Accurate depiction of myself after an episode of ARIA

Only a week behind this time, I’m catching up!

Another wonderfully calming episode of ARIA, just what I needed to relieve the stress of Mondays and the daily grind of everyday life in general.

Episode Rating: 9/10

We’re treated to some individual character development this week as Akari receives a job request through ARIA, despite being a single. Apparently it’s been a while since she’s been in charge of a guide so she spends the whole night mapping out her route and researching various trivia about Neo-Venezia. The next day she first heads out for her daily practice with Alice and Aika, who are surprised, to say the least, that Akari received a job request all of a sudden. They begin to worry that the customer may be a troublemaker who enjoys toying with singles or perhaps one of the rumored surprise inspectors who gauge the skills of singles and demote them to pairs if they fail to meet expectations.

Those fears are mostly laid to rest, however, when the customer turns out to be a pleasant looking old lady, Amaranta, who carries a friendly demeanor. But still, Aika and Alice take it upon themselves to follow Akari on her job, more out of curiosity than anything, Alicia is also invited to accompany Akira and Amaranta on their tour. The entire tour route is left up to Akari’s discretion, Amaranta asking her to show her a Neo-Venezia only she is capable of portraying. However, as Akari’s checklists of hidden gems in Neo-Venezia get checked off one by one, she is continuously surprised by Amaranta, who has already seen most of her unique attractions, often one upping Akari by showing her something new in the area she wasn’t aware of.

As their time together winds down, Akari shows Amaranta one last place, a beautiful back garden of a monastery which had been submerged after the planet’s water level rose and continued to grow despite being unattended.

But yet again, Akari is outdone as Amaranta leads her through a nearby passageway to a clearing between buildings draped by wisteria flowers, which are usually not in bloom yet, but due to the area being bathed in sunlight and shielded from wind, grow earlier than usual. Aika and Alice stumble into the clearing soon after and are quickly spotted by Akari and her customer.

Afterwards, Akari feels a little depressed that Amaranta had already seen the places she brought her to, and apologizes. But Amaranta isn’t disappointed at all, despite having been to all the sites before, she enjoyed her time with Akari and will always remember her tour because it was one prepared with all of Akari’s heart and brought out her love for Neo-Venezia. Amaranta then reveals that she has always enjoyed riding with singles, seeing the new generation of undine growing up. Alicia admits that when she was a single she guided Amaranta once as well, she’s even been with Athena and Arika too.

Akari thanks Amaranta for the opportunity to be her guide and asks that she let her guide her once more when she becomes a full fledged prima. After seeing her off she Akari turns to Alicia and says that she will continue to work hard to become a good prima and thanks Aqua for watching over her today.

Thoughts

Huh…I thought singles weren’t allowed to take on paying customers? Or…am I just imagining things. I could have sworn that it was a point made during one of the first two seasons that only primas were allowed to guide customers. Meh, oh well, whether it’s another case of my terrible memory or the first time I’ve seen retconning in the ARIA series, doesn’t really matter.

It never ceases to amaze me how nice the people in Neo-Venezia are. On Amaranta’s side of things, if I went on a tour expecting to be shown a unique side of a town, I’d be pretty annoyed if I were shown the same old scenes I’ve seen before. But I suppose there’s not much to be said on this side, the woman was well versed in Neo-Venezia, she even gave Alicia some surprises. Akari sure took things in stride though, I consider myself a pretty patient person, but if I had been in her position I would have thrown in the towel halfway through and offered Amaranta my job.

Then again, Neo-Venezia has continuously been depicted as a place with non-existent crime rate and a general lack of anger in general. I bet if you left your gondola unguarded outside, you’d come back to find it covered with flowers and a friendly note reminding you to cherish your belongings, instead of…you know, theft. It’s like the entire city is high on morphine or something, I wish there existed such a place in modern society.

Anyways, great to see some individual character development for Akari, who is my favourite character of the ARIA cast. With the manga finished, I wonder how far ARIA the ORIGINATION will go in terms of developing the story, it’s only 13 episodes so I doubt they’ll be able to finish it. Though they might get to the part where Show ▼

I’m hoping they don’t finish it so we can get another season, because there can never be enough ARIA. Ever.

Dekkai hazukashi desu

~ Shirukii ~