「ぼくの友達」 (Boku no Tomodachi)
“My Friend”

I usually don’t find it very funny when kids bug you about groping a girl’s breasts, but Lag is sooo adorable when he teases Gauche about it. I <3 Sawashiro Miyuki.

This week continues on with Gauche’s task of delivering Lag to the port town Cambel. From the shindan resonance last time, Lag learns about Gauche’s aspiration to become a Head Bee, the highest ranking position a Letter Bee can obtain, for the sake of his wheelchair-bound, little sister Sylvette. While he has a government-issued crossing permit, Gauche doesn’t have permission to take family members to the capital city Akatsuki yet. As seen in the flashback last time, Gauche wants to take Sylvette there so she can live a better life. Lag on the other hand wants to go to Akatsuki to find his kidnapped mother, but Gauche is surprisingly inconsiderate of his situation, claiming he doesn’t know the burden of carrying a crossing permit. He even goes as far as saying that he doesn’t even consider Lag a friend and that his job is just to delivery him to Cambel.

Frustrated, Lag storms off with Gauche’s gun in the middle of the night thinking that he’ll just bust into the capital instead. Before he knows it, he runs into a Gaichuu. Luckily, Roda was smart enough to tag along and look out for him and Gauche shows up just in time to save him. Their first attempt to destroy the Gaichuu with Gauche’s Kurobari (Black Needle) fails, but a second shot with Lag’s Spirit Amber artificial left-eye — something his mother claimed is a protective charm — manages to do the job. With Gauche injured, Lag carries him all the way to Cambel where he recovers after a few days at Sabrina Mary’s place. However, Sabrina throws him out shortly after for showing more concern about his job than being grateful for Lag’s efforts. Roaming around a port town that harbors pirates, Gauche is treated with disdain for being an outsider.

Lag shows up later with water and food from Sabrina, after which Gauche reveals that he can consider him a friend now that the delivery is complete. In tears, Lag sees Gauche off and says he wants to be a Letter Bee like him one day. Time lapse five years later and Lag is doing just that.

 

This was a really nice episode full of emotions, but still had hints of humour around the horrible-tasting canned soup. Story-wise, we see the advancement of Lag’s character and what will probably be the last time we see Gauche for a while. While they’ve given us a taste of Gauche’s back-story with the revelation of Aria, Sylvette, and his aspirations of becoming a Head Bee, Lag is the protagonist of the series so I expect the focus to shift to him from now on. However, Gauche did say he’ll look into Lag’s mother’s whereabouts when he gets to Akatsuki, hinting that they’ll cross paths again. The scene with Lag seeing Gauche off at the gate was shown in the OVA, but the story there took place when Lag was already a Letter Bee. Here, it appears we’re heading towards the intermediary part now, which should reveal how he becomes one. The preview shows Niche, whom I’m really looking forward to seeing.

On another note, Lag sure cries a hell of a lot. Surprisingly though, it doesn’t come off annoying at all, for which I’ll credit to Miyuki’s acting. In contrast, hearing him five years later as a twelve year-old boy was a refreshing change. Miyuki is able to make the aging transition believable with the crazy range/voice variety she has. Overall, I absolutely love the pace and “feel” of the series so far. I attribute that primarily to the conversations and interactions between Lag and Gauche so far, and the establishment of a definitive direction for the story. Once the credits roll and I hear HIMEKA’s “Hatenaki Michi” playing, I just can’t help but think, “Ah, that was a good episode.”

 

Preview

22 Comments

  1. Have you seen the pilot? “Light and Blue Night Fantasy.” It has much more charm than the first episode and will definitely sell you if episode 1 did not.

    I think I’ll pick up blogging this once I find time. Job hunting is lame. :\

  2. Bwahahaha, Lag is still going to cry even though he’s 12 now.

    Everyone knows him as the crybaby, but he still gets the job down and you know that everything is alright once he starts balling his eyes.

    Cherubium
  3. i ABSOLUTELY agree bout Lag teasin Gauche at the beginnin, especially “It’s the jerks who always gets promoted!” part; so adorable! hats off to Sawashiro-san~
    by the way, that white animal looks like from Rhythm Heaven :]

    c00ki3m0n5t3r
  4. I’m glad they broke up the intro into 2 episodes, because it really had a lot going on- story-wise and on an emotional level with Lag and Gauche. Can’t wait to see the next ep,…Niche! This series really has some great characters.

    Harowiin
  5. I love love love you for blogging this!!! The seiyuus are amazing… although.. it did list as 13 ep…. for those who read the manga… isn’t that too short? Or the anime will cut off somewhere…. wahh.

    Niche
  6. This is probably the series I’ll be looking forward to the most this season; the character interaction and the character themselves are very interesting and fun to watch. Thanks Divine for blogging this awesome series! Love it so much~ =)

    Orange
  7. hum, he cries to much, somehow the use of it just lose its meaning overtime. it’s kinda weird that it sudden pass 5 years and then begin the story again. lets hope for the best for this show.

    …… Bleach manga is still too short -.- YOU HEAR ME~!!

    Mearex

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