Tsuritama - 4

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For a second there I thought Yuki wouldn't catch a fish until the final episode.

The episode yet again set out to teach an important lesson on fishing and relationships: this time it had to do with true friendship and the fishing technique which allows you to lure Sea Bass known as "retrieve". Right from the beginning of the episode I could just tell that it would have to be about the way Haru acts all the time, quite literally as a child - I love how being an alien and being a child is construed as the same thing. Haru has always been shown to be a child, but up until this episode it didn't feel like that made much of a difference to the story but was just written of as being part of his quirkiness but the fact that he's a blank slate, much like a child who needs to be taught, is brought into full view with his attempt to get Natsuki and his father to get along.

Natsuki has finally warmed up to Yuki and Haru and it seems that their friendship has reached a new level. It was even a little unexpected to see Natsuki be the voice of reason when him and Yuki were alone and they were talking about how Haru had pissed off Yuki, allowing Natsuki to convey possibly his own feelings that Haru is the reason behind Yuki's development into someone who has at least become able to talk to a person or two. Even though Haru is the reason that Yuki has become more sociable - Haru is very popular after all - this particular scene made me feel that Natsuki has also played an important role in Yuki's progression by being more like a teacher, guiding him and teaching him whilst Haru has just been an eccentric to break him out of shell. One thing that is very clear is that Haru has now established himself as being the central character in the gang, bringing together people and has done so almost unintentionally.

After finally catching his first fish, a moment which was made out to be momentous and rightfully so (you'd understand the feeling if you had fished at all), Yuki is overcome by emotions and is saddened by the fact that he can't tell Haru straight away. This particular emotion is a good display of deep friendship since Yuki has never had the opportunity to share even the most trivial of news and accomplishments with anyone but his grandmother, so to get the opportunity to share this news is a big deal for him; it's no surprise that because of this he ends up running around looking for Haru, at which point his inability to swim is revealed. Though exaggerated, the inability to talk to people can in theory be linked to feeling of drowning: loss of words, panic, no one to help you etc. and what made this scene better was linking this back to the first 2 episodes when Yuki is saved from "drowning" just by being pulled in slightly by a fish, an action which re-highlights the link between friendship and fishing this series has been focusing on.

The final scene showed Akira being suspicious yet again, but personally I think his negative attitude towards Haru might have something to do with his jealousy of not being able to make friends; I mean besides Haru can any of the other main characters actually accomplish this feat

4 episodes in and I'm loving this series not because it's soooo original but it's because it's something different.