Aww, Aika was such a cute and innocent loli, I wonder what happened. I suppose all employees of Himeya eventually become brash and sarcastic beings, which is fine too, Akira and Aika wouldn’t be themselves without their straightforward attitudes.

Episode Rating: 8.5/10

Akari, Aika and Alice are wandering around a market looking for a bakery that just opened in the area. Suddenly they hear a familiar and beautiful voice, Athena passes through with her trademark song serenading everyone into a state of blissful calm. Right after she passes by a gust of wind blows a young girl’s hat away, luckily Alicia happens to be passing by, smoothly reverses the direction of her gondola and glides alongside the hat until its within an arm’s reach, all to the applause of everyone looking on.

Akari et al. eventually find the bakery and when they sit down to eat the conversation quickly turns to how amazing Alicia and Athena are, Aika noting that if they had skills like theirs they’d be primas in no time. But Alice reminds her that Athena’s singing voice and Alicia’s grace are not something anyone can achieve, they’re genius traits that they were born with. This gets Aika thinking, what about Akira, who doesn’t possess any unique god given gifts…

It doesn’t help Aika’s mood when she starts to draw a parallel to her very own situation, seeing Alice’s natural aptitude for gondola maneuvering and Akari’s natural ability to befriend anyone and anyone. Contrast to herself, what natural talents does she possess?

When she returns to Himeya’s dorm she finds Akari cleaning, something she’s been doing for the past couple days without much progress apparently. More forcibly than of her own free will, Aika starts to help out. In the midst of the mess she finds an old photo album of Akira’s. Flipping through the pages she notices a picture where Alicia and Athena were primas but Akira was still a single. The photo album a major nostalgia bomb, Akira laughs it up, but Aika asks her how she can laugh about it, the same Akira she knows who hates to lose, laughing over such a picture.

Akira tells her that she just needed more time than the others to become a prima, that’s all. Sure it was painful to be the only one left a single, but Alicia and Athena were her friends and were behind her the whole time. Aika still doesn’t understand how she managed to stay so strong back then and persevere.

It was soon after Athena had become a prima, despite putting up a front, Akira was pained inside, feeling isolated from the Alicia and Athena. Sitting by a garden she noticed a bed of clovers, just normal three leaf clovers, no special four leaf ones, just like her, normal, nothing special, no exceptional talents. Suddenly, a young Aika, with no idea who she is, comes up to her asking if she’s looking for four leaf clovers. After looking for a second, Aika gives up, instead doing something rather surprising, she makes her own. Taking a petal from a nearby rose, she joins it with a three leaf clover and tells Akira that if you can’t find something, just make it yourself. Innocent these words may have sounded to the young Aika, but Akira realized her situation is the same, that even if she doesn’t have any god given talents, hard work can cultivate genius.

Tearing up at the beautiful story, Aika has no idea that the young girl was none other than herself. The special four leaf clover that she made was pressed and turned into a bookmark, Akira tells Aika that she can have it, it’s her prized possession and also a charm for becoming a prima. As a bonus, Aika notices the rose petal and figures that’s how Akira got her nickname, the crimson rose.

The next day, Aika is back to her usual energetic self during practice, leaving Akira and Alice thoroughly confused, but happy nonetheless.

Thoughts

Well, I certainly was hoping for some episodes concentrating on some other characters, so I’m happy in that sense, getting some background on Aika and Akira was awesome in its own right. But the moral of this episode was kinda lame, my reasoning for thinking so is kinda stupid, but it’s not an easy one to shake. Out of all anime, this episode reminded me of Naruto. Yea…you heard me.

You know back when it didn’t suck as hard as it did now, in the Chuunin arc, Neji and Naruto had the whole conversation of predetermined fate and set skill levels, and it was echoed later on with Neji and Lee. It may sound like a trivial comparison, but the fact that ARIA echoed a moral lesson done in Naruto put me off quite a bit.

Aside from that, it was great, exactly what I expect of ARIA. It was awesome hearing Athena’s song again, now I don’t have to dig up my NATURAL dvds just to hear her sing anymore! Alicia was absolutely amazing this episode too, the exaggeration of the subtle movements she used to turn the gondola around like that were awe inspiring, much like how they portrayed Akari’s rowing last episode. Alicia, more than any of the other undine, makes me want to fly out to Venice and experience a gondola ride first hand, just to see how it compares.

On that note, Alice has some pretty crazy skills herself. Look at the angle she had to work with in the shot above! That’s madness, there’s barely any clearance. We need more Alice centric episodes, she’s my third favourite undine, just below Alicia, there is a serious lack of her SD faces and “dekkai _____ desu” catchphrase.

And finally, Akari, as wonderful as ever this episode, showcasing her befriending skills that, dare I say, surpass Nanoha’s (since, you know, she doesn’t beat them into submission first). I also loved the bit about her uniform change becoming a part of summer in Neo Venezia, a nice throwback to her sentiments in episode three.

Hmm…looks like my thoughts are being preempted, judging from the preview, next episode looks to be an Alice centric one. Until next week, or whenever subs come out ;_;

“I have a ponytail moe”

~ Shirukii ~