Tsuritama - 2

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Best quote from the episode: "Even though I may be 25, I would still like to be friends." In some cases a 25 year old man saying that to a bunch of under 18 high school students might get into trouble with the police.

I thought the whole alien thing might have been a joke but this episode did clarify a few things like the fact that Haru is an alien, he has a little sister by the name of Coco who is also an alien and they use their water pistols to make whoever they shoot blackout and perform any acts they tell them to do. And thus ensues all the great comedy situations like Yuki's inability to keep calm because of the impending threat of being attacked by Coco if he doesn't catch a single fish.

The episode was split into thirds in terms of focus: we got to see a little bit about fishing, a little bit about the mystery surrounding Haru and Enoshima in general and a little bit about the characters themselves all of which worked really well with the flow of the episode.

Seeing as this is a story based on fishing, there were scenes involving Yuki, Haru and Natsuki tying (in Yuki's case trying) a perfect uni knot. Before Tsuritama started, I assumed that this was going to be a shonen slice of life comedy with a little fishing thrown in to act as the activity that binds the 4 characters together and what I got was almost the opposite which was made even more evident when Natsuki made a big deal about Yuki not tying the uni knot properly the first time, even going so far to tell him to think about others. If you add that together with Haru's and now Coco's constant ramblings about the trio saving the world via fishing the story takes a strange yet interesting shape making it's appeal even harder to explain; imagine Natsuki yelling at Yuki about the knot as a typical scene from any shonen battle series i.e. the importance properly tying your knot to equate to Luffy/Naruto/Ichigo properly training and taking things seriously is almost what the feeling I got from the episode.

The parts of the episode that focused on the characters showed three different people which served to deepen their appeal and lay a foundation for the future. Haru being void of the faculties necessary to understand human emotions or describe his own were endearing because of his childlike demeanour and were balanced out by Natsuki's maturity, a key staple in his character since he seems to be acting like a parent to his sister rather than a brother and even changes the way he talks to people when she is around which leaves Yuki to be that awkward teenage boy who can't seem to speak. I don't know whether that was intentional but it just felt like each of the characters (not sure about Akira yet) is at a different mental age.

Haru might be a peculiar choice to be a character that brings everything together but in the same way Kimi to Boku would not be complete without Chizuru. Even the slightest interactions in this episode which involved Haru seemed to hold some type of significance, the prime examples being his conversation with Yuki's grandma and then his explanation to Coco as to why he wants to be friends with Yuki. One thing that did catch my eye was that Yuki's grandma coughed and then told Haru not to imitate it, an event that might cause a rift between Haru and Yuki in the future all because of his naivety.

And to end the episode (well almost), the way that the focus of the episode switched back to the importance of fishing was done very subtly and finally gave the characters a friendship to build on. All the while at the actual end, our mysterious Indian friend who has been spying on the trio decides to make an appearance and in style if I may add; coming carrying your pet duck is one way to go. I'm excited to see what Akira has to bring to the table and what type of character he'll be but one things for sure the possibility of him being a government operative (which I'm basing on an army of bodyguards and the very plain black suits) are not out of the question and he definitely does make Haru nervous.

The second episode was a very well directed mix of genres and focuses which has hopefully laid enough groundwork for the story to progress. I still have hopes for a little romance in the story, which doesn't seem to be out of the question by the looks of it as we get to see Erica displaying a little more interest in Yuki and his developing friendships.

So far, noitamina has been on fire with this series and of course Sakamichi no Apollon and I'm hoping this anime turns into one to grace my re-watch list which it's already on track to do.