Tsuritama – 02 & 03

Fishing is serious business.

Sorry for the hold-up! The two of us were up to our neck with final exams and couldn’t find the time to get a post out until now. Rest assured, Metanorn would never let such a fantastic show slip by without having someone blog it. That someone…will be US. Look forward to weekly posts from the unlikely combo of cute and serial killer cool!

As OC mentioned, both of us have been drowning in a sea of exams but we’re glad to be back here again to blog Tsuritama! I like the sound of it! Cute and cool, reporting for duty >D

Episode 2

Yuki Sanada is now officially stuck with a deranged alien. His life is suffering. The two have an eventful day at school together, and it seems as if they’ve earned their reputation for being too weird. Yuki then has the honor of meeting Haru’s alien sister (you previously knew her as the Fish in the Bowl), who happens to be much more aggressive than her older brother. She threatens Yuki and barks at him to pick up his pace in saving the world. Just a normal day in the life of a socially-awkward high school boy.

My little sister can’t be this weird

The two head to Natsuki’s, where they eventually persuade him to teach them fishing.The first thing they actually have to learn is how to tie a uni-knot. It sounds simple, but the fragility of the string is difficult to work with, and Yuki ends up facing major problems but wings it anyway, resulting in the first fish that gets hooked onto his bait to escape. Of course, this also succeeds in pissing Natsuki off. A stressed-out Yuki ends up running away in embarrassment and self-despair.

Meanwhile, we find out more about Natsuki’s family. His mother passed away 2 years ago, and since then his dad has been constantly drinking, and has also started dating other women, much to Natsuki’s disdain. His disapproval for his father’s actions translates into his cold, uncaring attitude towards him, in contrast to his warm smiles to his sister.

Back at Yuki’s place, Haru is unsuccessful in his attempt to persuade Yuki to continue practicing fishing, and has a little chat with grandma. Grandma tells him that true friends don’t do things that would bother each other, and Haru happily nods, promising to leave Yuki alone to clear his head. The next morning, Yuki is all set and geared up for another day of hardcore knot-tying once again, and spends the entire day trying to perfect it. He eventually finds the secret to not breaking the string, and successfully ties a tight uni-knot.

When the school week begins once again, Yuki manages to properly apologize to Natsuki for his behavior during the previous fishing session, albeit with much stammering and sweating, and requests him to teach him once again. And thus, the fishing trio is re-united once again! Back in class, though, there seems to be a new transfer student – while still carrying the adorable duck (which is named TAPIOCA), Akira begins his dramatic self-introduction.

“Hello everybody I’m Akira.” “…” “And this is Tapioca.” “KAWAII! SUGOI! DAISUKI!” #foreveralone

Episode 3

Once again, the trio are hard at work, attempting (and failing) to practice fishing like pros! Natsuki then decides that Yuki and Haru aren’t ready for the ocean at all, and instead make them practice casting the bait into a pail set some distance away – only after Yuki can consistently cast it into the pail, will he allow them to go fishing in the ocean once again. He teaches them to recite a three-beat mantra before they cast… Eno. Shima. DOOOOON!!! They practice until evening once again, and Natsuki leaves Yuki with some knowledge about feathering, a method to control the distance the cast travels, and the three head home. We later find out that the chanting of Enoshima Don, actually used to be a family tradition of Natsuki’s, but he had accidentally allowed it to slip when teaching Yuki and Haru.

ENOOOOOSHIMAAAAA DOOOOOON!

Everyone is obsessed with fishing here.

After Yuki and Haru arrive home, grandma announces that she’ll be admitted into the hospital starting from the next day once again. She smiles and tries to brush it off as no big deal, but Yuki is upset at the fact that she never tells him when she’s feeling unwell. He proceeds to return to his room, sulking and worried.

Now we flash to a scene of Akira, with his team of spies and other weird people, also known as the DUCK organization. They discuss the appearance of Haru and his sister in Enoshima, and Akira also reports that the two can use water to control human minds. His boss-like figure tells him to take care of them, and promptly ends the call… but not before dramatically ending off in a supposed trademark pose while yelling DUCK!

This is a whole new level of badass.

Haru has a talk with grandma once again, and he asks her for the reason why she takes such good care of the flowers, even though they’ll all die someday. Grandma replies with a wide smile, saying that precisely because they will all die someday, she wants them to bloom beautifully while they’re still alive. She then passes him a pot of flowers, and tells Haru to think of them as her, and talk to them whenever he has problems to talk about, or wishes to make. After grandma leaves for the hospital the next day, Haru carelessly repeats grandma’s words the night before – “Everything will die someday.” This gets Yuki worked up and even more depressed than before, and he ends up returning home and drowning his sorrows in bed.

Natsuki and Haru both approach him to do some persuading, urging him to practice casting to help act as a distraction, but Yuki simply chooses to ignore them. However, he gives up in the middle of the night, and runs to the beach. Now determined to get the job done, he casts over and over again despite the stormy weather, and Haru soon joins him – the two begin chanting together, shouting ENOSHIMA DOOOOON against the heavy pitter-patter of the rain. After many, many tries, Yuki eventually manages to land the bait in the pail, and Natsuki catches the sight of his success too – he runs in the rain, hair flying and all, a happy smile unabashedly worn on his face. With this, not only has the bait been cast, but a strong foundation for a touching friendship too.

Feel the rain on your skin, no one else can feel it for you!

Two solid episodes of gay fishing fun!! Tsuritama is still just as charming as it was in episode 1, if not more. It’s nice to see that they were able to take fishing – a sport I would imagine to be extremely boring – and make it so invigorating. I don’t know if the fishing techniques here are correct, but it must have took quite a bit of research to explain fishing in such a technical fashion. Just seeing Yuki tie a knot had me cheering, and I’ve never been so happy to see someone toss something into a bucket in my entire life. It just feels so GOOD to see Yuki succeed! He’s so socially inept that even simple things such as talking to someone and starting a conversation without being provoked are huge leaps for him. It’s nice to see a group of friends take their time to get to know each other instead of automatically becoming friends. It’s less superficial to see them work through their differences and come to an understanding. We still haven’t even fully incorporated Akira into the group yet!

Episode 2 explicitly explained that the watergun is used by Haru to control minds. It seems to be one of his many alien powers. Luckily, he only uses it to learn how to tie knots and to get people to dance with him, so he’s not breaching megalomaniac territory. His sister (who I assume is the fish from Haru’s fish bowl based on her hair pattern) also does the same. She’s a lot more forceful than Haru though, and she really doesn’t like Yuki for some reason. I suspect her developing a slightly different agenda later on because on this. However, they seem to share the goal of finding a human to catch a certain fish that will save the world. Now, is this fish an actual fish, or is this a clever metaphor for something? Why would Haru even need a human to help him? If Haru is the goddess that saves them, then what is the 5-headed dragon that destroys the world? Is the dragon Akira and his DUCK organization? The whole “saving the world” part is surprisingly taking a back seat to learning the ins-and-outs of casting, feathering, and tying knots, so it’s hard to tell right now. I’m..kind of okay with this.

I really like the little glimpses into the family issues of Yuki and Natsuki. I must admit that Yuki’s grandmother is teeth-grindingly optimistic about her health though. It’s hard to tell whether or not she’s actually really sick or Yuki is just making a big fuss, but her permanent smile is rather grating. I understand the sweet little grandma stereotype, but you can make her frown every now and then. It makes her talks with Haru sound like two little kids chatting about the weather. Maybe I’m just allergic to things that are too happy…Anyways, I did feel bad for Yuki. Having a grandmother as your guardian generally means they’re going to die sooner than later. Seeing him work out his depression through fishing was quite a powerful scene. Fishing and friendship prevailed in the end! I think the only time he got his demon-face on in episode 3 was when he was doing his ENOSHIMA DON routine. A vast improvement over flashing that face at every social encounter, I’d say.

As for Natsuki, his mother died 2 years ago, and now his father is dating other women and drinking beer every night. As a result, he dislikes his father and responds coldly to him all the time. He seem to have a negative view of being called the Fishing Prince  because it reminds him of the times he used to fish happily with his dad (and maybe his mom too). He automatically mutters “Enoshima don” when teaching his friends, which was purely a family thing, only to have it picked up by Yuki and Haru. They re-consolidate that phrase into his memory as something new and promising for the future (side note: this is actually a method of treating people with PTSD so they get over their trauma). Natsuki’s whole existence before meeting Yuki seemed to be functional, but very bleak and joyless. Only his little sister could make him smile before, and yet here he was, laughing like a maniac and sprinting in the rain! Seeing these two rise up from the despair of their family life had my heart racing, it just felt so good. Tsuritama is just one of those shows where you actually feel proud of people you don’t even know, and will never know because they aren’t even real. By next week, I’ll probably end up buying a fishing rod and screaming ENOSHIMA DON as I practice in my backyard. I’d better get started!

I LOVE THAT DUCK. Tapioca!~~ <3 *cough* These two episodes were so adorable! I can’t believe I’m saying this but – this anime makes fishing looks like an awesome sport! And that’s coming from me, the eternally-bad-at-sports-forever-unfit character. I surely don’t understand the jargon and the different complex techniques involved, but I now view fishing as a form of art, I never knew you had to have such skills to catch some fish. *Impressed* Although Haru was my favorite character from episode 1, both Yuki and Natsuki have really grown on me these two episodes. Yuki is hilariously awkward in social situations, but he has that strong-willed determination of his when he really puts his mind to it, and I was this close to shouting ganbatte, Yuki! at my computer screen. And Natsuki’s softer side! He’s so different and condescending when talking to his sister it’s funny, but also really sweet. I’m glad the three have become friends, and Natsuki now seems to have another source of happiness too. The dude needs to smile more, it’s charming. xD

Of course, we had little bits of information slotted through the episodes about Haru and his… alienness. Now we know that he can make use of water to control the minds of other humans – a useful power indeed. In episode 3, Haru also mentioned that he couldn’t live without water for long periods of time, and I get the feeling that this may be used against him as the story progresses. Even though Akira didn’t do much this episode, I’m sure he’ll be taking action soon enough. The DUCK organization’s motives are still doubtful, but it’s clear that Akira’s losing his patience – I’d like to see the lengths he would go to to accomplish his mission, although I suspect that in the end he’ll be assisting the trio in saving the world. That conversation between Akira and his gay boss-like figure also brought up the fact that there are other aliens on Earth. Will they be playing a part in this story? Why are there aliens on Earth anyway, and what are their motives for being here? It seems like Haru and his sister are the only ones who know about the upcoming doom that is about to befall Earth if they don’t catch the “fish” (which I’m guessing is probably just a metaphor). I actually think that it might end up just being an object – but an object that holds much importance to both Earth and aliensphere. The lightheartedness of these two episodes has been endearing, but I can’t help but feel like it’s just a prelude to a much darker setting that’s coming up ahead.  Like OC, even though the focus of these two episodes has actually been more on fishing rather than the whole saving-the-world thingum, I still really enjoyed them, and I didn’t think of them as a waste at all.

This show just seems to have a way with invoking emotions of its watchers. I don’t mean the kind of tear-jerking, AnoHana sort of emotions, but even simple things like wanting to cheer Yuki on, or that happy little feeling I got when that smile appeared on Natsuki’s face… In just one episode, we got to experience so many episodes, and the smooth transition from bitterness, to determination, to joyful glee isn’t distracting at all. I’m glad to have emotional rollercoaster condensed into 20 minutes of my week, because studying and rushing out work in real life sometimes just kill your feelings, you know? Tsuritama is the anime of this season that I can truly watch with an uncluttered mind and an open heart. Oh why am I so cheesy.