Hanasaku Iroha aka The ABC's of Flower Blooming

Hanasaku Iroha is an anime about revolving around Ohana Matsumae, hence the name, the flower that is blooming throughout the show is Ohana.  She through some rather odd circumstances ends up living with her grandmother.  Her grandmother runs a ryokan or a traditional Japanese inn.  Ohana is expected to work at the Inn while she lives there and attends the local high school. At this point she meets all of the quirky, fun people working at Kissuisou.  Minko and Nako both attend her high school and she rooms with Minko at the inn.  Not everything goes well for our main character, but that's good because it makes her story real and interesting.  This is a fantastic story about a girl growing up and coming into herself.  This anime does not stick solidly to one theme.  There's crushes, parental issues, budding friendships and fights.  Not to mention the ongoing issues with Kissuisou's finances.

I loved this anime.  I liked the art style and the characters.  Ohana is not just some vapid character with few emotions nor is she just a pretty face.  She is a whole person, we learn this in the very first episode, she too screws up.  Too often I can't watch anime where women are the main characters.  They don't have personality and they get dragged around by the male characters.  Not so with Hanasaku Iroha.  Ohana, Minko and Nako, the three main characters, don't let anyone drag them around.  They work hard and have their own aspirations.  There are very few things I didn't like in this anime and I can't talk about them without giving anything away.  Most of the time the anime focuses on the internal struggles of the characters or on their interpersonal relationships.
On a different note, because this anime focuses on a traditional Japanese inn there are some cultural things that may be difficult for newbies to understand.  In fact even if you aren't a new anime watcher but don't know much about Japanese or Japanese culture, there may be things that aren't super easy to understand.  Knowing about bathing culture, keigo (ultra-polite Japanese) and Japanese standards of service.  It isn't necessary, but I do think that knowing these things can aid in the understanding of the overall show.

Ratings: Overall 4.5/5 Art 4/5 Characters 5/5 Character development 4.5/5 Newbies 3/5 Japanese language learning: 5/5

I watched Hanasaku Iroha on crunchyroll (not sponsered) and you can too, for free! -> LINK