Posted by  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
「テガミバト」 (Tegami Bato)
“Letter Pigeon”
To put it bluntly, I haven’t been very enthused about the very filler-ish feel of the Tegami Bachi episodes lately, so I haven’t made an effort to be on top of posting about it. I feel that the series has a lot of potential with the established backstory and overall premise/setting, but the writers haven’t been making good on it with the anime original content. For the most part, they have me wanting to drown myself in alcohol like the street performer so I can forget what I watched. Mind you, this is coming from someone who hasn’t read the manga, but you don’t really have had to to discern what is and isn’t source material. There’s a pretty stark contrast between the captivating, emotion-filled episodes the series started off with and what’s been shown for the past month or so (excluding episode 17 which was pilot episode goodness).
This week, we have a trio from a church/orphanage who feel they can deliver letters just as easily as Letter Bees and not have to charge as much after one of the kid’s letter pigeon passed away. To prove that to the masses, they openly challenge some Bees to a delivery race, which Headmaster Largo approves on a whim. Naturally, the three that get dragged into this are Lag, Zazie, and Connor, who have to show these naive “Tegami Bato” (Letter Pigeons) scrubs that it’s not all fun and games when Gaichuu are involved and you have no shindan to fend them off with. In cookie-cutter fashion, Lag’s shindan reveals their reasons for trying to establish their own postal service, and everyone makes up in the end with the Letter Pigeons admitting defeat. In short, Zazie’s expressions here and here sum up my thoughts on this episode.
On the plus side, it looks like the next episode will center around Niche and Sylvette when Lag gets sick, which regardless of whether it’s filler or not, is already better than having new characters come and go every week.
* Cast for the Letter Pigeon trio of Rose, Brit, and Mac were Asano Masumi, Yasumoto Hiroki (Chad in Bleach), and Endou Jun’ichi respectively.
Preview
 |
 |
 |
First comment, yeah!
I agree with you, Divine. While the fillers are (somewhat) entertaining, I think Lag has gotten more then enough character development by now, and really REALLY want them to get the story moving. The way they’re showing it, it’s as if Lag has completely forgotten about Gauche and his missing mother in Akatsuki. I am looking forward to next week’s episode though; Sylvette is going to have so much trouble getting Niche to behave }:)
I thought both ep 17 and 16 were great, but the rest of the fillers are just pure failure. Next weeks ep seems like its going to be far more enjoyable than ep 18.
Letter Bee fillers are still way better then that godawful Cobra. I enjoyed it even tho I felt it could have been better.
Oh no the return of pantsu vs shorts!!!! Niche keep lag shorts; Sylvette thongs are evil. lol But really they need to move the central story, Guache feels like a long lost ghost by now and Lag mother hasn’t been recalled in ages.
@Splash
Cobra is the 80’s in so many wrong ways. I just watch it to see how he manages to nail every single female that appears either good or evil. Haven’t seem a mucho macho like him for a while. The guy drinks, smokes and kills point blank whatever needs to die. oh yes the role model every parent want his kids to look up to.
Well, they ruined the series to me. =/ By now, they should have already been to chapter 32 or something.
Given that the premise of the show was to become a letter bee, I do think the show needed at least a couple of these kinds of episodes to show Lag doing something other than pining for Gauche — although I wish they were better written. 16 was pretty decent, in my opinion. If they combined filler deliveries with small bits of info on the nature of the shindan, the gaichu, or Akatsuki, the episodes could work even without being about the main character’s search.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought 17 (and the OVA) were in the manga. I was under the impression that episodes 1-11, 14 and 17 were canon and the others were filler.
despite its problems, I just cant bring myself to hate this anime
Some peeps don’t mind, even like fillers, if things get to heavy… but when did they get heavy in Letter Bee… since the majority of these filler eps are one shotters, they could have done it after … say… (NO I HAVE NOT READ THE MANGA… just saying 😀 ) Lag finds Guache, Guache attacks Lag, nopan-Niche attacks Gauche, Lag stops her, and as he is about to kill Lag cuz he doesn’t have shindan so he’s using a real gun, he get’s eaten by a gaichu… And for some reason Silvette and Aria are there and watch the whole thing… HMMMMMM… Lag crys at the drop of a hat… I think his head would explode if he saw something like that. Litterally… the corspe Doc would be VERY happy and appear form no were and start to pick up Lag’s parts. Niche would of course kill everyone at this point, bury Lag, with a stick out of his burial mound and her pansu waving like a triumphant flag… then proceed to back north, home. I wonder if she’ll run into Horo on the journey north? Wow.. the new medication is really something! LOL
Hey Divine , are u still blogging Baka Test? Its been quite awhile since I saw it on this website 🙁
AuroraFlame:
Episode 17 (i.e. the pilot) was most likely from the manga, hence why it were so good. I purposely excluding it when talking about the filler stuff.
LOL:
I’m not covering any new shows this season, hence why Baka Test isn’t being blogged. My apologies if you’ve been looking for posts about it.
I’m just building a short post to say I liked your article and enjoyed reading it. I’ve bookmarked your website so i could be notified of latest content. Thanks