Tsuritama – 08

All the cards are out on the table now, just remains to be seen what Tsuritama does with them in its final quarter.  The overall plotline remains very simple in this show, but it is framed beautifully with great writing and likable characters – even set up episodes like this one are enjoyable to watch.

Akira finally straight out asks Haru & Coco what they’re up to, and surprisingly enough they’re happy to give him a straight answer.  The siblings have come to earth to retrieve one of their kind who’s been getting a bit too big for his boots and stirring up trouble with the earthlings.  The whole fishing obsession stems from them needing to remove the sea-god from the water to subdue him – these aliens use water as a means of communication, but when they come into contact with humans this results in mind control – something the sea-god seems to be having a bit too much fun with given all those boats being taken over by the Enoshima dance!  It’s a nice straight-forward story that will rely on interesting writing & animation to make it an entertaining watch – something I am sure Tsuritama will pull off.

I am surprised that Haru & Coco were so open with Akira, given Haru was so actively frightened of him earlier in the series.  Granted both Akira and Haru have changed through contact with Natsuki  and Yuki, but I didn’t expect to see Haru speaking so easily with Akira this soon.  However as a direct consequence of this, Akira’s superiors clearly think he’s been compromised and have him detained.

It will be interesting to see what Akira does now – while he doesn’t believe Haru & Coco mean any harm, he also doesn’t like the idea of unsuspecting people getting caught up in their issues.  With Akira no longer having the backing of Duck, he’ll be forced to side with Haru & co instead – both sides have the same goal of subduing the sea-god, but there is bound to be a clash since Duck are clearly willing to use extreme measures.

This episode also pretty much resolved Natsuki’s family issues as well as addressing some of Yuki’s issues, so aside from knowing next-to-nothing about Akira’s past, all the boys are very well fleshed out and comfortable with each other.  I’d imagine Natsuki finally removing the stick from his arse and being a bit more accepting of his father’s new relationship, was influenced by Yuki’s admittance that he was jealous of Natsuki having a family.

Yuki has always been startlingly honest and very straightforward, he doesn’t really hide his feelings at all and once he sets his mind to something, he does it.  I found Yuki’s talk with both Natsuki and Keito to be very touching – Yuki has really changed since coming to Enoshima and you can clearly see that the friendships he’s made there mean the world to him.  Now if only Yuki would stop setting off more death flags for Keito……..seriously she’s plastered in the things!

The fishing competition was a nice bit of fun, but I do not approve of them cutting off all Natsuki’s hair!  I liked his birds-nest of a hairdo!  This is probably the last bit of light-hearted fishing we’ll see and I’m actually going to miss it – watching these four just mess about and tease each other makes me smile like an idiot.

So everything should start kicking off next week, there’s been tons of foreshadowing that the boys will end up playing a major role in tackling the sea-god, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens next!