Arakawa Under the Bridge / First Impressions

OP2 Sequence

OP2: 「タイトルなんて自分で考えなさいな」 (Title Nante Jibun de Kangaenasai na) by 沢城みゆき (Sawashiro Miyuki)
Watch the 2nd OP!: Download, Streaming ▼

「5 BRIDGE」

I wasn’t expecting any addition opening sequences in this series, but I’m not complaining or anything when it’s Sawashiro Miyuki performing the theme. It’s just too bad we’re not getting really catchy songs like in Bakemonogatari. With a name that translates to “Think of a Title Yourself”, this Maria character song doesn’t really match up to Miyuki’s performance of Tsuruga Kanbara’s character song “ambivalent world”, but I always like hearing her vocals regardless. The addition of a new opening here has me wondering if we’re in store for any more, as I sure as hell wouldn’t mind hearing songs performed by Nino (Sakamoto Maaya), Stella (Saitou Chiwa), Hoshi (Sugita Tomokazu), and the newly introduced P-ko (Omigawa Chiaki, Maka in SOUL EATER). I doubt we’ll get anything like “staple stable” out of Chiwa this time around, especially if it’s going to be a Stella character song, but I can always hope.

Regarding the episode itself, it was funny seeing the follow-up to Sister’s collapse at the sound of Maria’s comment about him being boring. Humorously enough, it turns out that all his previous training to resist torture as a mercenary before can’t prepare him for Maria speaking ill of him because he happens to like her. It was a bit surprising to learn that at first, but I actually got more of a kick out of the fact that the heavy thing that Sister needed Riku’s help with carrying back in the wagon turned out to be Sister himself. This evidently isn’t the first time his facial wound has been reopened by Maria’s words nor is it even close to being the last, as a lolicon comment gets the blood gushing out again later on. That said, I wouldn’t have guessed that Sister would be so embarrassed about his feelings towards Maria that he would throw a hand grenade just to avoid getting into a conversation on it. Who would’ve thunk that the cross-dressing ex-mercenary is actually a shy boy?

As mentioned above, the big thing this episode was the introduction of the redhead P-ko who takes care of a vegetable field. Seeing as Maria runs a farm with livestock and all, a vegetable field actually sounds a lot more reasonable for a bunch of weirdos living underneath a bridge. In P-ko’s case, I wasn’t sure what to make of her other than she’s a dojikko (i.e. air-headed/clumsy), whose severity entails setting up banana peel traps in this day and age, accusing Riku of being a ninja for avoiding them, and managing to set them all off herself in a chain reaction faction. Other than that display of clumsiness, she’s more or less just a cute girl who loves piment (a.k.a. green bell peppers), which probably explains why her name means “P Kid”. Naturally, things don’t go so well when Riku says he hates bell peppers, but her destructive nature still pales in comparison to Stella’s.

Comedy-wise, the real gags picked up during Stella’s welcome party when the village chief deemed it unnecessary to give her a new name, despite how much Riku insisted to try and expose her true nature. His attempt to play the pity card for Stella not getting in on the “awesome” renaming fell short, but I don’t think he would’ve had a chance against Stella’s deceptive nature anyway. The best part was when Riku found out that everyone actually has jobs as a bunch of homeless weirdos, with Nino’s being a fisherman. Watching Riku’s reaction to being called a “himo” (a man who is financially dependent on a woman) by Maria was the icing on the cake, as he’s obviously the wealthiest one there. The thought of being indebted to all their services naturally didn’t sit well with him, especially when he was lowered to being a freeloader like Shiro, so I thought it was funny how Riku continued to get ridiculed about letting Nino be the provider in their relationship. This includes Hoshi rubbing it in his face about how a musician like him will win over Nino from his himo ass, until Riku decides to show him up with his own musical talents.

Given how things concluded here, the next episode should be fun with the continuation of the music battle over Nino’s heart, plus we’re undoubtedly going to hop around to various other mini chapters as well. So far, this adaptation has been using material right out of the manga with little to no changes except the order of things, which I’m rather pleased about since the jokes there are pretty good to begin with. Shaft is still skipping a lot of material, but I feel they’ve been doing a good job at keeping the flow between both the mini chapters and episodes themselves pretty seamless so kudos to them.

 

Preview

29 Comments

  1. Im watching this series for 5 episodes, with this one.
    And i still actually dont understand why i keep watching it.
    Lotsa weirdos, and lotsa bullshit…
    But maybe, thats the point for watching this show.

    Kenchan
    Reply

    1. Each preview metaphorical describe what will happen in the next episode. Since this preview show 2 samurais fighting it out with one being defeated, I assume it foretell the music battle between Ric and Star. As for who the one defeated, I get a feeling Ric is up for a shocking surprise seeing that he never won any battle under the bridge thus far, even though I hate Star.

      chaos
      Reply

  12. The Kappa might be the mayor, but Sister seems to be the one who’s really in charge under the bridge. I guess that’s from being the toughest guy in town- or maybe the sanest (by a hairsbreadth).

    Sentinel
    Reply

  17. I don’t know how he can withstand so much harassment. I’ll slap all their faces
    here.

    As the music battle started I know he’s going to lose miserably. Too bad we have to wait for next chapter to see it. He hasn’t won anything since he’s there. I have seen people living under bridges; but I never thought their lives could be this fun ?? !!! 🙂

    Island Esper
    Reply

    1. The DVD release date is the 2nd week of June so there is rumor the final ep will be release 1 week before then. So we have to wait another month for it. But look on the bright side, we get to see another ep of Hellsing Ultimate and Black Lagoon season #3 by then.

      chaos
      Reply

  25. I lmao several times this episode been a looooooong time since an anime made me puff out laughing like Maria except she keeps it inside .She’s challenging Senjougahara Hitagi for the best word abuse girl you would date lol.

    Rockmanshii
    Reply

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