Summary:
Masamichi is cheerfully watching Minamo have a fat-dream, when he notices she is about to get stung. This brings him back to his childhood, but when he tries to shoo the bee away from the sleeping Minamo he finds his old feeble body has failed him. As Minamo wakes up and goes with Masamichi to a pseudo-aquarium, Masamichi reminisces about his childhood.
We see a young Masamichi in a developing city where his parents (Masamura and Noriko) get harassed by yakuza. That’s no big deal though, since everyone has to evacuate the place in the global calming, right before the city sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Later we get a synthesizer-backed montage of Masamichi being inspired by dolphins to go diving all the time, and eventually hook up with people like Eiichiro and Youko (Minamo’s granny) to start building the infrastructure for the Metal. Masamichi is a bit bitter about how he’s old and shriveled now, but Minamo cheers him up and he realizes that he can still dive and look young in the Metal.
Reaction:
Not that much happened in this episode, but it was interesting to see what Masamichi was like growing up. His montage painted quite the picture, with many species going extinct and parts of Japan being sunk in the ocean. We also learned that Minamo is an ace boomerang thrower, but most aboriginals are living in the cities now. Clearly mankind has come a long way from life as we know it now.
I really like the dynamic between Masamichi and Minamo. Minamo doesn’t have a cyberbrain or any diving experience in the Metal; this piggybacks off how she cannot swim in real water either. And yet, she is the one who keeps Masamichi safe and grounded when he’s in the Metal. I wonder if this is a thematic message about how that which is natural can keep us safely tethered even as we advance technologically. On a different note, I just realized that after the ED there are very short cryptic clips. I can’t believe I didn’t notice them before, but they don’t really make much sense to me most of the time.
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Awwww, I still remember that I wanted to warn you that there’s always something after the ED but I assumed you had already noticed or heard about it. These aren’t the usual previews but rather (increasingly cryptic) prologues for the next episode.
Well, that’s what you get for skipping the ED. The subs using Matroska as container usually have chapters, so that you can safely skip OP/ED without accidentally missing some of the rest.
I almost always skip the previews and the ED when I watch anime. I’ve had bad experiences with some series having super-spoilery previews. Marathoning the previews was really odd, and even though I had already seen the episodes the previews were still mysterious.