I truly enjoyed the TV series of Hanasaku Iroha. That’s why I was excited when I first heard about this title gets a movie.
Hanasaku Iroha The Movie – Home Sweet Home tells a sub-story of our beloved series. We get to see all the main characters, plus the romance story of Ohana’s parents.
The movie starts with a flashback of Satsuki (Ohana’s mother) got into fight with Sui (Ohana’s grandmother, owner of Kussuisou). That fight lead her to meet Ohana’s father: a cameraman who remains unnamed until end of the movie.
At present time, Yuina is spending “training” time at Kissuisou, with Ohana as her “supervisor”. Well, that serves a logical reason for her to appear in the movie, I guess. To spice things up, our “source of problem” this time is scheduled electricity blackout that turns out to take longer than planned. As the inn needs to continue serving its guests, naturally there will be problems. Starting from food. Without food, they can’t use refrigerator and there are limited ways of preparing the food.
Minko is still in her own world trying to be better at cooking. Her lesson this time is to cook by considering the target’s situation. She cooked complicated meal when the other chefs need to act in a hurry. She cooked with too much seasoning for elderly guests. Then she finally learned her lesson by end of the movie.
Nako’s problem is about her younger sister, Mana, who is really looking forward to go on field trip with her mom. Typical anime story, her mom could not make it because of work. I wonder if this is really a common issue in Japanese families? This will lead into a small “event” later when Mana ran away from home.
Ohana finds an old journal written by Denroku (the janitor). That journal wrote about Satsuki’s past, from Denroku’s point of view. All her life, Ohana sees her mom as an adult. Reading the journal opens her mind that Satsuki was once a young girl as well, struggling to find herself, to decide her future, fell in love and decide to do anything to chase her dream. Simple but touching. It gives us better perspective of Satsuki’s character. I especially like that scene when Ohana was still a baby and she lost her husband, Satsuki once considered to “give up” and return to Kissuisou. Arrived at Kissuisou, Satsuki saw Sui in a meeting with her staff, trying to solve a situation and realized that her own mother did not gave up when she lost her husband. So Satsuki decide not to give up and do her best in raising Ohana herself.
Hanasaku Iroha is essentially a story about three generations of strong girls: Sui, Satsuki and Ohana. While each of their characters are different, we can clearly see their personality evolution as human beings. Life is never easy, but these women find their own way to deal with the challenges in front of them.
Love this movie and enjoyed it as much as the TV series !
