Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

Short Synopsis: In this episode, Jack attempts to propose to the girl he loves.
Highlights: Fun episode, though André’s character-development could have been more subtle.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10
After the previous episode, I remember doubting what kind of new element this arc could bring to this series. This episode answered these doubts: humour. Porfy no Nagai Tabi has never been a comedy, but this has definitely been its funniest episode, where you’re meant to laugh at and with the characters.

Jack, Porfy and Michael drive to Monica’s house at night, where Jack reveals that he used to work in the army during the final parts of the war. Andre meanwhile is still sulking about Jack’s actions of the previous episode. As it turns out, the biggest reason why he hates the guy is because he’s American, and the Americans killed his father (an Italian) during WWII. Monica tries to talk him out of it, and how Jack didn’t have anything to do with the pilot who shot down their father. André has been drinking, so obviously he doesn’t listen.

We then switch to Porfy, Michael and Jack, who stand next to Monica’s window, trying to get her attention without notifying André. Apollo provides the solution by softly pecking on her window. When she opens it, Jack ruins everything by yelling at the top of his lungs about how he loves Monica. André’s reaction was priceless, and thankfully Jack (or should I say, Porfy, Michael and a love-struck Jack) manages to get away before André catches him.

n the next day, Jack and Michael help Porfy to search for Mina, but nobody has seen her, but Sicily is just way too big. Michael then gets the idea to check during the next church meeting, because lots of people will be there (including Monica). The next day, the pastor agrees to help Porfy (and Jack) execute their plans for that day.

When Monica and André arrive at the church, Andre goes to a local bar to drink, while Monica heads for the confession booth (or however that’s called). To her surprise, it’s not the pastor sitting at the other side of the booth, but Jack, who’s hiding from André. Porfy and Michael are meanwhile hiding, to avoid being spotted by André, but they then see a suspicious pair of legs, coming from under André’s car and Porfy decides to check it out. The guy quickly runs away when he discovers being spotted, but as a result, André’s bodyguards suddenly turn up and start chasing them. Things get from bad to worse when they also run into André, who captures them and realizes that Jack must also be in the church.

In his anger, he runs right into the confession-booth, and thinks that Jack was hiding at the other side of it, throwing all kinds of curses at the pastor, who obviously gets rather angry and starts chasing him with a cross. When things have settled a bit, Porfy tells him about the strange guy who was messing with his car. It turns out to have been some kind of bomb, set to detonate when the engine starts. Nobody knows how to detonate such a bomb, so the solution that comes up is to push the car into the ocean (which is quite far away, though).

Jack helps André and his bodyguards, and the two forget their differences a bit. This was the only part of the episode that felt a bit fake, as André’s development was a bit too sudden. In any case, Monica, Porfy and Michael follow the car in their own, as Jack and André reach the coast and push the car in. André finds it a pity, because he liked that car, but Monica suggests him to just buy a new one. André then leaves, with the message that he won’t object to Jack’s marriage to Monica.

Next episode should prove to be interesting, as the focus should shift back to Porfy, trying to Mina. This episode may have been fun, but I can’t help but think that this is the weakest part of Porfy no Nagai Tabi. Since it’s a travelling anime, it doesn’t have the advantage of keeping its characters, and it must continue to introduce new ones. The abandoned city was the best example of this, but now that Porfy’s development seems to have stalled a bit, this series needs something new to be introduced fast now. But then again, knowing this series, it’s probably building up for something.

Okay, so the creators did not plan some big climax for episode 26, and instead just introduce a new arc. This begs the question: what the heck are the creators planning for the final 26 episodes of this series?

At the start of this episode, we see how Porfy rides the freight train of the previous episode. He soon falls asleep, and doesn’t notice that the train boards a ship, heading for Sicily. He figures that now that he’s on the island anyway, he might as well check whether somebody saw Mina. At a local market, Porfy sees a lot of fish shops and he asks a fish-selling boy whether it’s hard to catch a fish. The boy then says that it’s quite easy, and Porfy rushes to the shore to catch himself some fish, without having to pay for it.

At the shore, Porfy located a big one, and when he’s about to catch it, he gets help from a boy of his age that suddenly popped up, named Michael. Te two of them manage to catch this fish, and bring it back to the boy, mentioned above. The local mafia, however, are quick to catch him, and they bring him to their mansion. Basically because it’s not allowed to catch any fish without their consent.

The mafia-boss that speaks to them turns out to be a rash man, who apparently knows this Michael. Of course, only one fish can be overlooked, but Michael turns out to be a member of a rivalling mafia-family, which rather complicates things. Porfy tries to take the blame for catching the fish, but the guy doesn’t want to listen. They get saved by Monica, the guy’s sister, who apparently isn’t that worried with the rivalry between the two families.

She called for Michael’s brother (father?) to come and pick them up. While they’re waiting for them, Porfy tells Michael and Monica about Mina, and he shows them Apollo. Then Jack (the brother) comes in a cool sports car, and he nearly starts fighting with Andre (the angry guy) if it wasn’t for Monica.

Porfy then eats dinner at the Michael and Jack’s family, and Porfy meets Jack’s father. Apparently, he’s an American merchant who trades in olive oil. Afterwards, Porfy spends a bit of time alone with Michael, who explains him the apparent meaning of a family. That evening, Porfy helps fix Jack’s car a bit, and he heads off to what I guess is Monica’s house to see her. I suspect that both of them are in love.

At the moment, there are so many possibilities in which this series can go. I’m personally hoping that from now on, the stories will get darker as the series progresses, but let’s see what the creators have in mind.

What caught my attention was the huge amount of Americans with blond hair. If I recall correctly, then only one American in this series didn’t have blond hair. Interesting, how with the huge amount of realism in this series, this one detail remains a bit inaccurate.

Ah, I should have known. There are no villains in Porfy no Nagai Tabi. A simple fight over the toilet doesn’t cause one to become mortal enemies. Everyone has his or her own reasons for acting. I so expected the mayor to come up with a terrible scheme to humiliate or hurt Porfy. Instead, he just looked for the quickest way to get rid of him, aka help him search for Mina. I totally forgot that possibility existed as well.

This episode was really heart-warming. It starts as Porfy helps around Iralia’s farm with all kinds of chores, and looks at the trees which in a few weeks will give off some ripe fruits. This reminds him of home again, and gets his spirit down. At the city hall meanwhile, Maximilian removes a poster that has been put over Mina’s poster, as the Mayor runs into him again, thinking how ridiculous it must be to keep searching, through Maximilian says that any piece of information is welcome.

Unfortunately, at this point there’s still no sign of Mina. Iralia’s father makes a proposal, that if Porfy doesn’t end up finding Mina, whether he’d stay with them or not. Porfy, however, declines and says that he’s going to find Mina, no matter what. Iralia’s father figures that this would have been the obvious thing to say. Then Maximilian returns home, and he brings along Daisy, and Daisy proposes to introduce Porfy to her father’s shop. In there, Maximilian orders a new bag for Iralia, to give her for Christmas.

Daisy then mentions how she wants to see the new bag when it’s done, though Porfy then notes that by the time the bag finishes, Porfy will already be gone, though Daisy says that he shouldn’t be thinking that way, and when he finds Mina, he could come back to this city again. They then visit what I guess is the storehouse for Iralia’s farm, or something similar. Maximilian then starts telling ghost stories, as the Mayor suddenly pops up with the news that he might have seen someone with news about Mina. Ironically, he’s carrying the same bag model that Maximilian ordered.

Porfy wonders whether the mayor still is angry about the time with the toilet, but the mayor quickly changes subject. Apparently, a guy who works at a local funfair thinks he saw a person who looked like Mina. Porfy immediately wants to go to that person. After Porfy shows this person the picture of Mina, and tells her that a guy with cards was with her, the guy says that this might possibly have been Mina, and they went to a city in the west.

After hearing this, Porfy wants to leave immediately. Iralia suggests Porfy to leave the next morning, but Porfy wants to chase after Mina as fast as possible. With that, comes saying goodbye, but first Porfy gets to ride a merry-go-round along with Daisy. As it’s the first time he’s seen such a thing, he had the time of his live while riding it.

A bit later, Porfy says goodbye to Iralia’s parents, who give him a bit of payment for the chores that he did, and Rebecca is actually crying to see him leave. Iralia, Maximilian and Daisy then drive Porfy and Apollo to the station. When they do, they say goodbye and Porfy heads off to the train, with Daisy being the saddest to see Porfy leave. After waiting a bit, however, Porfy finds out that the train he was supposed to take was cancelled. A freight train which was on the station is also heading in the same direction, so Porfy jumps on it and lands on a pile of bags, and the episode ends.

Porfy no Nagai Tabi has two different faces: heart-wrenching drama and warm slice-of-life. This episode showed the best of the latter, where the themes of saying goodbye in the final parts brought a really nice conclusion to this arc that I really didn’t see coming. With this, I also have no idea what the creators have been planning for episode twenty six, because it doesn’t look like it’s going for the big climax now that it just rounded up the longest arc ever since Porfy started travelling.

It’s a bit of a shame that Porfy stays so long at the same places. I was hoping that he’d continue to travel as soon as the issue between Iralia and Rebecca was solved, but instead it seems that the creators have bigger plans for this arc. Considering the nature of this series, I have absolutely no idea what to expect. Especially considering Les Miserables’ strange behaviour at this point: episode 26 was the only filler in the entire series, and after fooling me like that the tension suddenly sky-rocketed in the episodes afterwards. Will this be the same for Porfy no Nagai Tabi, or will this arc be more heart-warming in nature?

Porfy’s attempts to convince Iralia to go and see Rebecca fail, and she runs away. Maximilian and Porfy then try to enter Rebecca’s house, but she refuses to respond. The next afternoon, Iralia goes shopping again, and takes Porfy along with her. They stop by a local cafe to buy a drink, and Iralia buys some chocolate cake for Porfy as thanks of all the hard work he’s done.

Iralia then apologizes for the thing she did, and how it’s not so easy to just see Rebecca. Porfy can’t understand why people would try to be so difficult on this matter, and he then offers to make Rebecca want to meet her. Obviously, directly asking her is pointless, so he takes away her small glass statue, with the note that if she wants to have it back, that she should come to the cafe.

Unfortunately, Porfy didn’t realize that there were more cafe’s in the same town, so he and Iralia end up waiting at the wrong cafe. Hoping that they aren’t too late, they rush to the right one (which was supposed to be Rebecca’s favourite cafe). Iralia and Rebecca make settle their differences surprisingly fast, and they’re on good terms again once Maximilian arrives to check up on them.

Another surprise guest then shows up: Daisy. Apparently, she too went shopping with her father. Her father then suggests putting up a poster about Mina in the local city hall. A lot of people get there, and a friend of Daisy’s father once found his cat back through this method. They go back to Maximilian’s house to gather some paper and make said poster (including a very bad drawing of Mina by Porfy). Porfy and Maximilian then go to the city hall to put up this poster.

A problem arises, though, when Porfy needs to go to the toilet and he ends up fighting with the local mayor over the only available urinal. The episode ends as said mayor looks at the poster, with a rather angry face.

The most notable thing about this episode is the ease at which Iralia and Rebecca just made up like that. Usually, I would be face-palming at the ease at which such grudges are settled, and it’s true that lazy anime often use this technique in order to get “it over with”. But here it got me thinking, and it does make sense in a way. The biggest reason why Iralia and Rebecca refused to talk to each other was not their love dispute between Maximilian, but instead it was the fact that they refused to talk to each other. Because of this, fear took over and they started forming melodramatic theories of why the other wouldn’t want to see her, and through the years, this just escalated without the two of them ever getting a chance to make up.

Today, an interesting look at a different angle at the usual anime-love triangle. All the ingredients are present: three childhood friends, two of them fall in love, the third one (who was in love as well) in turn breaks down and comes to hate the other two. This episode obviously had this predictability working against it, but the execution remains flawless.

The episode starts with Porfy waking up, enjoying the most luxury he’s ever witnessed in his life. He’s already very friendly with the dogs. Maximilian is away at the moment, as he’s visiting his mother. Porfy then hears the sound of goats, and is immediately interested in them, as it was his job of taking care of the goats when he was still in Simitra. Porfy shows off his skills to Iralia’s father, but this does make him think of Mina again.

During breakfast, Maximilian suggest Porfy to stay at their place a little longer, since he and the others know a ot of people who might have seen Mina. Porfy decides to stay a little longer, and he’ll work on the farm as a means of thanks. That afternoon, Iralia goes to the city to shop, and Porfy goes along with her. They stop by the castle of the previous episode to look at the great view from there, and Iralia notes that her parents proposed at that place. Porfy then asks whether she’s going to propose to Maximilian as well, though she bluntly says that she’ll never marry him.

Then, near the mansion of the previous episode, the car breaks down. Porfy can fix it, but he doesn’t have his tools. He suggests to check at the mansion to see whether they’ve got a driver, but Iralia yet again bluntly refuses, and runs back home to get help. Porfy then realizes that he also needs a spanner, so he does go inside the mansion. The woman who lives there has apparently been spying on the two of them, because she locks Porfy up inside an old room because she suspect that he may have been planning against her with Iralia.

Porfy escaps through a well-hidden window, and then finds out that this woman used to be really close to Iralia. He tries to tell her to become friends again, though she yells at him to leave, and take the tools he needs. When Iralia gets back, she indeed reveals how the woman hated her for taking away the one she loved, and ever since they’ve both been avoiding each other. It’s because of this that Iralia refuses to marry Maximilian.

Maxmilian had no idea of this, and the episode ends as Porfy forces him and Iralia to go back and make up. I’m interested, because after the abandoned city, I know that not everything in this series is as it looks, especially if it needs a cliff-hanger.