The TRazor likes it when he's served after-mint at a restaurant. The TRazor likes it when his headphones untangle with one easy pull of the wire. The TRazor likes it when his shirts are provided with a spare button. In short, The TRazor likes awesome little things. The TRazor loves attention to detail as much as he enjoys seeing the big picture. Hanasaku Iroha had a lot of these nice little details covered, which impressed the TRazor. 1. Classy fanservice There's nothing more annoying than a good story being ruined by fanservice. Worse still is loli fanservice, which is more disgusting than it is cute. And for avoiding all that, despite being placed in a setting consisting of four girls working in a hot spring inn, Hanasaku Iroha deserves a lot of credit. It did contain fanservice, but it was done in a more elegant manner. P.A Works (the studio behind this anime) opted to go for girls dressed in classy traditional outfits with subtle revelations only of the characters limbs instead of blatant gigantic boobs or skimpy outfits. There was no usual "hero walking in while heroine changes" scene. Even outside of the inn, the girls were dressed neatly in their school uniforms and were never subject to lewd camera angles. Sure, Nako had occasional show-and-tell sessions, but they were never overplayed and tied in with the story in a somewhat relevant manner.  I'll have to repeat that there was fanservice, but it was completely classy, which is a breath of fresh air these days. Moreover, I don't think the audience of HanaIro are the same who dig High School of the Dead, so I'd say the right fans were serviced. 2. Minchi being a real woman Let's face it: 3D girls and 2D girls are nothing alike. Those moe 14 year olds in anime have the mentality of a 10 year old girl in real life. And they're never as obviously tsundere. But they are moody...moody as hell, something you never see in anime. Minko manages to capture that moody element rather nicely. There's a fine line between being tsundere and being moody. Minko was tsundere to start with, but slowly her tsundereness more or less transformed into moodiness. You can see how she has a hairline trigger and gets infuriated at the slightest thing not going her way, which is the case with women in real life. Shallow at times, she does have a more grounded personality as compared to most other anime girls, who are either obscenely moe, completely thick-headed or blatantly tsundere. There's a certain way women do things, like being bossy in front of friends, but melt in the presence of their man (or the other way around) - they are multifaceted. Minchi is probably the only girl who would survive in a real high school.  3. Technology in villages Just because an anime is set in a rural area doesn't mean it has to be in an older time period. Technology in Japan is pretty damn advanced and is far-reaching. Many of the rural areas in Japan employ modern irrigation techniques, use snazzy tools and are pretty aware. In Hanasaku Iroha, you get to see plenty of devices and gadgets that we use in our daily lives, even though the show's technically supposed to be in a "backward" area. It also makes me feel that "Hey, maybe this story is actually happening somewhere in Japan right now!". It was a great exhibition of how Japan still preserves its culture in several areas and how tourism has actually helped its conservation. And that's something special, considering it's the home of SONY and other electronic giants.    4. Quirky humor Hanasaku Iroha does contain a lot of witty humor. It isn't painfully slapstick or absurdly random - no, it's just got its own peculiar sense of humor that's pleasant to watch and aims to put nothing more than a smile on your face. This for example: Ohanna's all fired up. She wants to blast the staff at a rival inn for corporate espionage. She dramatically runs out the door and gallops...until her way is blocked by a stork. She goes around it and that particular incident is non-consequential, but it was just a very nice touch that instantly made me chuckle. There's no sudden shouting or chibis appearing to emphasize the point. Just subtle humor. Yuina was also a very cute girl (you don't hear me saying this a lot) and further added to the "quirkiness" factor. Overall, this style of humor is something I'd like to see in other shows. 5. Ohanna's Mom Daym, girl! I know that I'm watchin a show 'bout yo daughter, but mmm-hmmm, you da whole package! Looks, swagger, bling... you got it all! Wheneva you was on screen, I couldn't take ma eyes off ya. You ain't like those ho's who always be "gomen na sai!" whenever you do some crazy shit. You da new age woman! What were your favorite things in Hanasaku Iroha?
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