Natsu no Arashi! Akinai-chuu – 07

「天城越え」 (Amagigoe)
“Amagigoe”

If you believe in the single timeline theory, it’s safe to say you believe in fate as well. Things will happen and won’t happen at predetermined times, ensuring that nothing in the past, present, nor future will ever change. While that may be the case here, Sayaka still manages to give everyone a heart attack by sending them to the past over and over again and risking running into their former selves, just so that she can retrieve a teacup worth 10 million yen.

But hey, if it’s worth 10 million yen, wouldn’t you take the chance? The only problem is that for every failed attempt, the next time you travel back to the same period of time there will be one more of you. And with that, the chance of running into yourself and self-imploding doubles. Of course, that’s never really a problem since everyone’s in one piece to begin with, but it’s amusing nonetheless how everything works out. The disruption everyone causes in the past actually explains things they have yet to understand in the present. The reason for that is because their future selves are going to be doing the time traveling, which of course makes one wonder how something in the future could’ve happened already when it’s the future and all. Still with me here?

Fate, destiny, predestined, whatever you want to call it. That’s how. Natsu no Arashi works on the principle that whatever happens in the future is already set in stone, so it’s logical to have it as the source of events in the past. Messed up I know, but it explains how Sayaka called Yamashiro without knowing why (because the future her got him to bet on horse races), how all the dishes in the cupboard broke (because the future Hajime got kicked into it by Sayaka), how Arashi heard herself calling for clean up, how Yayoi was told to put the 10 million yen Kobayashi-made teacup in the cupboard, and how Kaya ended up making her pudding in it. Things probably sound more confusing than they actually are, but a graph of the timeline plotting out the order of events would clear things up pretty quickly. I’m not hardcore enough to provide one here, but I do have it all worked out in my head. =)

Comedy-wise, there were some really stupid things happening such as Sayaka drunk and running away from everyone in a hadaka apron, but we only got to hear about it. Surprisingly, they didn’t show anything that happened during everyone’s time slips, so we (the viewer) were limited to whatever updates the characters gave in the present. As such, the screen capture show pretty much nothing going on. I know I’ve been harsh on SHAFT’s production here as of late, but I actually don’t mind this approach if I knew they weren’t doing it for budget reasons. (Whether or not they are, I’ll let you be the judge.) In any case, I guess it should come as no surprise that no one realized they had the 10 million yen teacup all this time, which finally ended up as a plant pot for Kanako. Even though Sayaka had mentioned that the teacup had “Kobayashi” 「小林」 etched on it, it didn’t occur to anyone that she meant on the bottom of the cup and not underneath it. Oh the irony! In other news, Sayaka was also able to spontaneously connect with Yayoi, which proved to be a very bad combination since she has no understanding of time travel. This is how wars may have started!

P.S. Still no salt for the salt guy. The shaker was empty!

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