Hanasaku Iroha Ep 12: From Protagonist to Antagonist

Ohana decides that they should kidnap her mother in order to drag her to Kissuiso. Tohru agrees however with one condition and that was to bring Ko along. With that said, he and Minko head off around Tokyo to several different restaurants to try their food and take notes while Ohana hunts down Ko, only to end up talking Namiko who he works with and has been confessed by where Ohana finds herself put into a corner where she feels like the antagonist.

Impression:
Awwww man, I really wanted to see them kidnapping Ko and Ohana’s mother!!!! THAT WOULD’VE BEEN HILARIOUS!!!!
Oh man I don’t know how to feel towards Ohana’s mother anymore. She’s such a strange character, I don’t know whether to hate her or feel neutral towards her. The interesting part is seeing her side of the past where as she said the exact same thing Ohana had said to her in the previous episode where as the mother doesn’t care enough about her and more about work. It’s kind of ironic though how similar behavior is share among the family. Whether Ohana’s mother liked it or not, she picked up her mother’s habit as well.
I guess I should feel happy that Satsuki is willingly going to go with them back to Kissuiso since she was able to get some days off. Moreover I think it should be fairly interesting how she and Sui will interact, and more importantly how high the tension will be. If we go back to episode one, we learned that Sui kind of ‘disowned’ her after she had left or whatever it was, so maybe things will be slightly different as long as Sui treats her daughter as her guest (otherwise it’d be pretty darn funny to see her be put to work, but I highly doubt that).
As for Ohana’s case. I feel bad for her. She feels like she’s the antagonist, taking advantage of Ko and guilty about trying to forcefully drag hre mother along. I find it just sad that yes, she does have very strong feelings for Ko and I wish that she would realize it’s more than a friend kind of thing. Ko is a very sweet and considerate guy who knew she was having a rough time with her mother and always had her back, so it would be really disappointing to see her let him go.
Now regarding Tohru’s case. So yeah he does harbor some feelings towards Ohana, and Minko is very aware of that. I do wonder if she’ll ever confess before the show ends – and I think she will at some point. I also felt bad that she had to eat so much, the poor girl! *Shakes head* At least she got a little souvenir from Tohru even though she’s not the only one.
Overall, this was a real character development episode for Ohana in particular. Emotional, but not enough to make me cry (thank god, because I don’t have any more tissues thanks to AnoHana),  yet powerful enough to really connect with how she and all the other characters are feeling.