「パジャマでピンチ!」 (Pajama de Pinchi!)
“In a Pinch in Pyjamas!”

While I’ve compared Hai-Furi (which my fingers still keep wanting to spell as ‘Hair-Fu‘) to Girls und Panzer often, I’ve also made comparisons to Sora no Woto , which seems to be the direction that Hai-Furi is heading, and not just because of the bad trumpet. For those of you who haven’t watched Sora no Woto (you should), it looked on first blush to be a very fluffy anime, but actually hid a rather serious narrative. The difference is that the serious side of Hai-Furi—the one group of girls seemingly against the world—came out earlier and with more force. It’s an interesting direction, since it sort of muddles the mood sometimes, whereas Sora no Woto was a lot cleaner about it; I wonder if Hai-Furi will continue with its half and half Hai and Furi approach, or whether it will change ramp things up (or down?) as it goes.

For now, at least, I don’t think Hai-Furi can be high-tension all the time quite yet, since it still needs to do get through the usual housekeeping, like the world building. We need to keep in mind at all times that Hai-Furi really is a sort of science fiction, though the camera is mostly stuck on a boat on the in the middle of the great blue. With the limited perspective, it’s hard to get a real feel of the world at large (one of the juicier aspects of most sci-fi, for me personally), so they need to sneak world building in where they can. This episode, we find out that there are, in fact, supposedly, allegedly, male students in this world. For those of you who were wondering last week where the submarines were, well, here they are (along with MORE STATS), and the boys are stuck with them. Which sucks for them, because subs are claustrophobic deathtraps. But the y chromosome is expendable, so that’s fine. It’s the price they pay for not being cute girls—along with absolutely zero screen time. Got to preserve our 100% female cast. But that means we still don’t have visual confirmation on the existence of male students. Boys remain creatures of rumour and myth. They are the Bigfoot of the seas.

Though the science is still not in on the so-called ‘boys’, at least we have real evidence of non-Japanese people, or at least Germans. Meet Wilhelmina Braunschweig Ingelner Friedeburg (Igarashi Hiromi), yet another name that I’m never going to remember (it’s her fault this time because she has too much of it). I’m assuming she’s the last of the main cast, which means character introductions are now more or less done. She’s another shouty deputy captain type, which means the one we have right now will have to diversify with the cute. I wonder if it’s just Mi-chan being German though; she’s certainly a very anime kind of German, right down to the blonde-hair-blue-eyes. Maybe she’s a bit stereotyped, as foreigners are oft in anime, but the Germans lost the War, so it’s alright to be unfair to them. Well, I guess Japan did too. Take that, anime.

With the character introduction done (so I assume), Hai-Furi immediately gets to advancing the plot, which is to say that Hai-Furi is keeping to a good pace. The Harekaze now has a goal i.e. return to school and the principal’s protection, while avoiding other ships (which seem, mysteriously, to be set to ‘kill on sight’, perhaps having mutinied themselves). The litmus test for the kind of show Hai-Furi intends to be depends on how well this plan goes. If it was more idealistic, the principal will sort things out on her end, and the conspiracy is revealed. In a darker show, the principal will be murdered by the conspiracy. Sounds improbable for a fluffy show? I think things can still go either way, and anywhere in between. The Harekaze not responding to the Musashi’s distress call, for example, must be the kind of decision that comes back to bite later down the line. It’s only a matter of how.

29 Comments

    1. My mother and her side of the family are all German (or at least part). If and when they want to raise their voice, they can. Other than that, they are pretty chill. But all of them are brunette and I haven’t seen many blonde Germans. I don’t think blonde Germans is as much of a stereotype/archetype as the blonde Brit. And majority of Brits aren’t even blonde either. Blondes are mainly Swedish and Finnish from what I’ve seen.

      Goodwill Wright
      1. yeah its true. but there is still this “Herrenrasse” legend outside in the world. They where to be Blond, blue eyes and so on…

        But in Jokers game, i also thought this spy is from germany. but seems like he was an US one..

        Worldwidedepp
      2. Germanics and Slavs tend to have blonde hair, either that or something along the brown hair spectrum. Celts on the other hand, tend to have red hair. Why they developed this in the first place? I have no idea. My bet’s on the climate and interbreeding with the Neanderthals. Though Semitics also once interbred with Neanderthals, so yeah, I’m just speculating cuz info is scarce, so scarce. Also from what I heard, green and blue eyes are pretty rare, especially green it seems. Why again? No idea. Absolutely no idea. So until the day genetic engineering is feasible for the being known as homo sapien, we can all just dream, and dream, and dream…

        Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyyyyyyywwwwwwwwwaaaayyyyysss…..

        Munetani is grating as ever, while the Fraulein proves herself to be top sea-lion among all the sea-lions on the puny WW2 destroyer. Pacing issues, fetish pandering and the contrived setting are still gargantuan anchors that keep this show stuck at port, but at least there’s effort in ensuring the audience is interested in wanting to know more about the military conspiracy that is established as the central conflict of the narrative. And yes, including me.

        Also, here’s some thoughts I have on what the setting is like:

        1) There doesn’t seem to be aircraft. There might be blimps and airships but so far none apart from those. There could be helicopters though. Remember, apparently WW1 and WW2 did not happen in this setting but the Russo-Japanese war did.

        2) Males seem to be a part of a nation-state’s official military force, but not enlisted into the Blue Mermaid maritime patrol force. And thus, we can infer that the Blue Mermaid organization is roughly akin to a paramilitary organization instead.

        Which can mean one thing, many aspects of the setting are heavily contrived in service of pandering to audience fetishes. Increased sales? I don’t know. Let’s just hope that when one with airplanes comes along, they at least consider other concepts that allows focus on an all-female cast while not preventing elements of the setting to feel forced for pandering’s sake.

        Those JMSDF guys are probably crying man tears right now. How have the nation of stoic samurai-like soldiers have fallen. TRELELELELELELELELELZ

        Nishizawa Mihashi
  1. I got a goosebumps when the song change at the searchlight scene. Really great ost.

    Also with mii-chan added I scared for shiro-chan. Her position as scary second is now taken !!

    Heisenberg
  2. I’m really loving this series. It does remind me of other great military themed series like Girls Und Panzar, Strike Witches, Sora No Wato, and also to a lesser extent Gakkou Gurashi. Can’t wait to see what happens next. The 20 minutes flew by so quickly.

    This series and Flying Witch are both really good series that came out of left field. Never heard of either of them and quickly they have become my favorites of this season.

    Karmafan
  3. That certainly was a hair raising episode.

    My kokoro went doki doki overtime.

    Few things…

    https://randomc.net/image/Hai-Furi/Hai-Furi%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2021.jpg
    I don’t know if I should feel pity or what. It seems that the helmsman becomes the butt of all rage in the bridge and jokes.

    https://randomc.net/image/Hai-Furi/Hai-Furi%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2008.jpg
    Yamamoto has made his move. My friend swears that the cat will talk in one of the episodes and the words coming out from his mouth would be “Tora! Tora! Tora!”

    https://randomc.net/image/Hai-Furi/Hai-Furi%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2023.jpg
    And yes… Willie Brown Sugar Inner-er Fried Burger? You got to understand that IJN’s AS capabilities are really bad unlike your’s

    Anyway, during her tirade, I am pretty sure that all those AS weapons were pretty much employed against them. And that search light was kind of a reminiscent of the Leigh Light used by the British.

    https://randomc.net/image/Hai-Furi/Hai-Furi%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2031.jpg
    You know… This scene really screams Battle of Atlantic though. Well, that’s just me.

    “In a darker show, the principal will be murdered by the conspiracy. Sounds improbable for a fluffy show?”
    May I point to you to Gakkou Gurashi, Madoka and WIXOSS?

    Velvet Scarlantina
  4. 1.some kind of outbreak – virus? mass mind control? is wreaking havoc with crews of the ships
    2.boys not only do exist in-universe, they also man all the submarines
    3.which means some rabid yaoi fangirls are now making doujin spinoffs of i-201
    rule34 in effect
    4.WilhelMIna is most competent of all the girls onboard… god keeping your lights on in night battle is so stupid…
    5.paravan, thats an obscure piece of equipment used to protect ship from mines, now used in a novel fashion…
    6.boys on the i-201 were lucky that their sub didnt just sink after that depth charge…
    7.salty cocoa, official drink of unlucky world of warships players
    8.my god that is a cabin full of cute and fluffy… unexpected side to normally serious and strict XO

    ewok40k
  5. “Scheisse!” if you correctly translate it, its “Shit!”.. But here she used the meaning of “Fuck!”

    in germany, if you hit your thumb you yell out “Scheisse!”. if this would happen in US, they surly use “Fuck!”

    So, i hope i could clear this out

    Worldwidedepp
  6. I’m a bit interested in what’s going with the other ships. The beginning of the episode shows a monitor with “Lost” ships, including the Y467 Harekaze and Y118 Musashi. But everyone is only talking about the Harekaze. Were all the other ships attacked? Was the Harezake the only one that fought back? Did that scheming instructor sink the other ships and frame the Harezake? Or perhaps some students are involved with the instructor’s scheme and are avoiding contact with command?

    Also, that cat makes some weird noises…

    Asrialys
    1. this Lost could just mean “Lost raido contact” with them. So they could be save and sound, just their coms or GPS are jammed or like the Harekaze only receiving but cannot send messages back

      Worldwidedepp
    2. Here’s a full list of the “red” (lost) ships and the “green” (still in contact) ones (copy-pasted and modified from a post over at the TV Tropes forums):

      (The screenshot in question.)

      Lost (red):
      – Y-118: Musashi
      – Y-102: Hiei
      – Y-512: Teruzuki
      – Y-513: Suzutsuki
      – Y-309: Isuzu
      – Y-460: Isokaze

      Still in contact (green):
      – Y-470: Hamakaze
      – Y-212: Maya
      – Y-211: Choukai
      – Y-459: Amatsukaze
      – Y-461: Tokitsukaze
      – Y-471: Maikaze
      – Y-2302: Akashi
      – Y-2201: Mamiya

      Bet you imagined their shipgirl versions, didn’t you? (Except Suzutsuki, which hasn’t appeared yet as one–and to an extent, Maya, Hiei, and Musashi, who also have Fleet of Fog counterparts.)

      Incognito
  7. Since submarines in this ‘verse are manned by high school boys (making them “long, hard and full of seamen”), I guess one could call this scene “blowing their load” all at once. And it’s a “night battle,” for crying out loud…

    Anyway, it’s pretty cool of Principal Munetani to be a reasonable authority figure and want to hear the side of the Harekaze crew. Though her mama bear instincts are likely also in play, knowing that her daughter Mashiro is aboard that vessel.

    This show is starting to approach Attack on Titan levels of mystery, which is also good. While the attempted unreveal of Wilhelmina’s name was a bit annoying, since they were in the middle of an antisubmarine battle and it wasn’t the time for introductions, I’ll let it slide for now.

    Incognito
  8. Again Haifuri got me anticipating its next episode, and it’s probably going to be that way until this whole mutiny issue is cleared up. I gotta give props to the Harekaze’s crew in this whole ordeal. The mood in the ship doesn’t sound all depressing and gloomy, which I think is the normal thing to feel when being branded as mutineers and under threat of attack at any given point. It may look like they’re just being a little carefree (Kouko and her exaggerated scenarios always lighten up the mood somehow), but I gotta assume it shows how tough these girls are. Rin seems to be the one filling role of worrywart for the entire crew as she’s the one who’s overly panicky over almost everything. And Shiro-chan’s shark doll and her room cannot go unmentioned. Not to mention Mi-chan. It’s gonna take a while to try to remember her name. Brown Sugar sounds alright though.

    Zhinvu
  9. “The Harekaze not responding to the Musashi’s distress call, for example, must be the kind of decision that comes back to bite later down the line. It’s only a matter of how.”

    — just as i said before in spring 2016 sched post, i see the possibility that the BFFs will fire at each other later on. a small destroyer vs a YAMATO class warship? that is something to see. reading wikipedia, yamato boast a huge amount of weapon systems that surely a shell from one of its main guns would sink a small destroyer like the harakaze.

    Jeffers
      1. well i am on assumption of 1 on 1. i know it would be definitely different if there’s 10 or more of harekaze class destroyers and some other ship (cruisers perhaps?) plus some subs vs musashi (yamato class) alone.

        would love to see that torrent of torpedoes in world of warships ON ANIME. that would be defintiely epic (*sadist laugh* —- i love seeing moe characters getting some beating.)

        Jeffers

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