Hanasaku Iroha – Episode 26 (END) – Confessions and Goodbyes

She's determined to come back, someday...

The night of the Bonbari festival has arrived. With Ko finally making it there, how will Ohana react?

They didn't expect this dish coming...

I’m surprised that Ohana finally got the courage to officially confess her feelings to Ko. Through her wish of wanting to become more like her grandmother, it’s apparent that she has grown emotionally stronger. From the time she arrived at Kissuisou, she started to change herself and the environment around her. Because of this, I liked how she finally shares her feelings for him in front of a yakasoba stand. It’s not because of the heart on top of the food. It’s the fact that this took such a long journey to finally get us to this point. That is simply amazing.

Out of all the employees, Tomoe was the most emotional at their departure.

Besides the confession, it’s understandable why Enishi changes his mind and close the inn. If you can tell by his poor management from the last episode, he is simply not ready for the job.  At this point, the closure wasn’t a big deal since the fond memories are now entrenched in everyone. Not only that, they promise to come back when the time comes to reopen it. It was good to see Kissuisou become a historical landmark rather than getting sold and demolished.  Either way, the final departure might be emotional, but at least everyone knows that they changed for the better.

In the end, it was a very nice finale. Sui giving one of the logs to Ohana as a memento before she left was wonderful. Furthermore, the sceneries looked really nice, especially the sky and the touring of the empty rooms in the inn. It was a nice touch.

Final Thoughts

Although Hanasaku Iroha had pretty animation and I liked most of the characters sans Enishi, Takako and Jiromaru, the show wasn’t flawless. In some of the episodes, especially the movie scam and Jiromaru arc, it felt like the show had some kind of identity crisis.  On the other hand, there are some really strong moments as seen through the parts that involves Satsuki and Sui. Their development was very important as they changed though the influence of Ohana. From this, she eventually got along with them after making a big deal about it.

While people are still going up in arms, especially some taking it further by rating the whole series a 4 out of 10, I felt that some people expected too much out of it and eventually became massively disappointed. For me, the story was good despite the faults, especially when it’s focused on the girls. Along with the great animation, I have to say that I definitely enjoyed it.

Overall Rating: 8.4/10, B, Good ¶