Aria ep.3

October 20, 2005 | 3 Comments

I can't believe the animators choose to combine the two separate stories involving Akatsuki and Alice into one continuous episode. The Akari and Akatsuki segment is one of my favourite parts of the manga. I feel that the anime kind of ruined the segment by adding Alice into the equation. Thanks to the addition, Alice feels like a third wheel that should not have been there to begin with. It is obvious that the dialogue is actually a two people dialogue and yet because Alice is there, the animators attempt to show as if Akari actually talking to two people. The result is rather awkward because Alice mostly stays quiet like an unwanted company or she ends up interrupting the conversation between Akari and Akatsuki. Oh well, at least the animators compensate for this by adding some scenes of the 3 characters going to the floating island.

The episode begins with Akari and Aika practicing their rowing technique together on an area with difficult tide. In the process of doing so, however, a 14 year old Undine called Alice overtakes their lead. This pisses Aika off due to variety of reasons. To begin with, even though the girl is only a beginner Undine, she has excellent rowing skill. She also comes from Orange Planet, a competitor of Himeya Gondola. Because of this, Aika wants to show the girl who is better when it comes down to rowing. Unfortunately for her, Akari is more interested to pick some flowers for Alicia. Since Aika doesn't mind the idea, she comes along with Akari to pick up the flowers. When they return to Aria Company, the two find out that the girl is actually quite famous in the Gondola industry to the point that her face is featured in a Gondola magazine.

Unfortunately, despite her popularity, Alice is not a kind person. She turns out to be a rather rude and inconsiderate girl who is not exactly popular with her fellow co-workers. She also refuses to sign a magazine that two of her fan girls have brought with them despite their obvious hope that she will sign it. Even her close friend points out her unfriendly nature towards others. Meanwhile, Akari is on her way to her Gondola when she feels her pigtail being pulled back by someone. She soon finds out that the person is none other than Akatsuki, a Salamander who also happens to be her first customer when she first became Alicia's student. Akatsuki is a strange character who seems to have a crush on Alicia but also has some kind of weird fetish for Akari's pigtails. I'll bet that deep down he likes her as well.

Anyway, Akatsuki is apparently waiting for someone but the person hasn't arrived yet so he demands that Akari takes him around using her Gondola. Akari refuses on the basis that she can't take customer on her own. But Akatsuki uses the oldest trick in the book by claiming that she's not her customer but her friend. Akari gives up and realises that he wants a free ride on her Gondola. As the two sits in the Gondola, Alice arrives near the port and notices how Akatsuki has been constantly touching Akari's pigtail. She immediately assumes that he's harassing Akari and is ready to hit him with her paddle. Thankfully before she manages to do that, Akari manages to introduce her to Akatsuki. The three then sails down the ocean after Akari convinces Alice to come along with them as a part of her training. The problem is Alice seems to be more knowledgeable than Akari.

As they continue their travel, Alice becomes annoyed at Akatsuki because he keeps calling Akari as 'Momiko' despite Akari's protestation. She also wonders how Akari can smile so easily and wonder if it's all just puts on a friendly face. However, she soon finds out that Akari really is sincere in her admiration of Akatsuki's job as a Salamander. She said that Akatsuki and the other Salamander are responsible for controlling the light and the energy of the floating island, which in turn, controls the weather. So in a way, Akari thinks that the Salamanders are the protector of the planet. Talk about embarrassing speech. Later on, after Akatsuki gets to meet her brother, he gives Akari and Alice two tickets to visit the floating island as a sign of appreciation for accompanying him. The episode then ends with Alice finally able to appreciate the simple things in life and say some embarrassing speech like Akari.

Impression:

After watching this episode, I realise that I don't like Alice. I find her character to be rather aggravating and lack the self-deprecating humour that could have made her more tolerable. Similarly, Akatsuki is also quite snobbish and constantly refer to himself as 'Ore-Sama'. Any Japanese language student will know that a person should never refer to oneself using the 'Sama' suffix for the simple reason that it sounds obnoxious. But Akatsuki bends the rule as if it's the norm. Thankfully, his character has always been used as a comic foil for Akari, so in the end this offset his behaviour a lot better. The same thing can be said about Aika, who also has a superior attitude towards Akari. Anyway, I still haven't decided whether or not I'll stop blogging this. But since the list of series that I follow is growing, I have to prioritise what I want to cover the most. So this series will probably be blogged a bit later than other series starting from now.

© memento 2003