[EDIT: I just realized that this post warrants a bit of a spoiler alert. Although I tried to minimize spoilers, my review does have a few.]
Synopsis:
Ohana loves her mother, but she has also spent pretty much her whole life not being able to rely on her. When Ohana's mother suddenly announces that her latest boyfriend has gotten into some financial trouble and roped them into it by using their address on the forms he'd filled out, Ohana at first thinks she'll be joining them when they move out in the middle of the night to skip out on his debt. However, Ohana's mother's answer to that is, "What kind of mother would do something like that?" Instead, she sends her daughter to live with her mother, Ohana's grandmother. Ohana's mother was disowned by her mother, and Ohana has never met her grandmother before. Prior to leaving, Ohana meets up with her friend Ko, in order to say goodbye to him. Shocked at the suddenness of it all and Ohana's apparently cheerful attitude, Ko blurts out that he has liked Ohana for ages and had hoped she would one day notice. Ohana has no idea what to say and runs off without telling him what she feels for him in return.
Ohana's image of how her life will be with her grandmother is rosier than the reality. Her grandmother is the manager of a traditional Japanese inn, Kissuiso, and she expects Ohana to work hard there, just like everyone else. There is no calling her "Grandmother" - she is "Madam Manager," even to her own son. Ohana isn't used to hard physical work, and she messes things up at first. She doesn't quite know how to get along with her coworkers either, which becomes even more difficult when one of her coworkers also turns out to be her roommate. The very first thing Minko tells Ohana to do is die, after Ohana pulls up some plants Minko had been growing, thinking they were weeds.
Gradually, Ohana gets used to life at Kissuiso and even comes to love it there. The show focuses primarily on the staff and work at Kissuiso - people's relationships, and the way Kissuiso is run (the driving force behind the inn is "the customer's happiness comes first"). However, Kissuiso is not a big inn, and it hasn't been a popular one in a long time. Things change. What will happen to everyone if the Kissuiso is closed for good?
Review:
This was an uneven show. Sometimes it was excellent, and sometimes it made me frustrated and angry with its characters, to the point where I had difficulty remembering why and if I even liked them.
