「泣き虫少年,テガミ少女」 (Nakimushi Shounen, Tegami Shoujo)
“Crybaby Boy, Letter Girl”

Is it just me or is the no underwear (nopan) theme contagious this season? Letter Bee is the last show I would’ve expected to see it in.

As bad as that may sound, it was actually pretty cute here in an innocent sort of way. Lag, who’s now five years older and has passed the preliminary Letter Bee exam, leaves the low class area Yodoka and makes his way towards the middle class area Yuusari for an interview. Escorting him there is his town’s designated Letter Bee, Connor Cuhl, a unique individual with a touted pornographic magazine collection. Due to Lag’s newly elevated status, he leaves Cambel with no idea when he’ll return and is seen off by the townsfolk and a tearful Aunt Sabrina. However, Lag endures the difficult departure in hopes of becoming a Letter Bee and seeing his mother Anne and Gauche again.

As they make their way through the country of Amberground, they stop at Athion Coal Mine Station to catch a train the rest of the way. There, Lag comes across a blonde-haired blue-eyed girl who happens to be a package just like he was. Unlike him though, she has an incomplete packing slip and insufficient postage, meaning she’ll be kept here for a bit before being let go. Being the kindhearted boy that he is, Lag decides to deliver her to the nearby town of Rent, where he believes her intended destination is an orphanage named “Love Someone Down”.

On the way there, Lag learns that the girl’s quite a handful but very capable of taking care of herself (more so than him anyway). He inadvertently learns that she doesn’t have any underwear on too, but gets her to wear a pair of pants after telling her his own story and saying she’s beautiful. With Lag being the first person to ever get her to wear pants, the girl decides to go with the name he’s given her — Niche.

 

While things were pretty uneventful this time as well, seeing Lag’s heartfelt departure from Cambel and the introduction of Niche made this episode all worth it. Despite her bratty child-like attitude, Niche (Fujimura Ayumi) doesn’t get on my nerves in the slightest. In fact, watching her reaction to being told that she’s beautiful was very cute, in addition to her accepting the name Lag gave her. In more ways than one, we already know who wears the pants in this relationship. Niche is very pushy and Lag is way too soft, but it should be pretty fun watching the interactions between them because of that. I pretty much expect Lag to be on the receiving end of things all the time, but I can see Niche slowly opening up to him along the way.

As suggested in the episode, Niche’s destination is not the orphanage Lag has in mind, even though “Love Someone Down” would be a really clever name for one. Instead, it’s some sort of side freak show you’d probably find at a circus. Knowing Lag, he won’t be able to leave Niche alone after he finds out what he’s delivered her; however, I can’t say I blame him because I don’t think I’d be able to leave a cute girl like Niche alone either. Seeing as Lag hasn’t any success training a dog or another animal to be his Dingo, there’s no rule saying it be a person, and that the next episode is titled “Lag’s Dingo”, it should be pretty obvious what Niche’s role is in the bigger picture.

On another note, the single for HIMEKA’s “Hatenaki Michi” is scheduled to come out on November 25th, which is a long ways away. For now, we just have this commercial to tease us with some scenes from the PV.

 

Preview

21 Comments

  1. @Divine, yep, no pan has been all the rage this season @_@

    A slow paced episode from beginning to end, unlike episodes 1 and 2. It doesn’t jump here and there, which is good. Lag’s departure was not that tear jerking. It also showed a little about his self delivery to his aunt. Too bad Gauge didn’t sent letters to him though.
    Oh yea, I loved his expression when he found out Niche has no pan XD

    I’m looking forward to episode 4 next week.

    Chaos
  2. So true, so true. I’m liking this series so far. I do hope that Lag mans up at some point, because that’s something I never really see- a guy manning up like Wikus.

    Of course, Wikus was extreme, but regardless, thanks for blogging about this.

    Zero
  3. @ Chaos

    About the part with Gauche not sending letters, don’t you find it odd? I feel and thing perhaps something bad might had happen to Gauche because of the expression Connor had on his face when Gauche was being talked about. Hopefully it’s not like that.

    Silver
  4. @Silver,
    I was thinking around that line as well. I didn’t read the manga so I have no idea what happened to him after he left Lag with his aunt. Maybe they might show it in one of the episodes, hopefully. The expression Connor had is quite suspicious but we can’t assume anything yet. Also, something might have happened to Gauche’s sister instead of him himself, then again, who knows? It’s just based on my assumptions anyways.

    Chaos
  5. @ Silver:
    Get ready for a surprise or read the manga but, nevetheless; Gauche is one of my most favorite character.

    Wonder how many episodes there going to be for the first chapter.

    In-n-Out-Nowhere
  6. @ In-n-Out-Nowhere

    Wow, I guess I’m going to enjoy this then since there seems to be a lot going on but first got to find the manga and see how it is. Thanks.

    @ Chaos

    Oh yeah, something might had happen to Gauche’s sister instead but then again it is less likely. I think that because it seems that Tag will end up meeting his little sister first but as you said, it’s just out assumptions although reading what In-n-Out-Nowhere said, it seems quite likely.

    @ Litho

    You’re dropping it too early I think. It seems that the story is driven on development and interactions. Beside, Lag is still pretty much a child who emotional which is shown through his kindness for others.

    Silver
  7. Okay, I spend some decent amount of time reading Letter Bee and wow, Sylvette is awesome!

    [Spoiler]SYLVETTE HIP SLIDE!![/SPOILER]

    Anyway, dang Niche is crazy too! Definitely really cute as well!

    Silver
  8. @arlulez

    lol, well we got a little sneak peak of him in the preview. Though it’s likely he will show up in episode 5 since this one will probably more devoted to Lag getting Niche out of that place he left her in. But yes, this series is really great, and will definitely keep getting better as more character and plot development arises.

    btw, a little out of the subject (and theme of this discussion) but I would definitely suggest to everyone the manga series, “Karneval”. I just finished reading up the entire chapters that have been uploaded thus far, and I have got to say that it’s got the potential to be great too. I’m always on the look out for some rising manga with spark in them, and this is one of them. I get the feeling it will get it’s own anime in the future, too.

    Hal

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