Aaaand, we’re back. Sorry for the downtime, seems like all of animeblogger.net hosted blogs were down for most of the day. To make up for it, ARIA post! Almost a full two weeks late…meh.

Episode Rating: 9.5/10

Things are starting to get busy at ARIA Company, Alicia getting so many bookings that it seems like a free day is a far off dream for her. It makes Akari start to wonder how much help she’s being to ARIA Company. Alicia insists she’s helping her a lot already, but Akari wants to do more, but unfortunately can’t help as much as she’d like as a single. Alicia asks how her practice is going, Akari says that Aika and Alice are busy the next day so they’re taking it off. With a free day, Alicia suggests that Akari try rowing a traghetto, basically a large gondola that acts as a ferry, taking two undines to row it.

The next day, Akari arrives at the place where they assign traghetto routes to undines, excited, she spaces out during roll call, snapping out of it just in time to meet the team she’ll be working with: Atora and Anzu from Orange Planet and Ayumi from Himeya.

Since it’s Akari first time rowing a traghetto, the other three decide to let her watch as they do the first rounds, one of them staying back to explain things. But rather than explaining the workings of the traghetto, the conversations begin to drift to talks of becoming a prima.

Atora is the first to stay back and explains that Anzu, who has been acting a little depressed, just failed her Prima promotion test a while ago, and it’s not the first time she’s done so. Prima tests are carried out by a direct senior, so everyone’s is different, the test is on a completely different level than the one to become a single, and the senior in charge of Anzu and Atora is particularly strict.

Next to stay back is Ayumi, who also starts to talk about how hard becoming a Prima looks to be. But it’s not particularly important for her, since she plans on staying a single and continue to specialize in traghetto rowing. Usually it’s a backup for singles who are unable to become prima, but Ayumi loves the traghetto and how it’s just as good for getting involved in the city and its people, plus the money it pays isn’t bad.

And finally, Anzu is rotated out and has a talk with Akari, starting off as a long awkward silence but soon trailing off into talks of becoming a prima. She’s disappointed that she failed the prima promotion test again, but says that she’ll get over it, train hard and keep trying over and over again. She then wonders about Akari and her goals, she tells Anzu that she’s no different and wants to become a prima as well, but thinks she doesn’t have the skill to do so yet, since Alicia hasn’t brought up the promotion test. But one thing she is sure of, when the day comes, if she happens to fail it, she will continue to challenge it over and over again, just like Anzu.

Finally, it’s Akari’s turn to row the traghetto, although a little nervous at first, she calms herself down and begins to row. The other three are surprised, Anzu, who is rowing with her and even Ayumi and Atora off to the sides immediately recognize her skill. The dayflies by, customers coming and going, the four of them rotating turns, having a fun time rowing and mixing with the locals.

As the day winds down and the traghetto route closes, the four finish up by sending the day’s earnings back to the main office and cleaning the gondola. Akari is happy to see that, like her, they respect and take good care of the gondola. But nevermind that, everyone else is amazed at how skillful Akari was, despite it being her first time rowing a traghetto. Regardless of how many passengers they carried she was always able to maintain balance and keep the ride steady and stable. Akari modestly thanks them for the praise, in which they go as far as saying Akari may be a prima by the time they next meet. Anzu is jealous, but congratulates her all the same.

Then, Atora starts to wonder if she and Anzu will ever become primas under the guide of such a strict senior who doesn’t acknowledge them no matter how hard they practice. She wonders if she should just become specialized in traghetto rowing like Ayumi, but Ayumi won’t have it, she knows how much Atora wants to become a prima and guide people around the city. Anzu says she understands how Atora feels, the sadness that comes after failing the exam, but knows that she can’t give up, that she has to continue working hard to get better, because that’s all she can do, you can’t change other people so all that’s left is doing your best to change yourself. Akari agrees, saying it’s never too late to pick yourself up and try again, and that it’s only over when you yourself give up.

As the four of them head home and part ways, Akari thinks over the things the events of the day, her brief experience with rowing a traghetto, which is training to some and a full time job to others as well as her meeting with three new friends, who are all walking forward in their own ways. Becoming a prima may be a difficult path, but she’ll keep walking forward, no matter how far off the goal, it’ll be fine as long as she keeps moving towards it. And so she returns to ARIA Company, greeting Alicia and President Aria, her usual cheerful self.

Thoughts

Yet another episode that shows off Akari’s latent ability to help people, with plenty of her super deformed faces and “Hai~” catchphrase along the way.

I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but once again I’m amazed at how different human interaction is in the ARIA universe. A common cause of loathing in this world comes from gaps in skill, I’m sure many of you had the experience of trying your hardest at something only to have someone come along and completely one up you, seemingly effortlessly. In high school I was the guy doing the one upping and in university when the bar was raised, I got to experience the opposite, it’s quite frustrating. And that’s exactly what happened in this episode, Anzu, Ayumi and Atora are experienced undines, far more so than Akari when it comes to the traghetto, yet the difference in skill became apparent seconds after she took to the oar. Yet, no bitterness, the three of them were genuinely impressed and happy for Akari. Mind boggling.

Akari’s modesty is another thing I found interesting in this episode. She seemed genuinely unaware of her current skill level. Perhaps it’s because she’s only trained with Aika and Alice, undines under the instruction of the other two great water faeries, but Akari seemed veritably oblivious of how good she is. And I realized that the reason for this is one that was echoed way back in episode one, when everyone was over at ARIA company the juniors commented at how long the path to catching up to the water faeries was, and they responded by saying that the path is endless, since they will always be striving to improve, as they should.

The logic can be modeled mathematically, a typical learning curve begins gradually, then suddenly increases exponentially, inflects, decreases exponentially and trails off asymptotically. The reason why Anzu and Atora are having trouble is because they set an end point, their ultimate goal is to become prima, and with that mentality, they would have stopped there, which acts as a boundary to the curve. Contrast to that, Akari just practices, Alicia never brought up the prima test so the thought never even crossed her mind. The result is that Akari’s learning curve is boundless, she won’t experience a sudden epiphany of skill, rather her progress will be more gradual, but it will not be impeded by an end point.

Lolikit put it more elegantly by saying that

It’s about being better. Akari’s focus on being (rather than getting promoted) is apparent in her skill level—she is much more skilled than the other three, yet she hasn’t yet considered taking the test.

tl;dr: Akari is awesome.

Next episode looks like we’ll finally be getting some Aika and Alice screen time. Although it’ll be a little saddening to not have as much Akari, the other characters in ARIA are amazing in their own ways and I look forward to seeing them again.

Aika-chaaan. Wait, what?

~ Shirukii~