A mainly Alicia and Alice centric episode and a rare glimpse at the what lies underneath Alicia’s always happy “Ara ara~ hehehe” exterior. She’s always portrayed as the most perfect and gracious of the three water faeries, it was nice seeing the human side of her and the philosophies that make her character.

Episode Rating: 9/10

Akari, Aika and Alice go about their normal training routine when Akari starts to goof off with President Aria, earning her a nice scolding from Aika. Which makes Alice think, what is Alicia like when she scolds Akari? Never having thought about it before, it dawns on Akari that Alicia has never scolded her, actually, Akari can’t even recall and instance where she’s ever gotten angry. Turning the tables, Akari notes that she’s never seen Athena scold Alice before, to which she replies that it’s quite the opposite, she ends up scolding the clumsy Athena instead. Which makes Alice even more curious, if she can scold Athena, one of the great water faeries, why doesn’t Alicia scold Akari?

Not satisfied by mere speculation, Alice starts to spy on Akari and Alicia, wanting to confirm that Akari never gets scolded and the reasoning behind it. Unfortunately, she’s no Solid Snake, and it’s not long before she’s spotted.

But Alice is a persistent one, and keeps observing the two to see how Alicia manages to stay calm all the time. As Akari makes countless mistakes, everything from dropping eggshells into the frying pan, dropping her oar in a moment of distraction, Alicia says nothing. Even when Akari breaks Alicia’s favourite tea cup, all she says is that she was glad no one was hurt. Her kindness even extends to Akari’s duties as an undine, when Akari’s gondola goes floating away in the middle of the night, something that an experienced undine should never let happen, Alicia doesn’t get angry, calmly surveys the situation long enough to see the anchoring rope was cut a foreign object.

Alice continues to wrack her brain trying to think of a way to understand Alicia’s mentality or force her into a position where she would have to scold Akari, but is distracted by the lure of a ice cream parfait at a nearby cafe. Coincidentally, Alicia happens to be having some coffee with President Aria at the same cafe, after joining her, Alicia notes that despite knowing each other for a long time now, this is the first time they have been alone together. After a bit of an awkward silence, Alicia asks Alice if she has something to ask her, saying that she’s noticed her watching her for the past little while. With it out in the open, Alice decides to go ahead and spill it, asking Alicia why she never scolds anyone and never gets angry.

Rather than answer her directly, Alicia decides to go the metaphorical route. She gives President Aria a piece of candy and asks him to deliver it to a girl sitting nearby, while he gets the job done, he plays around on the way, wasting time chasing birds and weaving through the scenery. Alicia congratulates him on a job well done nevertheless and asks him to deliver another candy, this time to a boy sitting nearby, which he does promptly, without any detours.

Alicia explains to Alice that scolding people isn’t her style, if she were to use negative reinforcement with her juniors, they would begin to fear making mistakes, which would most likely lead them to make even more. She goes on to explain that teaching someone and being taught are very similar, through teaching she learns how to become a better teacher, reflecting on her own lack of skill in certain areas as she and Akari progress together, so that at the end, they’ll be able to share their happiness.

Their conversation is cut there as they’re spotted by Akari and Aika, who is rather annoyed at her kouhai for sneaking away for a walk with Alicia. Before their time alone ends, Alicia asks Alice to keep their conversation a secret between them, as it was quite embarrassing, but Alice thinks that there’s no need to hide it, after all, Alicia and Akari are so similar that simply looking at them is enough to make you feel embarrassed. Right after those words escape from her mouth, Alice apologizes for saying something so disrespectful, and asks to be scolded, to which Alicia just smiles.

Thoughts

Alicia-sannnn <3

Another great episode of ARIA based around a simple yet profound moral. The idea that negative reinforcement may cause a person to freeze up in fear of failure is an interesting assertion. Alicia is smart for using such a tactic on Akari, as you can tell by her usual self that if Akari were indeed scolded her clumsiness would intensity tenfold. But I don’t think it’s a method that works for everyone, there are certain people who thrive under pressure and whose true talents are born under the fear of failure. Alicia applies her passive philosophy to everyone, so I think she’s a little flawed in that aspect, but myself belonging to the former of these two character types, I still love her nonetheless.

This episode also gave us quite a bit of background on Alice as well, and her natural curiosity. I didn’t find it much of an attractive point though, she was seriously considering setting up Akari for a huge blunder just to see if Alicia would react to it. Regardless of the fact that Alicia wouldn’t have gotten mad at Akari, she would have been disappointed at herself, had Akari made a huge mistake, nothing good would have come out of it, or at least nothing that would balance out the satisfying of Alice’s curiosity.

But I suppose the end result is what matters, and thankfully Alice didn’t go through with her plan. She’s a great character, everyone in ARIA is, but she can be a little socially awkward at times.

As for the episode itself, without a doubt, the most entertaining scene was the OP scene with Athena and Alice. As soon as I saw the ice cream piling up I knew that Athena would drop it, I lol’d hard when she somehow managed to drop the pizza too.

On that note, the SD certainly was strong in this episode. Alice’s SD face > all, but an Alicia and Akari are fine too. Don’t like Aika’s all that much, probably because of the :3 and its overuse of late.

Well, that’s all for this week. Until next time! (Only a week behind now!)

I can’t believe she Show ▼

~ Shirukii ~