Hanasaku Iroha: Blossoms for Tomorrow: Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Hanasaku Iroha: Blossoms for Tomorrow: Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Inn of the Sixth Delayed Gratification.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 26, 2013

Characters in anime are among the most peripatetic of any entertainment medium. How many anime can you think of where the lead character is shunted off either to the big city (usually Tokyo) or, alternatively, exiled to some unknown country village as a pretext for setting up a storyline that usually combines “fish out of water” elements with typical coming of age or slice of life aspects? And that’s once again the case in the slight but sweet Hanasaku Iroha Blossoms for Tomorrow, a 2011 series that was part of production house P.A. Works’ tenth anniversary celebration. As with too many other series to list, the heroine of Hanasaku Iroha Blossoms for Tomorrow, Ohana Matsumae, finds out in the series’ first episode that she’s being sent to live with a Grandmother whom she hardly knows, an elderly woman who runs a country inn located by a hot springs. In one of Hanasaku Iroha Blossomes for Tomorrow’s unexpected plot details, the reason behind Ohana’s sudden move is some less than commendable behavior on the part of Ohana’s mother, and so some viewers may in fact be thinking that the move is a decidedly good idea, since it will at least get the girl away from an uninvolvedl parent. Before Ohana can leave, however, she’s approached by lifelong friend Ko-chan Tanemura who confesses that he considers Ohana much more than just a friend. This halting attempt at expressing love must remain unrequited, at least for a while, for Ohana is soon off to a new life where her Grandmother insists she earns her room and board by working at the inn. In terms of actual plot, that’s about it for Hanasaku Iroha Blossoms of Tomorrow, for the show is much more about character than any huge story developments.

NIS America seems to like these quiet anime that percolate along at their own subdued pace and rarely if ever erupt into anything approaching bombast, and Hanasaku Iroha Blossoms for Tomorrow is indeed another show in that category. Once Ohana arrives at her grandmother’s inn, she’s thrust into a completely new lifestyle. The ironic thing here is it’s actually not that new, at least if one accepts the fact that Ohana’s mother was really more the child in their relationship and Ohana was the one taking care of a lot of the domestic details. At the inn, however, that set of chores becomes an actual job, as Ohana’s curt grandmother, who is always clad in a green kimono and usually seen smoking a cigarette in an absurdly long holder, informs the girl that she’s an employee now and will be expected to earn her room and board.

There are of course a gaggle of eccentric characters at the inn. The first person Ohana meets is a young girl named Minchi who makes Ohana’s grandmother look like Pollyanna by comparison. Minchi’s first “request” of Ohana is “Die”, something that yanks Ohana out of the fairy tale reverie she’s been enjoying about coming to a new location that seems so picturesque. Unfortunately, Ohana’s quick decision to rid the front yard of the inn of what she perceives are weeds turns out to be Minchi’s handiwork, hence the initial (and actually continuing) conflict. Ohana also learns that her Uncle, whom like her grandmother she’s never previously met, also lives at the inn, as does a supposed celebrity guest, a best selling author whose room is usually a shambles.

Hanasaku Iroha Blossoms for Tomorrow develops its story in fairly long arcs, and in fact some viewers may feel like the series takes too long in making its fairly obvious points. Some of the characters are harboring certain secrets which tend to burst out of them leading to momentary mini-dramas which are just as quickly resolved, at which point the characters all move on. The show is very sweet and often funny (there’s a lot of slapstick humor involved), but this is pretty deliberately low key material that requires a certain laissez faire approach from the viewer which will allow things to unfold at a sometimes pretty languorous pace.

This first volume of the series from NIS America gets us to the half way point, through episode 13, where perhaps surprisingly instead of cliffhangers a number of loose ends are at least ostensibly tied up. One of these has to do with Ohana’s relationship with her errant mother, and another deals with Ko-chan. For a series that has so little real drama in it to begin with, it’s perhaps not that surprising that some semi-happy endings crop up so quickly.

Hanasaku Iroha: Blossoms for Tomorrow: Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Hanasaku Iroha Blossoms for Tomorrow is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of NIS America with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is an exceptionally pretty series that P.A. Works obviously lavished a lot of time and attention on to celebrate their tenth anniversary, and it shows in virtually every frame of this high definition presentation. Colors are bright, bold and very vivid, and line detail is exceptionally well defined. Character designs, while not especially innovative, are distinctive and extremely well rendered. The backgrounds here are especially lovely and the series perhaps surprisingly weaves in some well done CGI that brings an added dimensionality to some of the settings. Even when there's not a lot going on in any given episode, there's usually quite a bit to feast your eyes on.

Hanasaku Iroha: Blossoms for Tomorrow: Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hanasaku Iroha Blossoms for Tomorrow features an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 audio track in the original Japanese. This is one series that may not have gained that much with a surround track, save for its rather ubiquitous use of pop tunes as underscore elements. Otherwise this tends to be a rather quiet series (aside from occasional outbursts by some characters) that focuses squarely on more intimate dialogue scenes. In that regard, the LPCM 2.0 track suffices more than capably, rendering the dialogue cleanly and clearly and also presenting the music with a perhaps surprising amount of bombast.

Hanasaku Iroha: Blossoms for Tomorrow: Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This is another Premium Edition anime release from NIS America which is housed in a sturdy, book sized slipcase (with illustration) and which also includes a nicely illustrated hardback book which includes pictures of the major characters and many of the settings along with descriptions of each, as well as some printed interviews. Two slimline cases hold one Blu- ray and one DVD each. The on disc supplements are:

• Clean Opening (1080p; 1:32)


• Clean Endings (1080p; 8:49)


• Japanese Trailers (1080p; 10:39)

Hanasaku Iroha: Blossoms for Tomorrow: Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I've really come to enjoy a lot of these "kinder, gentler" anime that NIS America has been releasing over the past couple of years, especially since so much in this genre can be so over the top, noisy and (at least a lot of the time) battle related. Sometimes it's refreshing to just take a deep breath and relax, and that's more or less exactly what Hanasaku Iroha Blossoms of Tomorrow can offer viewers in the mood for a little something different. The first thirteen episodes in this volume get the major characters introduced (something that actually takes a while, considering how many of them there are) and establishes Ohana's basic sweetness if also her tendency to rub people the wrong way (usually unintentionally). There are a number of nice little character bits (the revelation about the best selling author is one of the more amusing), but frankly nothing very earth shattering happens in this series, which will either delight you or drive you slightly batty. No matter how you feel about these quiet slice of life vehicles, there's no denying the beauty of the animation, which looks great in this high definition presentation. Recommended.