Tsuritama - 9

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Duck's waterproof suits would make for an awesome onesie. Just saying.

Even with the plot take a slightly more serious (said in the loosest of terms), it looks like Tsuritama will focus on the basis of the original plot which revolved around friendship and bonds and this episode was the set up for a friendship trumping world destruction ending, which we may have been expecting but one that I've been waiting for regardless of predictability.

The episode itself seemed to have gone back to the roots of Tsuritama, by focusing more on the characters than the plot development itself and that in turn became the plot development of the episode. Haru was the character who suffered the most in this episode with the possible loss of his sister and of course Haru's sense of duty to his friends also contributed to his suffering. Considering that Haru started off as the most carefree and idiotic character in this series, he developed into a much more serious character with the sense of friendship and understanding of human emotions making it truly enjoyable to watch him in an episode that was all about the relationships that have been built between the boys and I'll also say that whilst it's not confirmed yet, Coco's possible death also came at a time that was appropriate for Haru but was something completely unexpected from the series, proving once again that Tsuritama can add drama elements to the story in a very sneaky yet fluid manner - oh and it works!

Putting aside Haru who was the main character of this episode, Yuki and Natsuki got minimal screen time and Akira got slightly more. It may have something to do with my love for Akira (in a completely no romantic way) but I did like that there was a little bit more focus on him seeing as he wasn't really involved in the first 2-3 episodes of the and because he was the last person to join the crew officially and to finally trust Haru, it just seemed completely right to give him a little more attention. The last scene with him laughing whilst embracing Tapioca was just great and was probably the second best feel good scene of this season for me (1st place being the medley from Sakamichi no Apollon's 7th episode).

With there being great developments from the main characters of the series, who would have thought that the one character that gave the episode a little bit extra was Keito and her beautifully soothing voice. I love how Keito has been somewhat of a hidden catalyst in the series, bringing together Haru and Yuki, educating Haru and of course consulting the two about their life problems so this made her explanation to Yuki about why she let Haru live with them that much better. The timing of this conversation was also impeccable, allowing Yuki to finally come to terms with everything about Haru.

What I loved most about this episode of Tsuritama was that it managed to differentiate itself from all of the other feel good episodes it's put out. This episode's feel came from the aggregate happiness of all of the characters, aided further by the focusing being solely on true friendship and nothing else and making me want to just smile without hesitation during and after watching it. As you may guess, I have yet again no complaints about this episode and in fact I hope that Tsuritama can end on the same unbelievable high note it has in each of its episodes.