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「ユグドラシルの芽生え」 (Yggdrasil no Mebae)
“The Budding Yggdrasil”
This week’s Sakura Quest confronts the indecisiveness and loss of passion that Sanae temporarily has for her work output by gradually giving her small nuggets of encouragement and letting her issues resolve naturally. There’s something comforting about how the girls wanted to let Sanae have some space so that she can soulsearch without being shouted at or given a dramatic lecture. Yoshino does help her think about what her individuality would be able to bring to her work, but ultimately, Sanae is given more room to grow by giving her a personal investment in shifting the wood-working project towards renovating the train station with ranma.
Although a flag once dropped for Kazushi and Sanae, Tatsuo is now in the lead for winning the Sanae Bowl. While her conversation with Tatsuo about her fascination with train stations gave her the inspiration for the first stages of the town’s renovation, their bonding over stressful train rides inspired him to get invested in crafting wooden shoes out of both an interest in working alongside Sanae on a project and an appreciation in fine works of art. Even Angelica ships them by giving them a drink with two straws as he gives her the shoes he made. This episode has made it easy to ship Tatsuo and Sanae together as well, and they look like they’d be a very cute couple.
I really enjoyed how even with Sanae’s temporary resignation, the girls didn’t put their projects on hold until she got herself together. Yoshino and her friends actually made a huge effort in doing their research, and learning about the town’s history and passion for wood-carving. Yoshino was even proficient enough to throw it back in Kazushi’s face by knowing what wood he was working with to carve ranma. Seeing Sandal-san, the odd blonde guy, contribute more to the story this week was also a treat since it shows that Sakura Quest is more than happy to give the characters they introduce some development no matter how small or minor their roles are.
They also provided Sanae with a basis for her return by introducing Sakura Pond Familia, the renovation campaign spearheaded by Yoshino to remodel Chupakabura and parts of Manoyama with an elaborate, unique flair. It sounds like it would be very tricky, especially with the many blueprints Yoshino wants to use as the projects foundation as well as the inspiration it takes from the Sagrada Familia (as of this episode, it’s been 135 years ago since it broke ground, and is projected to be finished around 2026-2028). With the girls mentioning that maybe their children and grandchildren would see the day that Sakura Pond Familia would be finished, it’s not the most reassuring project. Nonetheless, Sanae’s quick thinking to redirect their current project towards train station renovation gives some hope that they’ll be able to fix things up within everyone’s lifetime. Now that they have a more centralized goal in what they’d like to do for the town, it’ll be interesting to see how they will go about it from here.
Preview
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https://randomc.net/image/Sakura%20Quest/Sakura%20Quest%20-%2005%20-%20Large%2003.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yMG3iFS.jpg
Say no more.
I once went to Barcelona, Spain on a cruise tour, and caught glimpses of Gaudi’s work. I had no idea the Sagrada Familia was STILL in-progress!
Sanae’s back. 🙂 We knew she’d stay on board, as it was mainly a lot of self-reflection on her part which is all that was needed. I continue to love all the quirks the cast of characters has, like Sandal-san’s ridiculous name and artistic talent (I find a lot of myself in him).
https://randomc.net/image/Sakura%20Quest/Sakura%20Quest%20-%2005%20-%20Large%2018.jpg
*opens laptop*
*sees project*
*closes laptop*
I feel you, Sanae 🙁
https://randomc.net/image/Sakura%20Quest/Sakura%20Quest%20-%2005%20-%20Large%2033.jpg
This is the first time they succeed something. Small but it’s a good progress.
This episode really hook me up. There’s the drama, but it does not bloat to epic proportion. The challenge is still there, but the characters do their necessary actions even in a small step at a time.
This series is a keeper and hopefully will be at the level of what the series of Shirobako have given us viewers in terms of story and delivery.
I pray to the Gods that PA works will give this series an almighty justice and not quickly give us the melodrama that’s commonly found in most of the anime series this year and in the past.
So far Shirobako seems a tad more intense and antsy. Not only were there problems, but there were problems that all have to be solved and done in incredibly short deadlines, and put the characters in neurotic behaviors. Here, everyone seems calm and collected.
To be fair, that’s because Shirobako revolved around the anime industry which really is very hectic and unforgiving.
On the other hand, in Shirobako the characters had the advantage of a clearly defined goal that it was definitely possible to accomplish. They were making an anime, and it might be a good or bad anime, but they were definitely going to get it made short of complete disaster.
In Sakura Quest, the goals of the Tourism Board girls are much more nebulous. It’s not clear that success is even _possible_ or what might be the right path to achieve it or what it would look like. Plenty of the townspeople don’t even think that ‘promoting the town’ is very important, and they might be right. If they get a few more visitors a year, was it even worth all the time and effort? There won’t be any ‘finale’ at the end where they get to find out whether they did good or not.
Loved how Sanae didn’t shoot down Yoshino’s crazy idea. Instead she gave her advice, solutions and the small steps needed to hopefully achieve it. A good contrast to how the old man handled it.
Starting to see a glimmer of light at the end of the road here. Yoshino’s got herself a pretty good team. They even managed to get Kazushi on board (in a believable manner too), and he looked like one of the harder nuts to crack. With some more effort, I can really see them get the town moving.
I thought I’d see a bit of a romance line between Sanae and Tatsuo.. lol
It was nice a bit to see another character’s POV. I was hoping it would go a bit deeper but I suppose there really wasn’t anything serious about how background except the fact that Sanae really got tired of the city life.