Ohana: At the end, I was hoping for a very real conflict where Ohana needs to make a decision between staying at the inn or returning to Tokyo, and Kouichi learning to accept that it's not about winning or losing to the inn, but I was obviously deprived of that possibility when the inn closed. She's warmed up to me significantly, especially because of her developments with Sui.
Kou: Disappointing. He pushes Ohana forward, but still feels completely unimportant. He's there to say embarrassing lines to Ohana. There's also that other girl in Tokyo with the ponytail, but we never hear from her again.
Sui: Interesting. It's nice to think that she warmed up because of Ohana and such. I originally felt that she warmed up too fast and that the first episode didn't mesh well with anything else, but on second thought, with Ohana being the way she originally was and being a complete stranger to the inn, the ultra-tense ass-clenching aura Sui gives off in the first half of episodes might be very appropriate. I expected her to use the slap more, but I suppose they didn't want it to turn into a gag of some sort or lose impact. Rewatching the first episode, the look she gives before slapping Ohana just seems
right. She's probably the best character in the show.
Satsuki: I don't know how I feel about her. Just ditching your kid and dropping them into an inn seems to be pretty lightly brushed off, but again, I'm stupid and don't know what I really want from her relationships. Her relationship with Sui was nice, but I think more could have been done between her and Enishi, especially considering how much of a cloud that was in Enishi's life.
Takako: Still annoys me, but slightly redeemed by the end. No strong thoughts though.
Yuina: Annoys me less than before, but still a bit annoying. However, with the amount of out-the-ass drama that goes between Minko and Ohana, Yuina seems to be a nice pair for Ohana. I can't see Nako being as useful in those cases. It also helps that I realized that I do some stupid things like her.
Nako: She's Nako. I thought it was neat how she ended up as a swimming instructor. She fits an interesting role of being the person in the inn that doesn't have a life-long dream there, but still loves it.
Tomoe: She's just there to cover for the other waitresses during school.
Touru: Even though he doesn't change much through the show, I still like him. Admirable dude with strong dreams, a stable pillar in the kitchen, and I like how he plays silly music in his car. He seems a bit too old to be liking Ohana, but he handles everything nicely. He seemed interesting to me as well, just because they don't spend much time going into his head even though he should have a lot going on in there. Of course, his tragic flaw is being dumb with women.
Jiroumaru: He was just there, like Tomoe, but I flipped out a bit (in a good way) when he revealed that he wrote that manga that inspired Minko.
Minko: Minko is a mystery. It seems difficult to have a character like her in the series, since while she isn't supposed to really be the
main-main character, but her personality will always put her into the front of the stage at all times. It's a bit annoying how angry and irrational she can be. It's never deeply explained why she's so mean, but when they revealed how she got interested in cooking, I was oddly okay with just sitting back and saying, "Maybe Minko is just an angry person." After all, when I think how I'd answer the question, "Patchouli, why are you so *", I wouldn't know. There's a few drops here and there that may have contributed, but I can't remember anything that was a complete shift in how I conduct my life. It's still annoying how she's in constant bitch-mode and is basically the emotional harbinger of side drama, but it's more because she is just bad at social interaction, has a short fuse, demands a level of professionalism, and is the most blatantly indirect when dealing with others. It's not like she's a complete hater or something, since she clearly takes her classmates' food recommendations into consideration and thinks about it in the bath. She shows some regret for flipping out at her classmates. She also feels bad after getting mad at Nako and throwing the wedding dress onto the ground. She just handles it embarrassingly bad and tries to walk away before going batshit on Ohana. She needs to learn to ride the relaxi taxi.
The obligatory student festival or whatever episode is arguably "her" episode, and a lot about her is revealed there. She's not a complete bitch to her classmates, but gets riled up when they start getting love mixed into work. A bit odd, since she only picked up the cooking duties when she found out that Touru was going, but I think there's a difference. As far as getting love mixed into work, that would be more in line with Minko's relationship with Touro interfering with her abilities to make a perfect meal, which does happen at times, but the worst case is when she phases out while cooking and messes up, which isn't that big. She always gets chastised afterwards. If she really believes strongly in keeping work and love separate, it might be why she is never direct with Touru. Touru is clearly not the only thing in her sights, since she wants to be an amazing chef as well. If she believes that confessing to Touru might affect her ability to become a top chef or affect Touru's abilities to lead the way for her, then I could see why she might avoid getting love and work mixed up. In that case, she might want to win Touru's heart purely by her merits of hard work and reaching his levels. Being in charge of the cooking is her chance to show to Touro that she can handles the duties of a head chef.
I could see why Minko'd get a bit pissy that some girls won't listen to her when she's saying that they don't have the proper tools to make rice omelette. It's not like Minko snaps right away. They first won't hear her out, and then gets pissy that they get pissy at her for refusing to put out a half-assed meal because her boyfriend enjoys it when its in Minko's interests to make the perfect menu. Minko's not blameless, but she's not some utterly cold-hearted girl.
But that's all mostly silly speculation on my part. It was really stupid that drama was created over some omelette rice, but hey, it's high school. I wouldn't put it past some emotional high school girls to flip out about something so dumb.
I actually don't mind how they handled her relationship with Touru. It just seemed in her personality and realistic to hold things in completely, or taking it out on Ohana rather than confronting Touru about anything. I can't imagine her doing some ridiculous direct confession to Touru, because she is too much of an angry girl due to ~20 episodes of no development. I also liked how Touru handled it, instead of a silly "WELL, LET'S GIVE LOVE A SHOT AND START DATING".
It's frustrating how even her silly little relationship with Touru was more satisfying than how Ohana and Kou's went.
Her being so mad at Ohana in the beginning over the wild garlic seemed to just be her being an incredibly short-fused girl. It wasn't a very good scene. I can see why she'd get pissed later when she got slapped by the landlady for Ohana's mistake though.
EDIT: Rewatching the first episode, she actually handled the garlic pretty well. She's a mad person with some reason, but it's not as extreme as I remembered.
I don't know why I have so much to say about her. Maybe it's a testament for how little she changes through the whole series, since I manage to pull so much out of my ass. Most of her important change is in how she views her chef dream, how she views the inn, and and she views the workers of the inn. It's really insignificant and suddenly revealed in the last few episodes. The only other change is her having a streak of being nice to Ohana before going crazy. She seems to get a lot of flak for losing her head in episode 21 and returning back to her "old annoying self", but it doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me. She bottles up everything, and she just finally lost it when Touru praised Ohana once too much, so she went a little ballistic. She didn't turn back into her "old annoying self", she just didn't change at all and has grown a liking to Ohana, which isn't exactly the pinnacle of development.
She gets some credit for emulating my feelings during some scenes, most notably the pool scene with the engrish lady and Enishi.
Said feelings.Enishi: Interesting, because he starts of annoying and useless, and ends humbled and empowered. It happens a bit too quickly, but it comes out far better than him not changing at all.
Beanman: Awesome dude that lets me know that they're going to put an end to the staff's problems.
Renji: Awesome dude that looks cool and cooks mean.
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Topic: I like anime, do you like anime? (Read 3122532 times)