Halfadeckshort on May 8, 2010 · in Arakawa Under the Bridge

Summary:

The episode picks up where the last one left off, with a bloodied Sister laying at the feet of the triumphant Maria. Enduring several more barbs, Sister makes his way to his cart where he again collapses, putting his fate in the hands of Recruit who finally figures out that he was brought along for the singular purpose of carting Sister out of the fray. On the way back to the bridge, as Sister tells Recruit of his days as a mercenary and how he was trained to resist torture, Ric realizes that Sister has feelings for Maria, and Sister literally tries to crawl into a hole to escape.

The egg/milk mission complete, Recruit heads over to the vegetable garden to get more provisions for Stella’s welcoming party. He is “greeted” by Paprika, P-ko to her friends, who accuses him of being a ninja due to his ability to evade her clever trap: a line of banana peels that Ric proceeds to trample in both word and deed. Outraged by Recruit’s dismissal of her trapping skills, P-ko demonstrates their efficacy (and her extreme klutziness) with disastrous results, and the two get into an argument that is interrupted by the arrival of Nino. When Paprika learns that Ric is Nino’s lover she immediately pronounces him unfit for the role, but as with most of the other under-bridge residents, she acknowledges that Nino has chosen him and tries to make a peace offering, which Recruit predictably disses. After several more false starts they reach a cease-fire, and Recruit notices that P-ko has more than a passing interest in the Chief (and his cucumber).

Finally it’s the day of Stella’s welcoming party, and everyone comes out for the festivities. The Chief announces that Stella was named by Sister, so there is no need to change her name, and she charms the group (except for Recruit) with her cute introductory speech. During the course of the party it is revealed that everyone who lives under the bridge, with the exception of Recruit and Whitey, has a job, or a skill that they lend to the other residents for free. Maria, never one to pass up a perfect chance for a little ill-natured skewering, lets Ric know its okay for him to just go on leeching because that’s his nature. Recruit, returning to full-up Kou mode, is unable to admit the fact that he is a leech even though he really hasn’t contributed much to the community. That night he has a dream in which his father tells him that their next big export is leeches, and he wakes to find Hoshi outside his door practicing his new leech song. Letting Hoshi know that he’s not the only musician under the bridge, Recruit busts out his violin and challenges Hoshi to a musical duel.

Reaction:

This was a pretty fun episode, with all the side character antics and the extremely abridged version of The Old Man and the Sea, but it proved once again that my timing is totally off in regards to this show. Samuel L. Jackson joke? One episode too early. Holy Hand Grenade joke? One episode too early. Miyuki Sawashiro fanboy confession (sensing a pattern here)? Also one episode too early, as this time around we got a Maria-centric OP filled with Miyuki goodness and more of Maria’s sweet-sounding, yet wonderfully evil, insults. Though I suspect we’ll be back to our normal OP next week, this pink-haired change of pace was both an entertaining diversion and a signal that the rest of the episode would go a slightly different direction than the last few, with less time spent on Nino/Recruit relationship progression and more focus placed on some of the side characters.

Sister’s revelation that he was a mercenary was not very surprising, given his affinity for guns and drill-sergeant style sermons, but the fact that he has fallen for the acidic Maria was news to me (though Blindability called it last week). His reaction to her words is collapse followed by an urgent need to crawl into a hole, but I don’t think that the situation is entirely hopeless as Maria finds his prostrate form extremely cute. As long as he wears his feelings, and copious amounts of blood, on his sleeve I’m sure she will continue to find him amusing despite her protests to the contrary.

The other (new) unrequited love in the episode was P-ko’s crush on the Chief. Growing his favorite cucumbers (don’t think for a second that it’s a coincidence that kappas are also green) while she yearns for him to pollinate her garden, Paprika has an advantage when compared to Sister in that the target of her affections isn’t openly hostile and, indeed, he appears to enjoy the fruits (or vegetables, rather) of her labor. While I don’t expect the heat in this relationship to be turned up any time soon (despite Paprika’s spicy name and love of peppers), I expect that we’re going to see a lot more of cute embarrassed P-ko in the future.

With all these instances of frustrated love under the bridge it’s no wonder that almost everyone feels a bit of hostility toward Recruit, who didn’t have to work at all to obtain a relationship with Nino. And though no one calls him out on this directly (this time), the whole discussion of Recruit’s lack of a job is an indirect attack on his privileged position. The fact that he then tries to point his finger at Star and then Whitey, rather than exploring the ways in which he could be useful to others in the community, is an indicator of how far he still has to go toward taking responsibility for himself. Even so, Recruit wasn’t entirely without some positive progress this time around as he is starting to pay attention to the feelings of those around him (except for poor Whitey) much like he did in the last episode with Nino.

The next episode should be amusing with Hoshi and Recruit hamming it up in an area in which both seem to have extreme confidence, and hopefully we get a little “The Devil Went Down to Arakawa” (Guitar Hero III style). For now though I’ll leave you with a couple rejected captions omake haiku. Until next time.

Omake Haiku:

It may sound corny
But I really wish you would
Just lend me your ear.

…

She’s dying to ask
If he’d like some Paprika
On his cucumber.