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Hanasaku Iroha |OT| New anime series from the director of "Sword of the Stranger"

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Branduil

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AKA "Blooming Flowers ABC," an original anime series produced by P.A. Works as the studio's 10th-anniversary project, and directed by Masahiro Ando of "Canaan" and "Sword of the Stranger" fame.

hanasaku_iroha.jpg


Staff List

Director: Masahiro Ando (Canaan, Sword of the Stranger)
Series Composition: Mari Okada (Fractale, Red Garden, Toradora)
Music: Shiroh Hamaguchi (FF VII: Advent Children, One Piece, Violinist of Hamelin)
Original Character Design: Mel Kishida
Character Design: Kanami Sekiguchi
Art Director: Kazuo Tochi
Chief Animation Director: Kanami Sekiguchi

Cast List

ohana.jpg

Kanae Itō as Ohana Matsumae

nako.jpg

Aki Toyosaki as Nako Oshimizu

Ayumi Tsunematsu as Takako Kawajiri

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The mellifluous Chiaki Omigawa as Minko Tsurugi

Cho as Denroku Tasukawa

Haruka Tomatsu as Yuina Wakura

tarou.jpg

Junichi Suwabe as Tarō Jirōmaru

touru.jpg

Junji Majima as Tōru Miyagishi

enishi.jpg

Kenji Hamada as Enishi Shijima

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Mamiko Noto as Tomoe Wajima

satsuki.jpg

Takako Honda as Satsuki Matsumae

sui.jpg

Tamie Kubota as Sui Shijima

Tarô Yamaguchi as Renji Togashi

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Yuuki Kaji as Kōichi Tanemura

Wait a minute, I don't see any samurai or guns at all!

Learn to deal with disappointment in life.

This looks like moe crap.

Now I have good news for you, it's not! At least through two episodes, it's a well-produced, smartly-written coming-of-age story. The plot centers around Ohana Matsumae, the idealistic daughter of an irresponsible work-at-home mother. When said mother ditches town with her loser boyfriend to evade his debt collectors, Ohana is sent to live with her grandmother, who runs a hot springs inn in the rural countryside. Ohana's idealistic fantasies soon clash with the realities of a hard-working life under her strict, traditional grandmother. A typical enough premise, but what really sells it is the sharp writing, which never settles for the easy and cliche. The characters are all well-realized and feel like real, believable human beings. The animation is solid and the art direction is visually pleasing. The only mark against it is a somewhat irritating singer in the OP.

But don't just take my word for it, look at these other glowing reviews:

flawfuls said:
Hanasaku Iroha

That was great, easily show of the season so far and I could see it being the best show of the year. Oh and it's not a cute girls doing cute things show at all, it's a drama.
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duckroll said:
Hanasaku Iroha Ep1

Wow, that was really good. The writing and flow is very smooth and yet unexpected. Very refreshing direction and narrative. I really enjoyed it. It moved very fast, and introduced the characters really well while going through a range of emotions. The personality of the main character is very unique too. Reminds me a lot of elements of Summer Wars and Kuragehime. I really hope PA Works doesn't drop the ball as the series continues.
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Jexhius said:
Hanasaku Iroha 1: Is 2011 the year of great anime drama?

I doubt it, but that would be my sensationalist headline if I were a blogger.

This was great, and easily the best opening episode to a show this season. Good writing, great flow, good editing, deliberate pacing and nice animation. Fingers crossed that this show can stay at this high level throughout its run, like Wandering Son.

This season has had a great start, really.
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Lafiel said:
Hanasaku Iroha 1 - Wow, this is easily my favorite show of the season. The characters were charming, the little bits of humor were well-done, it was well-directed, the down-to-earth slice of life setting was neat, and the production values were pretty damn impressive in addition, ultimately it feels like the first anime show I've seen in a while that really resonates with all my personal tastes, can't wait to see more.:)

Edit - I'd say my only concern right now at this point, is it could turn into a another Canaan (which had a great opening) however since this show didn't have the stupid humor and dumb anime hi-jinks of the former, there's a lot of potential here.:o
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icarus-daedelus said:
Hanasaku Iroha was really good. It feels like it has such a strong grasp of its characters in spite of the fact that no one, this being the first episode, has been developed yet. Although I didn't much like some of the musical choices, I was able to buy them because of the way they fit the lead's personality (and the way they were edited into the show...kinda clever). I appreciated that the emotion and feeling held steady and never felt too melodramatic, partially because of the anchor provided by the MC. She's likable and sympathetic without being upbeat or bland.
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Joule said:
Hanasaku Iroha 1: That was quite good insert song aside. It's also really pretty to look at as is usually the cast for PA Works. The characters seem pretty enjoyable from just an episode. Looking forward to finding out more about them. Ohana herself I quite like (Kanae Itou yay). She's got some energy. Poor Ko, at least he went in on the very first episode. I hope he mails her sometime soon : ( There was a piece of music in there that reminded me of Aria. I also appreciate every time Mamiko Noto gets casted as an energetic character.

Best opening episode I've seen thus far. Good start for PA Works, I hope this time they can do a good show.
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Okay, you've convinced me. But where can I watch this?

You're in luck, it's streaming in simulcast on http://www.crunchyroll.com/hanasaku-iroha. And you can watch all of the episodes for free a week after they air.

I was actually kidding. You guys and your moe crap.

HCf4R.gif
 
Oh man it's directed by Masahiro Ando of Canaan fame? Sign me up!
 
zeroshiki said:
Best show of the season, bar none!
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Yeah even if C ends up being as great as the directors previous efforts, I don't see it topping this for me, because ultimately the themes and setting resonate with my personal tastes more.:)
 
Isn't Vampire Knight, like, insanely popular?

Lafiel said:
Yeah even if C ends up being as great as the directors previous efforts, I don't see it topping this for me, because ultimately the themes and setting resonate with my personal tastes more.:)
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My feelings exactly. It would have to f-up pretty massively to be dislodged from the top at this point.
 
Branduil said:
Come on, most of that is the bad source material, you can only blame her for Fractale.
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CANAAN was anime original and she wrote every single episode herself. :)
 
Branduil said:
Come on, most of that is the bad source material, you can only blame her for Fractale.
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Actually we can't really blame her for anything. She's a literal work for hire writer who does screenplay writing. The actual storyline is basically always conceived by someone else, be it a producer, a director, based on a manga, based on a novel, or based on another writer's initial concept.
 
7Th said:
CANAAN was anime original and she wrote every single episode herself. :)
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First two episodes of Iroha are already better than the majority of CANAAN though!

That said based on her credits her most consistent work seems to be shows like this with realistic down-to-earth settings, she seems to fuck up everything else lulz.
 
flintstryker said:
Kaiji is a part of this season, thus making this statement wrong.
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Yeah... no. Its a fool's errand to compare two wildly different shows but I'm quite confident that Iroha will come out superior.
 
duckroll said:
I presume he means realistic ones dealing with growing up in the real world.
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People don't deal with robots on a daily basis?
 
Branduil said:
The internal monologue aren't slow-paced enough for Shinkai.
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But the characters are significantly socially detached, and quirky. These elements are not really found in any Ghibli human characters.
 
duckroll said:
But the characters are significantly socially detached, and quirky. These elements are not really found in any Ghibli human characters.
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Only Yesterday had some quirky characters.
 
Branduil said:
Only Yesterday had some quirky characters.
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I don't think a ghibli film could have any character that's like tsurugi.

Good comparison i could think of just then would be maybe mamoru hosoda? summer wars had a number of characters that were quirky (and crazy), that were also rather anime-ish to boot, much like the characters in here.
 
Lafiel said:
Good comparison i could think of just then would be maybe mamoru hosoda? summer wars had a number of characters that were quirky (and crazy), that were also rather anime-ish to boot, much like the characters in here.
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I made the original Summer Wars comparison. Everyone else can line up behind me! The evidence is even in this very OP!
 
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