I hate this anime... Why?
It's because one moment it's mediocre and crushes your expectations for the next episodes, whilst another moment it's mindblowingly great like this one this week. I don't think I've watched an anime that has "trolled" my expectations and enjoyment like Hanasaku Iroha for a long time. Wtf mang? Wtf P.A, I generally dislike tsundere characters in anime, but you're making me tsundere for your anime. You're making me into a hypocrite FFS. :O
Talking about trolls, whilst I was watching through the Ohana x Minko catfight (lol this reminds me of my sig), I couldn't help but imagine what Okada's thought process was other than this (at least until the PV):
Even though I don't know who actually wrote this episode, I'm 110% sure Okada did it. Why? It has all the necessary elements:
1. Relationship Trolling - Classic Okada style
2. Jiromaru being used as a comedy pinata once again - aka Okada still expressing her hate (or love) for Yakaman
3. Beanman crossdressing - Wandering Son, Anohana's Yukiatsu, Ohana's dream of Ko and now this. I think I'm convinced by now that Okada has a crossdressing fetish.
Anyways, I thought this episode was top notch. Number 1, plot moved. Enishi and Takako got married and despite their idiotic actions in the past, have finally gained at least a little bit of respect by me after Hanasaku Iroha has forcibly tried to chug down my throat that these two are to be taken seriously. And I finally bought it. It just took 4 episodes... which I still think however would have been better spent elsewhere and just not make Enishi and Takako look like clowns from the start.
Number 2, romance development. Better yet, romance resolutions. Tooru overhears the catfight between Ohana and Minko, Tooru admits to liking Ohana and Minko admits to liking Tooru. However, instead of chaos erupting like a typical teen drama would, it actually got resolved. Omg, +1 to that.
Number 3, BGM is back. Nano ripe plays a new single with what I'm assuming is a cameo character of her and it's very well fitting. Funny how complaining about a lack of BGM suddenly get's retorted by an inclusion of BGM. This further my imaginary hypothesis that Hanasaku Iroha is just one big troll package anime.
10/10 episode. Unlike episode 20 where i rated it 10/10 because I'm a shameless True Tears fanboy, this one was legit good and definitely the best one since the 2nd cour started. However, due to my hypothesis I will
continue to expect that HSI episodes are going to be mediocre and be surprised if it's actually good like this week.