neko's thinkbox

I couldn’t wait for today’s episode…

Episode summary:

After her very spectacular grade-skipping promotion to a Prima Undine, Alice is now allowed to let customers on her gondola and guide them around. On her first day, Akari and Aika secretly observe her performance… professional stalkers. Alice might have the required skills, however, the sudden start into business obviously makes her very hesitant – for instance, she is unable to entirely catch her customers’ attention at the Bridge of Sigh’s… Well, they still leave happily though. Aika and Akari are still observing her, and as they prepare to leave, Aika steps on President Aria’s taiil… PUINYUUU~

Alice obviously discovers our (still) two Singles, and asks them how she did – like a robot, they say… Alice becomes depressed. Akari then suggests a moon viewing evening, which the three of them end up doing later at the balcony of the ARIA Company. Aika invited Al to the moon viewing as well, but he doesn’t show up, so she leaves to search for him. Somewhere in the town, she bumps into him.
On their way back to the ARIA Company, Aika, in an embarrassing moment, jumps on a few wooden boards covering a well. Once again obviously, the boards break and Aika falls into the dried-up well, which luckily isn’t that deep so she doesn’t get hurt. Al, trying to pull her out… you guessed right, actually gets pulled in. Bad luck, they are both trapped inside of the well now!

President Maa, who has been following them, jumps into the well as well. Aika tells him to get Akari and Alice, but the Aqua kitten doesn’t understand human words well yet, so it keeps jumping into the well every time Aika throws it out. Eventually, it stays out, but somewhat has no clue at all…
Inside the well, Aika and Al talk about the force of attraction between the planets, I won’t go too much into detail though. Al seems to fear the darkness, and Aika teases and hugs him. In that moment, the apparition of the moon of Aqua next to the moon of Earth fills the well with light. Highly emotional moment, Aika starts crying because she thinks her relationship with Al is like the attraction between planets or something like that, once they get too close, they go wider apart, etc. Astrophysics, do you know it? Anyway, Al clears Aika’s thought with another detail about astrophysics, and suddenly the both of them get close. I mean, REAL CLOSE.

As always, something HAS to ruin the mood… Aika’s belly starts grumbling. And while she expresses her frustration, Akari and Alice appear above the well to rescue our poor couple. On their way back to ARIA Company, Alice keeps teasing Aika why she was so frustrated that the mood was ruined. While Alice and Akari are going ahead, Al takes Aika’s hand. Aww~
And finally, they all finish the moon viewing at the balcony of the ARIA Company, drinking tea and eating dangos. Maaa!

Neko’s Thinkbox

Wah. I was pretty much fired up before watching this episode, and only the opening sequence was enough to make me bite my lip, not to start weeping. But this episode soon cooled me off, somewhat. Well, from the preview in episode 09, I already imagined this episode wouldn’t be very eventful, a romance scene only. But back then, I actually had imagined something more emotional, if not daring. Like… sigh, I keep repeating myself, but since it most likely is the end of the ARIA series, we might never see the both of them together like this. So I would perhaps have expected a confession, a few heartful hugs, if not a kiss! :X Heck, they were really close this time!
On a side note…Well. I’m not saying I am disappointed about this, actually, I’m somewhat glad that they didn’t kiss. I do like Aika pretty much (she still is my favorite girl of ARIA so far), and I wouldn’t have wanted to see her kiss Al ._.
A-anyway! I don’t care! Aika is stupid! Why, she can be so tsun sometimes, but in moments like these, she is much too dere to do it properly…
This said, I wonder why her stomach was growling though. Usually in anime code, that’s a sign that someone is being hungry – but didn’t she stuff herself with dangos previously? So… Perhaps she didn’t digest them properly? Hahaha… :|

Well yeah, long story short, the preview of this episode somewhat already showed everything of the episode. The more I progressed into this episode, the more predictable it became: knowing my Aika, it had to turn out like this, period. Add to this an unusual number of old and reused clichés, like, they are alone, she doesn’t dare, he is too naive to notice, they come very close, grumble grumble, mood is ruined, and someone shows up at the worst moment. I don’t know, I didn’t particularly like that, it somewhat threw me off my usual ARIA mood. Of course, I did laugh and get nervous and emotional etc, but it all felt somewhat like a déjà-vu, there isn’t any kind of revolution or new thing here. Sadly.

Still, it was pretty satisfactory that Al took Aika’s hand, and somewhat acknowledged her feelings. That made Aika happy, and me as well.

Hmm, I now mainly focused on Aika’s and Al’s adventures, totally omitting the rest… Well, Alice… yeah, She obviously was a bit overwhelmed with all the new things she has to face now that she is a Prima. She had several customers on her first day already and often had to make compromises in order to please them (knowing our Alice, it must’ve been very difficult for her). She didn’t look very satisfied when she finished working, and it almost felt as if she was out of place, or so. Her promotion was sudden, and I guess she will have to get used to that kind of life in order to appreciate her work.

The preview to the next episode looked a bit grim for Alice though, I wonder… it’s storming out there, and she doesn’t look all that happy either. I have my thoughts, but I guess it’s impossible so I’ll just keep shut about it. The rest, well, it’s Akira teasing Aika, and… in the current pace of things (holy crap, only three episodes left????), I think this is a premonition to the next big event in this series… Oh gosh, I think I will not survive the end.

Screenshots:

Preview screenshots:

The next Prima…?

Peshi peshi peshi…dekkai?