Summary
Haru often
gets on Yuki’s nerves and seems to pass a tipping point when he uses his water
gun to make Natsuki and his dad fish together. However, Natsuki believes that
he’s caused Yuki to loosen him up a bit, and the latter’s able to admit that he
does care about Haru in spite of his goofball antics.
Yuki wants
to get his own fishing rod but has no money, so once summer vacation begins the
trio start working for Ayumi, the captain of a recreational fishing boat. Yuki
proves to seriously lack sea legs at first and is ready to give up after he
fails to help a customer catch a fish, but again he perseveres and begins to
change now that he has friends and something he’s genuinely interested in.
When Kate*
informs the boys she’ll be getting out of the hospital soon, Yuki decides to
try and catch a tuna for her as a present. When they can’t find an available
fishing boat after work Akira offers to let them use his. They end up fishing
near an artificial reef called Akemi, which the locals avoid because another boat
disappeared near it years ago, and despite Ayumi expressly forbidding it. They
spot a gigantic bait ball – a cluster of small fish driven to the surface by
larger prey fish underneath – and successfully catch a tuna, but then it’s abruptly
several hours later and they’re further out than before. Haru suddenly goes
crazy and squirts Natsuki and Yuki with his water gun. Something rises out of the sea, and when the other boys come to
they’re on the shore, Akira waving a flare to get the search party’s attention.
Kate is released from the hospital and the ‘welcome home’ party, at which
Yuki’s tuna is served, is a big success, but Haru now insists he won’t fish
again.
Everyone
goes out fishing for Natsuki’s birthday, but things turn sour when he gets into
an argument with his dad over the latter’s heretofore unannounced (to Natsuki)
plans to diversify the family business. Another boat suddenly comes towards
them – its occupants obliviously doing the Enoshima Dance – and though it
narrowly misses them it causes Natsuki’s little sister Sakura to drop the
bracelet she’d made for their late mother into the sea, for which she blames
Natsuki and his fights with their dad. She goes missing later, but Natsuki
manages to find her outside an ice cream shop they once went to with their mom,
and she forgives him. Yuki, who’d tried to get Natsuki to apologize earlier,
apologizes himself and admits he can’t understand how Natsuki feels since he
never knew his own parents. After getting some advice from Kate, Haru decides
to start fishing again, and Akira has now become part of the group.
Meanwhile,
Akira has identified himself to Haru and his sister, Coco*, as a member of the
alien-monitoring organization Duck and asked them what they’re doing on Earth.
They explain that the five-headed dragon is a powerful member of their own
species. Their kind can communicate through water, but somehow it also allows
them to control humans, and the dragon is strong enough that he can even use
air moisture, which could have disastrous results during rain or a storm (and
there’s a typhoon headed for Japan…). They’ve come to take him back, but Akira
wants them to leave him to Duck. However, when he tries to tell his superiors the
siblings aren’t a threat they tell him they’re sending a combat squad to occupy
the town, and take his hanging out with the other boys as proof he’s been
compromised.
Thoughts
I missed watching
this show, it’s fun.
The stuff
about fishing is still interesting but not enough to carry the show by itself,
and the story itself is evolving rather predictably (not that my track record
with predictions on this blog is all that outstanding…). Between Haru and Coco’s
motive, the foreshadowed crisis, and the people with power resorting to extreme
measures that’ll probably just make things worse, it doesn’t offer much in the
way of surprises.
Of much more
interest are the characters themselves, whose arcs and development so far
revolve around themes of family, friends, and personal passions, and all of the
boys have to make decisions about what’s important to them. Natsuki’s
estrangement from his dad finally comes to a head when the latter’s
announcement that he’s changing things up in the family business gets turned
into an argument about Natsuki’s future – he wanted to take over the family
business, but his dad seemed to assume that was only out of a sense of
obligation and was changing it in part as a way to encourage Natsuki to follow
his own path. Predictably, arguing gets them nowhere and ends up hurting Sakura,
but when Yuki apologizes for butting in he admits to being jealous that Natsuki
has people he can argue with. It’s what helps the latter change his tack and
try to be more open with his dad. It’s even implied that he may have only
wanted to take over the store because it was a more predictable, safer option.
When he’s fishing with the guys later on he tells them he’s decided to become a
bass fishing pro, which they say will be hard, but he says the important thing
is to try, which was his dad’s response when he said the latter was trying to
diversify too much. Yuki in turn realizes that it’s great to have parents and
siblings, but so long as you have someone who’s there for you that’s what’s
really important – he decides he hasn’t told his grandmother ‘I love you’ in a
while. He also learned the importance of doing things that matter to you and
not giving up – he may screw up at fishing from time to time, but it’s helped
him make friends, and that’s what matters. Haru, meanwhile, is shown to have a
more serious side when he tries to stop fishing out of concern for what might happen
to his friends if he keeps getting them involved in his mission, but once he
realizes that family and friends share things and look out for each other he
decides he can’t let his fears weigh him down when others have his back. Out of
all of them, though, I think Akira ends up being the most interesting since his
own concerns are slightly different, being related to the compatibility between
doing his job and his desire to fit in with the other boys. Rather, what’s
interesting is that, once he’s gotten to know them and managed to find out
what’s going on at the same time, he decides there isn’t any conflict between the two, only to discover his superiors
don’t feel the same way. It looks like he still has some decisions to make, especially
once the others find out what he’s been doing the whole time…
So yeah, it’s
still a fun show, somewhat silly (all those fishing boats and friggin’ commercial liners grounding onto the
beach while everyone on board does the Enoshima Dance. I guess the dragon has
nothing better to do with his time) but with likeable characters who give it a
little more meat.
*It would
appear that ‘Keito’ is actually supposed to be ‘Kate’ (she’s French,
apparently), and ‘Koko’ is really ‘Coco’ (according to Wikipedia and the series’ Spell
My Name with an S entry on TV Tropes) so I’ll be spelling them like that from
now on.
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