotional investment.

This is, in my opinion, one of the better, above average, but not a 10/10, slice of life anime that you would find. Especially when considering the fact that the romance is an afterthought and the comedy & drama came first.

I hope you do change your position on this anime as I believe it is one of the better ones out there. Maybe you should attempt to be a bit more empathetic? I rarely had considered this as a romance which is why it doesn't bother me. I don't think "they should be together already" and hope that the show ends as quick as possible. I want to watch the troubles that a teenage girl can face in life and show that romance isn't as easy as it appears, especially when comparing to other anime.

If at any point in this post I sounded like I was flaming at you, I would like to apologise because I am very passionate about this show. :)