Hana

Hana is Rié and Makoto Hara’s daughter, born during Makoto’s life as he used the identity of Daisuké Taniguchi. Her place in the family is shaped by a double inheritance: she is loved and raised as a daughter, while the annulment of her parents’ marriage leaves her legally illegitimate and her biological father’s history complicated by the identity he concealed. In the story, her ordinary childhood—breakfast, a loose tooth, family photographs, and a favorite park—continues alongside the adults’ work of remembering and explaining the past.

Identity and Family Background

Hana is three years old when Makoto dies in a logging accident. She is the younger child in Rié’s household, with Yuto, who is twelve at the time, as her older brother. Makoto had married Rié and moved into her family home; after his death, the children remain with their mother and grandmother. The name Hana means “flower,” chosen by Makoto because he loved the scenery at Burial Mound Park, a place that had long been a family tradition for Rié.

The family’s legal history later changes the terms under which Hana’s birth is recorded. Makoto had presented himself as Daisuké Taniguchi, but a DNA test establishes that he was not the real Daisuké. Rié’s second marriage is consequently erased from her family register, and Hana becomes legally illegitimate. This is a change in official status, not in the affection with which her family treats her: the evidence continues to show her at the center of a household that includes Rié, Yuto, and their grandmother.

Childhood and Family Life

Hana’s scenes show her at an age when traits and habits seem to change quickly. As a baby and toddler, she had plump arms and legs that earned her the nickname “the Puffy Tot.” Once she began walking and running around at day care, she gradually lost that infant roundness, and Rié doubts that she even remembers the nickname. Her development makes visible how quickly a child’s defining features can pass out of view.

Her speech and mannerisms also mark successive stages of childhood. For a time she prefaced opinions with the unusual phrase “This I think,” pausing to gather her thoughts before continuing. Rié found this habit amusing and smiled as she waited for Hana to speak. Later, the phrase disappeared; around the time of her fifth birthday, Hana was instead repeating that she was a “dumbo-wumbo” after mixing up a classmate’s name. Rié reassured and patted her, while suspecting that Hana might be seeking that familiar response as much as making a serious judgment about herself.

On the morning of Yuto’s fall-semester opening ceremony, Hana tells Rié that she tried to wake him but could not. Rié is making breakfast, frying eggs and preparing toast with jam and butter, and asks Hana to begin eating while she goes upstairs to wake him; their grandmother is expected to join her shortly. The scene places Hana within the unremarkable routines that persist amid the family’s grief and unsettled history.

Grief, Memory, and the Park

Hana’s relationship with her father survives in the family’s habits and shared places. Burial Mound Park, with its flower fields and hundreds of ancient burial mounds, is a recurring family destination. Makoto loved the scenery there, and the park’s flowers inspired Hana’s name. Rié’s family had visited since Rié’s own childhood, so the place connects generations as well as providing a setting for memories of Makoto.

At the park, Hana asks to be photographed beside the cosmos. She enjoys comparing her height with the flowers and looking at pictures from year to year. The ritual also lets Rié register how rapidly Hana is growing: she may soon become taller than the flowers that once nearly hid her. For Hana, the park is “her” place; for Rié, it is also a landscape in which the absent father remains present through the name he chose and the tree associated with him.

During another visit, Hana recognizes that tree as her father’s. She imagines that Makoto expected the family to come and had gone inside the tree to hide and wait for them. Her explanation is a child’s imaginative account, not a factual claim, but it gives her a way to picture her father as still connected to their visits. When Rié offers to take photographs, Hana poses first, followed by her grandmother; after a little encouragement, Yuto joins them. The family photograph gathers the living around a place carrying the memory of the dead.

Relationships with Rié and Yuto

Rié sees Hana’s bright temperament as especially meaningful because Hana lost her father so young. Day-care teachers describe her as full of smiles, and other parents regard her as one of the most cheerful children in the class. That cheerfulness does not erase bereavement; rather, it is one of the qualities through which Rié recognizes Hana’s continuing growth and the family’s capacity for ordinary happiness.

Hana and Yuto share a household shaped by different experiences of Makoto. Yuto was old enough to form a strong attachment to the man he believed was his father, while Hana was much younger when Makoto died. At the park, she moves into the family photograph easily, while Yuto initially hangs back and looks after her. Rié understands that Yuto is carrying his own grief and that he watches over his little sister as part of the effort to hold the family together.

The two children’s differing ages also affect what the family can tell them. After learning more about Makoto’s past, Rié worries that Hana might one day despair if she learns that her father’s biological family history includes a murderer. Her concern is not that this ancestry makes Hana culpable; she is explicitly untroubled by the idea of a murderer’s blood in her daughter. Rather, she fears the emotional effect of the information. When Yuto asks whether they will tell Hana, he says he doubts she would understand at her current age. The exchange leaves open when and how she will learn the truth.

Significance

Hana’s character is rendered through small, concrete changes rather than through knowledge of the adult secrets surrounding her. Her outgrown toddler nickname, altered speech habits, loose front tooth, and eagerness to stand among the cosmos make time visible in the same household where bereavement can seem to suspend it. Rié watches her become more like Makoto in appearance, even while recognizing that Makoto’s identity remains unsettled; the resemblance brings both affection and unease.

The contrast between Hana’s legal status and her place in the family is central to her significance. The register can label her illegitimate after Rié’s marriage is annulled, but the family’s shared routines and memories do not disappear with the entry. Her name preserves Makoto’s affection for flowers; her imagined conversation with his tree keeps a child’s bond with him alive; and her place beside Yuto and her grandmother in photographs shows a family continuing without resolving every question at once. Hana’s future understanding remains uncertain, but she is not merely a consequence of the adults’ deception: she is a growing child with her own speech, humor, habits, and imaginative way of keeping her father close.