Hidan no Aria AA – 03
Avast! It’s a pirate prince and fairy princess Amica!
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Boom! Three AA posts in a week! Yummy! This episode concentrates on the supporting cast of Reika and Shima. But it doesn’t forget to give us some more depth in Akari’s story. Also, no one trusts Riko… |
The Art of the Amica
Shima thinks, “I need more giraffes”
Well, Shima certainly has interesting dreams that much is for certain. But it’s all there to establish one of the defining traits of most Butei, and that’s stalking, uh I mean, surveillance, as this is one princess in search of her prince, and Raika fit’s that bill for her. Just don’t ask about the giraffe toys. Well, maybe you should, seeing as how your life and limb may depend on it. But soon after that cold open – which the show is riding high on for all three episode so far with dreamers and their crushes – we are into the proper introduction of Butei assessment.
Shino (155 cm) on the M4, Raika (165 cm) on the FAL, and Akari (139 cm) on the P90?
It all starts of school-life enough, with basic weights and measurements. But in this school things are much more hand to hand. Time to kick senpai’s ass. To put it short and mild, Aria kicks all their collective asses. But I don’t think the famed writer Arthur Doyle, or the semi-famous engineer Barton-Wright had twin-tails in mind for self defense with either baritsu or bartitsu. But it was nice to see a Holmes reference in conjunction with Aria, regardless of it’s goofiness; one of the charms I love about this franchise. This is more than Taiga with Guns.
But these are raw recruits when all is said and done, and they’ve got a mountain to climb, yet Raika does manage to come out on top in physical form and fortitude, in addition to being stalked, uh, surveilled, sparking Shima’s part in the story. But all this isn’t without a wrinkle for both her character and the story-line. For Raika, kicking a man’s ass is far easier and cleaner than having to deal with the back-talk. Sure it comes from a hot-headed stupid dude who can’t reconcile being beaten by a stronger opponent, but the insult still cuts her deep.
She’s been hiding those sorts of mental cuts for so long, and perhaps a little too well, that even her best friend in Akari can’t pick up on it; a state of affairs that Akari will be forced to look at in way other than just this one. We’ve had three stories so far show how the awareness of others and their surrounding can shape perception, something that Akari has trouble with, speaking a great deal about her potential characterization. But Shima and Aria can sense Raika’s ill at ease attitude, one underscored by a chance ruin in with Riko of all people. This stops Raika in her thoughts, and she wishes to be that type of pretty instead of the awesome pretty she already is. In that case the grass is only greener over the septic tank, Raika, as Riko is pure trouble.
Akari Warnings
But then we swing back to Akari and her troubles. After spying Aira getting cozy with cameo-character Kinji, her jealousy radar starts to kick in hard; so hard it derps her stalking, uh, surveillance, uh well let’s say common sense. So she follows him, badly. Kinji gets the drop on her soon enough and finds out the score. First, Akari doesn’t appreciate that Aria wants him as a partner and he is just all no-bro about it, and second, suspicions always follow a late time school transfer. Every anime trope screams something being up.
This will dovetail into what Aria is going to learn later on about her possible Amica partner. Akari is a blank slate in many ways. She claims to come from a regular sort of background, and that might even be true, but sometimes a background can be too clean. Before this goes any further, a sly wind gets the drop on both Akari and Kinji…one that I wonder if it tripped Kinji’s Casanova sense? I loved that bit with Fuma dropping out of nowhere and diving in to save him.
The Prince and the Princess
After this we pick up Raika’s part of the story. Shima formally asks her to form an Amica, and Raika flatly refuses her. But the wily princess finds a hole in her armour in just mentioning that Riko had a temporary one with her just last year. Soon, Raika overhears the guys of Butei ranking the girls of their class by looks, and they are putting her near bottom. She tries to shrug it off, but Akari knows something is up by now. It’s getting to her but Raika does have a way of coping with the stress, and it’s actually effective and interesting. Girly Cosplay! Why she want’s to keep this a secret is probably shy teenager vibes. This is something Shima is further able to exploit. Raika can depend on Akari to keep this a secret, but it’s gonna take more to keep the princess quiet.
To put it short and mild, Shima’s playing Raika like a symphony and pretty much overwhelms her prince – Raika gives in without much of a fight. I think the combination of the pretty lolita school uniform, how much Shima really wanted to form the Amica, and Raika’s need to be needed for who she is, decided the fight before it even began. Or maybe it was Jonathan #3. I told you to look out for those giraffe…So now the two are officially a partnership, and it looks like Raika is going to have her hands full as this princess can probably pack more than a cute punch. It’s just to bad Riko had to come back and add a spoiler to the cute moments. Yeah, who didn’t think she was up to something plot-worthy?
For my money, pretty gothic lolita pretty much beats anything….going all the way back to Coyote Ragtime Show
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Well, I’m still pretty much taken by this show. They’ve packed a lot of characterization into it in short order, and I like the combination of Akari’s mysterious past, and how her own nakama is being built around her shaky piece by shaky piece. Shima is dogged in her pursuit of a partner so much that has to be a plot point for later on; one that might have some ugly legs. That’s a shame as the two of them are adorable together. But we’ve got more story to get into, and it looks like next episode we are on the first of a two part story. I wonder if this one is going to tie into the previous series. As of now, I can’t tell if Aria AA is running parallel to it or is after it. LN and Manga folk, clue me in! Ah well, three in and we’ve got a good building point for the meat of the story.
I’ll see you then…
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
The information I can gather suggests that this series is running parallel to the previous one. Aria used the paraglider that Akari sewed up in some particularly notable case from the previous series, or so folks have told me. The manga mankes an offhand reference to it, in a way that implies that it’s a shout-out that folks who knew the other series would know.
Between the previous episode and this one I went and read teh translated chapters of the AA manga. One thing that disappoints me is that they completely cut out Kirin’s introductory story, eliminating the explanation for WHY she’s fallen so hard for Raika, and removing a lot of the depth of her character. I think she comes off a lot better in that story, using her intelligence and cunning in a positive way, and the various other girls also get chances to shine (although Akari also screws up and almost ruins everything before managing to recover and try to fix things).
If you can you should track down the AA manga and read the tanslated chapters. There aren’t a lot of them, and we’re actually already past the point where the translations stop, so you don’t need to worry about spoiling yourself for the future of the anime. I think it would be good for you to see Kirin’s introduction the way it was supposed to be. It’s the one big change the anime’s made that I think was a mistake: every other notable change they’ve made so far has been for the better, I believe.
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Please pay no attention to the typos. I typed this up in rather a bit of a hurry.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…oh that’s fine…
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Thanks for the input! I read one blurb when researching the FI that had me convinced this story takes place much later. But now, it’s starting to fit as a parallel story.
Yes, that’s a point I touched on the last post with Shino and Akari, just feels forced when finesee should have done the trick. Same thing here with Shima Kirin and Raika. Shima comes off as bratty and petulant, so more depth would have done a great deal of good. I mean, one the levels I point out, the relationship kinda works. So they didn’t do that bad.
The scanlations are currently on my tablet. Something I haven’t touched in quite some time. I have a wicked heavy backlog by now…darn thing updates all the time!
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
Hmm… yes, there were bits in Shino’s portrayal that made her feel… more sympathetic, I think. I mean, she’s still yandere and creepy, but I could feel how she’d been driven to that point due to it seeming like (from her perspective) the one person who was really a friend to her was suddenly leaving her, abandoning all the things they had had together as friends, all the things that had brought them together in the first place, leaving her alone. She was hurting a lot, and that came across better in the manga. That doesn’t excuse her for going crazy, but I can still empathize with her.
I forgot that there was one other notable omission from this episode. In the manga Fuuma confronted Akari while Akari was trying to tail Kinji. When Fuuma identified herself, not only did Akari immediately recognize Fuuma as a ninja clan, she dropped into a defensive stance, as if she was expecting to be attacked.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Yeah, I like that bit about Fuuma confronting Akari at one point. But that might sacrifice that cool moment she just popped outta nowhere to help Kinji. It was a cute ninja move, best I can describe it…
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Is this SoL or is this action? Because it is becoming SoL to me…
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I’m currently watching Cosmos and can’t be bothered with the question…
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These episodes are designed to give us a basic introduction to the characters and the setting. Now that our primary cast has been introduced, I believe, judging from the preview, that we’ll be getting into more story-related stuff next episode. How much action will be involved I can’t say… I suspect this series will be less action-focused than its predecessor.
They actually cut out some action scenes from the manga: as I said above, Kirin’s introduction was removed completely from the anime, and that paticular adventure was worth seeing. Undoubtedly nowhere near the scale of the action from the previous series, but still, I liked it.
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While I’m here and thinking of random things to comment on… (because I should be in bed right now, but… meh.)
An accidental encounter on an image search leads me to believe that Akari’s gun may actually be an HK G11
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That looks much closer, the HK. I have to admit, if my link didn’t point it out, that my gun knowledge comes from anime…
…and yeah, I should be in bed as well, but like I said, I’m grooving on NDGT’s Cosmos right now; currently crossing the event horizon of a black hole. Trippy….