Short Synopsis: Anne gets ‘distracted’ when she accompanies Bert as he sets out to find a job.
Episode Rating: 7,5/10 (Good)
This episode took away a lot of my doubts for this series. So yeah, it’s going to be less realistic than such epics as Anne of Green Gables, Perrine or Porfy, but the writers do have a great feel for the characters. This episode was SO typical of Anne.
The episode starts out as Anne is wondering what her parents would have looked like (there were no pictures back then, were there? And even if there were, Anne’s aunt doesn’t look like the type to save these pictures), as she starts talking to Rokimba (that’s how I’ll spell that cat’s name for now) about how her parents would live in a small house, and have a romantic moment together as Walter suggests Anne’s name to his wife, holding a small Anne in her arms. In the meantime, Rokimba walks away without Anne even noticing, and so she gets made fun of again by Horace and Edward.
At that point, Joanne starts getting impatient and calls Anne back. Without realizing that Anne’s already there, she starts talking about how Walter also used to be like Anne, and how he always had these wings on his back with which he’d fly away in his own world. Being the kid she is, when Anne hears this she takes this literally, and now she genuinely believes that her father had wings on his back. ^^;
Bertha (Anne’s mother) meanwhile was calm and quiet, and always read books after Anne was born. We also learn that Joanne decided not to tell Anne about her parents because it’ll just be unnecessary information. Anne is just there to help her out, and remembering her parents doesn’t fit in that picture and it looks like she also doesn’t like remembering the days of her childhood either. It’s too late though, because Anne is already thinking of lots of possible romantic scenarios in which her father might have played with his ‘wings’.
Joanne then proceeds to wake up and yell at Bert because he was supposed to look out for a job that day again, while all he does is sleep. When he readies his carriage, Joanne sends Anne along with him because it’s obvious that he’s going to end up just drinking away otherwise. The scene in which they rode in the carriage reminds me of the start of Anne of Green Gables, in which Anne was also rambling on and on towards Matthew.
Bert then tells her that he might not have met Walter, but he did know that he once was a teacher (and here we have another reason why Anne would end up liking studying so much), and how he taught at a cute little school in a forest (or that was what it sounded like, I might have missed the exact name for it), which of course gets Anne fired up even more.
When Bert arrives at the office that’s supposed to give him a chance for a job, he finds out that the one he was supposed to was away. He then runs into his friend and they run off to start drinking, and so he orders Anne to stay where she is until he gets back. Anne then sees that as a chance to explore the town a bit in order to find the school at which Walter used to teach. She asks random passers-by for directions, but quickly gets distracted by other pretty things and she gets lost.
She then runs into someone who was a good acquaintance of Bertha and who we’re probably going to see again in a few episodes. This time though, she simply gives Anne directions to where she needs to go to and she does find the house in the end. Johanna meanwhile is not exactly pleased with how both Bert and Anne haven’t turned up, she’s tired and has a headache, but she has to work hard since Bert refuses to get a job. She then notes how she doesn’t like to think back to the past out of jealousy: Bertha and Walter were a very happy couple together, and yet she ended up with an idiot as Bert. It pains her to think back at how happy she could have ended up.
When Anne finally gets back, it’s already dark, but Bert is still waiting for her at that point. He doesn’t scold her, but just tells her to get on the carriage (obviously she’s scolded plenty enough by Johanna).
It’s interesting how people like Bert and Johanna completely shatter the boundaries of good and evil, and this again is typical of nearly all WMT-series (apart from Ie Naki Ko Remi, of course). While it’s easy to simply call Bert pure evil, he’s simply someone who hates his own wife. He’s still an ass because he refuses to help her out, but at the same time he doesn’t antagonize Anne and actually seems to like her. But since neither Johanna nor Bert is willing to make up and get along, the gap between the two of them is only going to grow bigger, and this is probably going to end up with the two of them separating, causing Anne to move into a next family in which she’s going to get even more busy.
In the meantime, the bit about Anne taking Johanna’s proverb felt really nostalgic. When I was a kid I also used to take proverbs way too seriously. Anne really feels like a real little girl at times like these.
It’s also awesome to see that it’s been less than three weeks and we already have a fansub! I posted the link at the shoutbox, and it would be completely awesome if this Underwater group would persist until the end.
