First Impressions / Tegami Bachi

「ジギー・ペッパーへの手紙」 (Jigii Peppaa he no Tegami)
“The Letter to Jiggy Pepper”

Jiggy Pepper is a lot cooler than his name will have you believe. Also, Lag has decided to give a name to his shindan after all this time. “Red Needle” 「赤針」 in homage to Gauche’s Black Needle.

Continuing from last time, Nelli makes her way towards the Bifrost bridge. When she gets there though, she soon realizes that not only is it not there for some reason, but that Gate Keeper Signal already knows she’s not Lag Seeing. Having to act accordingly, Signal sends a huge lizard at Nelli but Lag and Niche arrive just in time to hold it at bay. In the process, Lag unexpectedly fires a shindan from his bare hand, releasing all the memories from Nello’s letter. From those memories, Nelli quickly learns that her little brother encouraged Jiggy to become a Letter Bee and that his real regret was not being able to grow up and protect her. Lloyd shows up later to explain how a shindan gun is only a means to releasing a shindan and that Lag’s one appears to be able to sense what’s burdening people’s hearts. Hearing this, Nelli apologizes and returns Lag’s crossing permit, but the ambitious youngster decides to try clear up her misconception of Jiggy further.

Having seen how Jiggy may have been responsible for the church’s construction, Lag takes Nelli there and fires several shindans in hopes of uncovering some of Jiggy’s memories. Nothing seems to react though and he ends up overexerting himself in the process, after which Nelli reveals that the bell is the only thing from Yuusari. One shot later and everyone soon learns that Jiggy had personally paid for creation of the extremely expensive bell, so that Nelli and Nello would have a landmark in the sky to guide them towards their aspirations. With everything finally cleared up, Lag offers to deliver Nello’s letter anyway, but Nelli decides to save up for the postage and send it herself. Off in the distance somewhere, Jiggy hears the Kyrie bell sound after making a delivery, and chooses to ignore Lloyd’s pickup request for Niche.

I’m still a bit puzzled how this series keeps me so captivated even though very little seems to happen each episode. As such, I can hardly consider this poor pacing, especially when I only notice this while I’m sitting here, looking back on the episode, and writing about what happened. While thinking of potential reasons, the one that stands out the most in my mind is the story’s continual flashbacks to the past and tying them in with the present. Every time one of Lag’s shindans goes off, we’re given a glimpse at a cornerstone to the current segment of the story. Couple in the fact that Lag only uncovers sorrowful memories and you have the driving force behind the emotional aspect of the series. In this episode alone, we saw one for Nello, one for Gauche, and one for Jiggy. In juxtaposition to that, we have very amiable characters in Niche and Steak, whose spirited selves elevate the emotional downpour and round out the “package” as a whole. (Pun intended.)

Back to the actual story, there were a few revelations this time around both for us and the characters. For Lloyd and Signal, they’re surprised to find out that Lag has an Amber Spirit as his left eye, in addition to having tamed the highly sought after child of Maka. For us, it’s the first time we hear Lloyd addressed as “Master”, which the preview shows is because he’s the master of the Bee Hive. Next time, it looks like we’ll be introduced to another Letter Bee as well — Zazie.

 

Preview

25 Comments

  1. this whole part is actually pretty much the introduction to the whole series, and the flashbacks are to make the emotional impact bigger later. So you’ll have to wait for a couple episodes to pass to get on with the main story.

    random
    Reply

  4. This is such an awesome series so far (not that I mean the other series aren’t great since I love them too) but it’s sad to see how it somewhat is under appreciated. Seriously, so far posts regarding Letter Bee tends to have the least amount of comments. Anyway, can’t wait for the next couple episodes especially since I’m waiting for someone to show up as well.

    Silver
    Reply

  8. Reading this arc from the manga, I found really emotionally draining. It entails so many different emotions, plus it shows how desperate people can become when they lose hope.

    I like the fact that there is a lot of realistic raw emotion and it isn’t spoilt by the normal shounen fare.

    Cherubium
    Reply

  11. This a good season for anime. I like many of the series we are seeing that just started in past 5-6 weeks: 11 eyes, Sacred Blacksmith, Darker then black S2, Fairy Tail, Haruka S2, Kampfer, Kimi no Todake, Kobato, Nyon Koi, Railgun, Sasameki Koto, Takakau Bantora, Letter Bee, and also I like (ashamed to admit) Inuyasha, Sora No Otoshimono, Yumeiro Patissiere, and Kohime Mousou S2.

    Splash
    Reply

  14. I agree. This anime inches forward at snail pace in terms of plot. But, having said that, it more or less makes up for it with interesting characters and emotion. Not to mention the scenery. It’s a very pretty anime except for the CGI Gaichuu.

    MsF
    Reply

  17. You don’t have the screenshot listed, so you must have missed it, but at approximately 9:25 in the video, when lag is covering niche with his left arm, the last part of his arm disappears. Just thought you might find that interesting

    anonymous
    Reply

  19. I love this show. It’s one of the main series I look forward to every week alongside with Darker than Black, Cross Game and Kimi ni Todoke. But anyway, considering it’s already the 6th episode, the OVA seems a lot further ahead than expected. o.o

    Even though I was cramming for my finals this morning, I couldn’t resist not watching this. Awesome! Oh, and thanks for blogging Letter Bee as always. <3

    nanoha
    Reply

  20. This series is warming up to me. I was going to drop it after ep 2. However somehow I forced myself to keep watching. I’m glad I did !!! Is going up in my list I just love Niche.
    Yes it seems slow but is interesting and the time just flies by. As for Lag crying he is supposed to be 12 and I might add naive. Hopefully he’ll encounter real bad people and that will toughen him up a bit. Maybe we will be able to see him lose his innocence later on.

    Island Esper
    Reply

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