By now it has already been established that Ohana is strange, and this episode only established that even more. To come rushing out and actually volunteer to act as a waitress in order to help out the in she’s supposed to be staying at. At first, I thought she was crazy, but as the episode went on, I really got what this episode tried to tell.
Instead of dancing on Yuusuke’s grave, this episode focused on the development of both him and Yuina, but it also had some interesting messages to share about working, that tie in really well with the rest of the series. Ohana is the type of character who doesn’t wonder whether or not her ideas are strange: she just carries them out. In the past that lead to a bunch of awkward, annoying and embarrassing situations, but with this episode it actually paid off really well.
On top of being well written, I also felt that the background art of this episode was exceptionally good, even for this series’ standards. It looked really crisp and clean. It may be that I just returned from a holiday myself and all, but the inside rooms look really realistic and have this great use of lighting, compared to the copy and paste indoor art you usually see. The landscapes also were really well drawn. It’s all with just that tiny amount of CG to crisp things up, yet not make everything look blocky and stand out.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Last month’s Newtype had the series producer stating that HanaSaku is in part a message to all the young people beginning work at P.A. Works right now.
The theme of the value of work, especially hard work, has indeed been very strong in this and the last episode. Though it’s obviously a recurring theme in the entire show as well.