Howdy...
I bought my parents tickets on ANA to go to my wedding in Japan. I was recently reviewing their itinerary and noticed that they don't have seats assigned for the outbound flight from ORD -> NRT (NH011 departing 05/11/2009).

When I check the seat map, there are no pairs of seats available and only the absolute middle seats show up as open. Does ANA block out seats that it then assigns on the day of the flight or are my two elderly parents going to have to sit in differing rows in the middle of the plane?

I have not used ANA myself before and neither have my parents, so I don't know what sort of procedures they have in place.