Arakawa Under the Bridge – 03

This week Kou needs to deal with the fall-out of his announcement that he’s Nino’s lover.

Kou notes that when its cold Nino sleep-walks (climbs?) to his room where its more comfortable to sleep, and that this has been going on for a while.  One morning Hoshi happens to see Nino climbing down from Kou’s room – he’s not impressed.

Hoshi immediately enlists the help of Sister in summoning ‘Recruit’ to Confession.  In the confessional (which is rather spacious  – all the confessionals I’ve been in have been glorified cupboards) Kou is faced with Hoshi, who demands answers about the nature of Kou’s relationship with Nino.  To ensure Kou is telling the truth, Sister is brought in.  Apparently one of Sisters many skills is the ability to determine if a person is lying – with 100% accuracy…..the man is just that awesome.

Starting low on the scale, Hoshi first wants to know if Kou and Nino have been on a date yet; which they haven’t.  Kou answers all of Hoshi’s questions triggering numerous mood-swings in the star-headed man, finally ending up with Hoshi questioning Kou’s sexuality once Kou admits he and Nino have yet to do anything remotely couplely.

Spurred on by this revelation Hoshi announces his intention to ask Nino out since Kou is clearly useless when it comes to women.  Having his masculinity and all around perfectness called into question triggers Kou’s usual arrogance and confidence and he sets about planning the perfect first date with Nino.

Kou reflects that Valentines Day was always a near death experience for him.  Being the scion of the powerful Ichinomiya family and a very eligible bachelor he was the target of many women’s affections and thus was always inundated with chocolates.  Of course the weird mentality of the Ichinomiya household meant that Kou couldn’t actually accept any of these chocolates – being indebted to so many women would have killed him well before White Day!  He recalls employing a team just to return the chocolates each Valentines Day!

Suited and booted, Kou heads out to woo Nino – turning up in a sports car, bouquet of roses in hand distracting her from sending little grass boats down the river.

As Kou relates his master plan for the perfect first date using picture cards (involving drives along deserted roads, dinner with the PM and a helicopter ride to watch fireworks), Nino is completely nonplussed thinking that his picture show is what he wanted to show her – leaving Kou a bit lost.

As Kou continues to ask Nino to leave the riverside to go on a date with him, Nino persists in avoiding giving a straight answer falling back on her Venusian story.  Kou realises that she’s using this as an excuse and instead asks her where she wants to go, saying he’ll take her anywhere…..except Venus.

Nino says that she wants to see the river’s mouth to see if her boats have reached the sea. Kou then gives her a dress that he had prepared for their date. His fears that Nino may not know how to put it on are soon laid to rest when Nino appears completely at home in the finery.

The episode is rounded out with a short comedy skit with the Bridge residents which was pretty unfunny, although it seems that the Mayor is actually a bishie under that Kappa suit!

Thoughts: This week the show was stolen by Hoshi and his crazy mood swings – casting Tomokazu Sugita in this role was perfection.  I’ve been missing Sugita’s wild ranting and expressive voice since Gintama ended, but this role is just made for him.

Kou has really adapted well to his life under the bridge – he’s no longer thrown by the residents bizarre appearances and is much more willing to accept things at face value.  Kou also appears a bit less highly strung and is remarkably calm under Hoshi and Sister’s interrigation……until his manhood is called into question – then old arrogant Kou rears his head! 😆

Kou also demonstrates some remarkable understanding of Nino when he realises she’s skirting the issue of leaving the riverside and bringing up Venus as a kind of defense mechanism.  It’s a pity he couldn’t be as grounded when planning his super-date; he couldn’t have planned something less suited to Nino’s extremely grounded personality!  However I do have to applaud Kou’s taste in dresses – that number really suits Nino.  I do wonder what her life before moving Under the Bridge was like……but I sort of don’t want to know at the same time as it may ruin her mystique.

I liked the wee aside prior to the OP this week –

If there is a creator, he surely made this world too large.  This is inconvenient for us small, fearful humans. For all the world’s vastness, we can’t measure the distance between ourselves.  There’s 6 billion of us, yet still….everyone is all alone… That’s why we’re all frantically searching.

For some reason this really touched me – which was unexpected in a gag comedy series……just one of many reasons why I’m liking Arakawa so much – there is depth underneath the gags.

Now to finish some of Hoshi’s best faces this episode!