Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「たゆたえ、七色」 (Tayutae, Nanairo) by ARCANA PROJECT
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「熱帯魚、逃げた」 (Nettaigyo, Nigeta)
“The Tropical Fish Ran Away”
We gain a better understanding on what’s going on at Gama Gama Aquarium. It was already a struggling tourist attraction prior to Kukuru’s grandfather taking over. And because he was unable to make it into a profitable venture, meaning no revenue to replace old or broken equipment, he sees the writing on the wall and finally decides it’s time to give up. Maybe she’s right to believe there could be a chance. You’ll never know without giving it a proper fight. But by all accounts, it doesn’t seem like the chances for Gama Gama Aquarium are looking very good.
There’s Kukuru throwing her education to the wind by giving her everything to Gama Gama Aquarium, in a last ditch attempt to save it. However, people are only providing assistance out of their senses of altruism and optimism. No one’s got big enough pockets to bail out the situation. And call me a cynic, but I’m not quite if supernatural intervention of the mysterious being can rescue the aquarium from its predicament. Let alone the power of friendship. I’ll be curious to see how these young characters fight till the very end, as well as the way in which their camaraderie will blossom over the course of their trials and tribulations against very adult problems.
I do think that Fuuka is quite naive for believing that running away from her problems and throwing herself wholeheartedly into a new venture will resolve her issues. Or soothe the emotional pain she’s experiencing. However, I can appreciate how she saw the parallel in her situation with Kukuru’s and becomes determined to wholeheartedly save the Gama Gama Aquarium. Especially since it’s quite rare to see her demonstrate that sort of backbone, considering how we’ve primarily been seeing her provide purely concessions up until this point.
Kukuru’s expectations were quite unreasonable when it came to Fuuka feeding the penguins. If anything, it was Kukuru’s fault for explaining everything so poorly. Fuuka did exactly everything she said until the penguins started attacking her – and it was somehow Fuuka’s fault when she followed her instructions? That’s squarely on Kukuru for not teaching her properly, and it was infuriating to see Kukuru put down Fuuka like that. I do not think being on edge over the aquarium’s closure is a legitimate justification either. Plain and simple, being a dick is being a dick. There are no two ways about it. Excessive passion for one specific thing does not mean you should be blind to your own inadequacies while treating other humans like garbage. That lack of accountability is not fitting for any kind of director – interim or not – and Kukuru will seriously need to step it up if she genuinely wants to save Gama Gama Aquarium. Because this kind of leadership is not going to cut it for a long-term project, even if other people are happy to give her a pass simply because they’re personally invested for their own reasons.
Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading this post – and see you all next week!
ED Sequence
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ED: 「月海の揺り籠」 (Tsukiumi no Yurikago) by Mia REGINA
I agree with you in case of Kukuru’s anger towards Fuuka. While the situation is difficult, Kukuru should not have expected Fuuka to nail her work performance in a first day of work, especially considering Kukuru didn’t explain very well and not giving Fuuka any space to train and improve. If Kukuru wanted Fuuka not to fail, she should give her some time to train and get used to wildlife. It’s exactly as she said: this is a job dealing with living beings, so mistakes should be avoided as much as possible, and humans are prone to make mistakes in things they have no experience at, so she should have given Fuuka space for her to get used and train, not expecting her to do a perfect job in day one.
My gripes over Kukuru’s personality on that part aside, this is a great episode. Kukuru and Fuuka finally opening up to each other. I am as pessimistic as you though, but we will see how it goes ahead since the show has a lot of time, with 24 episodes and all.
Thanks for the review! Hopefully you can continue covering it in RandomC!
I’ll definitely continue covering this, rest assured. And I think it makes for a much more interesting series for the characters to be flawed. Because it shows they have shortcomings they need to work on through the course of the show.
This delves into one of my worst fears: being homeless. I never experienced for myself, but I live in fear of the possibilities. I feel so bad for Fuuka, but I know she’ll make great experiences working at the aquarium. It’s good she told Kukuru that she’s a runaway before more time passed. She is her new confidant after all.
I don’t think Fuuka was truly at risk of being homeless. I think she would head back to her family if she didn’t have another option. Rather if it was a choice between avoiding her family for the inevitable pity party and starting a new life someplace unknown on a clean slate, Stardew Valley style. Hopefully she’s able to figure stuff out and realise that there could be chance to go back and achieve her original dream, or make new ones with new people.
I’m not too sure about her going back to her family. She almost passed out in the sun. Whatever her deal is, she doesn’t seem to make very good decisions.
She’s clearly a rather sheltered lady. But in a lifetime where she’s allowed others to decide things for her, this trip to Okinawa is one of the few times she’s taken her own initiative and done something because she felt like it. As opposed to feeling obligated.
Kukuru’s friends do console and comfort Fuka, even admitting that Kukuru can get overzealous with her love for the aquatic,
Still, I think that’s why Kukuru is this way. Her family and friends don’t bother to call out her behaviour, which is partially why she must be under the impression it’s acceptable. I don’t think that’s a very good way of going about it, though I’m under the impression she was abandoned by her parents as a child – which is why people cut her slack.
So who is really in the wrong here? While working at the aquarium may not be what Fuuka was use to. Fuuka messed up because she wasn’t focusing on what she was doing. If you look at how Fuuka lost her idol gig at the agency, even though she may have been helping a teammate be more proactive. what the employer saw was Fuuka not focusing as an idol, and having low enthusiasm while working. At the end of the day it is what the employer sees that will dictate your employment.
I won’t blame Kukuru for having expectations of Fuuka and getting upset, in fact with Kukuru trying to save the aquarium hits home really fast for me. I am in kind of the same boat. Being a small business owner and keeping the ship from sinking is really difficult.
Yes, Fuuka has her fair share of issues. But she literally followed everything that Kukuru explained word for word. As far as I’m concerned, she pretty much did as she was trained to do.
If Kukuru said ‘Don’t hold the fish above the penguins’ then I would be inclined to agree with you. However, Kukuru quite literally said ‘Hold the fish at your fingertips and slowly feed to these penguins’, a set of instructions Fuuka followed to the letter. That’s why I believe it is Kukuru’s fault. If she wanted more specificity to the way her instructions were to be carried out, she should have given some kind of live demonstration. Also hope your business is doing okay.
That is a good point, Kukuru didn’t provide enough training. I am not sure how Japan trains new employees but here in the states there is a three month probation period where you are trained for two weeks and evaluated on the third month.
Being an employer stinks, it’s hard, I WANNA QUIT!
Advertise your business here!
Fuuka telling her backstory to Kukuru happened faster than I thought it would. Now how long do we have to wait before someone puts ‘We have to attract more people to our aqurium” together with “We have a professional entertainer on the staff wasting her talents cleaning fish tanks”?
Fuuka is a former idol right? I’m sure she can build out a Love Live! Sunshine! idol group, then replace the “Sunshine” and add → Aquarium! New group will be Love Live! Aquarium!!
Fuuka with her showbiz experience might be actually able to do something the aquarium needs – create a show that attracts cutomers. Cute girls swimming with fishes? IDK. I would pay to watch that…
I don’t think Fuuka is on her road to recovery yet. Her offer to Kukuru on the beach wasn’t especially healthy — “My dreams are ruined but maybe I can help with yours.” It may tide her over for a while but she’s gonna have to get to the point where she sees something when she looks in the mirror.