Hanasaku Iroha: Home Sweet Home is a movie about the same characters that were in Hanasaku Iroha. The story goes through a series of mostly normal days except for the power going out for a while and Nako having to fill in for her parents who are out of town. Ohana also finds a log book and reads through it to see what it says about her mother. The present day action is broken up with flashbacks to when Ohana’s mom was younger to show that she was a lot like Ohana is when she was young. It also shows how she met with Ohana’s dad and became determined to raise her child without help.
Hanasaku Iroha: Home Sweet Home explores motherhood and what it means to be a good mother. Satsuki is supposed to be the bad mother of the series, but this is obviously partially learned from her mother that neglected her children to take care of the Inn. Satsuki was even going to try to get help with her child which she obviously needed, but decided against it just to not let her mother ‘win.’ There are also the women who are supposed to be more positive mother figures even though they do not have kids. Characters like Tomoe who has patience with teaching people how to do their work and Nako who helps fill in for her absent parents.
Ohana finding out more about her mom and finally getting a feeling that they were alike due to ‘wanting to shine’ was the best part of Hanasaku Iroha: Home Sweet Home. Ohana has mostly seemed to look down on her mom and feel alienated from her. Makes sense with her mom leaving her with a grandmother that she did not know, but it is nice that she might have a chance of understanding her in the future. The flashbacks showing her mother growing up make her mom seem a lot like Ohana. She is spirited like Ohana and believes in things strongly. I could see Ohana doing a lot of the same things that her mother did, but maybe without being as mean to Sui.
Hanasaku Iroha: Home Sweet Home fits in pretty well with the rest of the series. Would have been nice to have a show that was a sequel, but this was good too. It felt like a prequel with all the flashbacks in it. Finding out more about how Ohana’s mom was growing up was interesting. It also gave a look at how Sui became the way she is and what was driving her to the point of ignoring her family. It could have had a bit more action going on, but since it was most likely from same timeline as the middle of the show they could not have anything too big go on or it would weird that it did not come up during the show. Hopefully more will come out about these characters in the future. I would like to find out more about where their lives are later on.
