「愛の逃避行」 (Ai no Touhikou)
“The Elopement”

Lag sure has a knack for sticking his nose in other people’s business, something I only find tolerable because he’s a naive kid. His sense of righteousness left a man heartbroken this time around and he didn’t have anything to say to make him feel better either. The credits just started scrolling shortly after.

Despite having Sugita Tomokazu and Tanaka Atsuko on board playing the runaway Spirit Amber thieves Moss and Bonny, I didn’t particularly care for this episode. It’s yet another minor subplot that paves little in the way of the bigger story about Gauche. Because of that, the most enjoyable aspect was Niche’s innocence and her own naivety about love. She was upset about Lag delivering a letter without her when she was entranced by the flame-tossing street performer, and told him she won’t be “licking him on the lips” like Moss and Bonny were doing. I thought it was cute how Lag covered her eyes to stop her from watching and even more so when he tried to explain what kissing is.

Story-wise, it turns out that Bonny was just using Moss to try and reach Akatsuki and meet her real lover, which Lag’s “meddling” Spirit Amber inadvertently revealed yet again. Now is it just me or is his left eye turning out to be the ultimate lie detector? =) Whatever the case, the next episode looks somewhat along the same lines, except we have musicians and fan letters involved. It looks like we’ll be seeing some more of Sylvette at the very least, though I suspect it’ll only be for a quick stop off at home.

With very little happening in regards to both character development and the main plot, it sure is starting to feel like they’re padding time to fill the 26-episode run. If this is the end result of Tegami Bachi being two cours, I would’ve much rather a really well done 13-episode run. I still enjoy seeing Lag and Niche together, but sadly, that’s the only thing saving this from feeling needlessly dragged out.

 

* On a separate note, I’m doubtful for covering any new shows this season, even though Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu is an obvious choice. I’ll see how things go though, but if you don’t see any new posts from me, that’s likely the reason why.

 

Preview

15 Comments

  1. @Divine Noooo keep posting even if its random and skipped episodes of series; Drop FF XII hehehe

    Anyway I watched this long ago; but if memory still works I can swear Lag didn’t cry this time around!!!!!! So it was a development, I remember the guy crying for his woman. The episode was saved by Niche again; now will she “grow” ? Then she won’t be as fun will seee.

    Island Esper
  2. @Quickdee & Mearex it’s TRUE!!! its so true in fact that at the end of the ep when a tear rolls down the heartbroken guys face, both lag and niche gasp in surprise when they see that someone else has shed a tear. too funny

    BROOKLYN otaku
  3. wait, divine is playing ff XII ? that game sucks …………. and yeah i gotta agree, the manga is so much ahead, thay could just stretch a few fights or something like that to cover everything

    zeropi
  4. I’ll have to say, this series tries REALLY hard to evoke emotion. Does it do so successfully? Only marginally so. Half of the time it isn’t bad, but the other half of the time it just feels forced and overdone.

    The one series that comes to mind whenever I talk about evoking emotion is Clannad. Clannad did a very good job of evoking emotion without making it feel forced or overdone at all. This is in no small part due to it’s slow pacing. Rather than trying to create an emotional storm every single episode, they allowed things to build up naturally, and “release” when the time was right, making things feel natural.

    Like Omni said, with Letter Bee it seems like they’re padding time to fill the 26 episode run with all these “filleresque” episodes. If they wanted to, they could definitely afford span content of a single storyline over several episodes, making a kind of “mini-arc” which would give time for some development, and allow viewers to at least form some kind of connection with the characters involved, thus resulting in less abrupt and rushed storyline resolutions with better, more solid emotional impact.

    Sentinel

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