Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

God, this series is such a breath of fresh air in the genre of travelling anime. Never have I seen a series that puts more emphasis on the people that you can randomly meet during a journey. This series isn’t gut-wrenchingly sad anymore, but it’s still awesome to watch, simply because it’s such a joy to see the different people that Porfy runs into.

The episode starts with Porfy, boarding the next train, along with a couple of other passengers, among with is a spunky rude girl. Porfy ends up finding a seat close to her, next to an old couple. He starts talking with the couple, and the girl overhears him saying how he’s come from Simitra, and it turns out that the news of the earthquake that happened there even hit the shores of Italy. The old woman gives Porfy one of her sandwiches, as the train enters a tunnel. As this is the first time Porfy’s been in one, he’s startled by it.

At the next station the old couple leaves and they say goodbye to Porfy. Porfy then falls asleep and has a nightmare about Mina, when he’s woken up by the girl from before, noting that the train has reached its final destination, and that they need to change trains. She and Porfy spend some time together as they both wait for the train to arrive, and they get to know each other a bit better. The girl’s 13 years old and her name is Daisy. She’s been living with her grandmother, and is now travelling to her father.

They also ask around a bit, and Porfy one of the people in a pub seems to have heard of Roma, and tells how she and her companions have been travelling from town to town. Porfy is yet again scared when a train comes but doesn’t stop. Daisy makes fun of him because he doesn’t even know that that was a supply-train. As the real train is about to arrive, they notice a local musician who’s singing a bit.

They go and sit together in the train, and he turns out to be a student of the music academy. Ever since he was small, he’s loved singing, and now he’s trying to become a professional. He’s travelling in order to meet his girlfriend, whom he hasn’t seen for a long while due to his studies. He plays some card games with Daisy and Porfy, until Daisy meets her father and has to leave. Porfy then suddenly realizes how awful it is to say goodbye, since it happened too with his parents.

When it’s time for the musician (whose name is Maximilian, by the way) to leave the train, he offers to take Porfy with him, and help him search for Mina in his hometown. Porfy accepts. Maximilian’s girlfriend Iralia greets them at the station, and drives them to their home. Obviously, Porfy can’t help but say how he loves cars. Maximilian obviously finds it a bit strange for a station called “Patagos Grand Station” to only have two people working on it. 😛

Along the way, they drive past a large mansion; through one of the windows Porfy recognizes a girl who looks a lot like Mina (this’ll probably be important in the next episode). They then arrive at Maximilian’s home, and they’re greeted by Iralia’s parents and three dogs. The dogs can hardly leave Porfy alone, and for the first time since losing his parents, Porfy has the feeling of being in a family again, and the episode ends.

I must say, that even though the regular animation was a bit dodgy at times, the backgrounds looked better than ever! It’s so apparent that the creators spent so much time on them to make them as diverse and life-like as possible, and the result is absolutely gorgeous.

Wow…

This episode really screamed “Mushishi”, and I mean that in the most positive way. Here I thought that Porfy ran into an old hag who was after a quick buck. Heh, how I was wrong.

The episode starts with Porfy waking up, and Dora cooking breakfast, smiling very gently. Porfy starts his breakfast. As he didn’t eat anything the previous day, he eats as quickly as he can. Dora continues to treat him kindly in a way that’s almost too perfectly acted. Porfy then sneezes, and she changes completely, getting overly worried and wondering whether he caught a cold. Porfy tries to lighten the mood, but she quickly tells him to be quiet, and that he should tell her as soon as possible once he catches a cold.

She then turns off scary-mode and gives Porfy some more candy, saying how Porfy “loved them since he was small”. Before Porfy has the time to think what she meant, he suddenly realizes that his backpack is gone. Dora suggests that one of the homeless dogs ran off with it (but then again, what would a bunch of dogs want with a bag full of tools). Porfy runs away in order to search for them. When he’s gone, Dora says that he’ll return, since it’s his home.

Porfy looks around, and after a while he runs into the kid from the previous episode again. He wants to run away, but Porfy stops him. When the kid realizes that Porfy isn’t scary, he offers him to help search for it. After a few hours, they still haven’t found anything, so the kid takes him to his father. Soon, the entire neighbourhood is searching, and as it turns out, one of them saw Dora that night and followed her, so the backpack is safe. Surprisingly, nothing was removed from it.

In the meantime, we learn that the kid’s name is Chiro (or however that bastardization of Italian is spelled), and he indeed lived inside the town for his entire life, and hates the idea that he’s going to leave some day. But as his father gets older, he’s going to have to leave some day. Porfy can understand him, as he loved his own home as well. And Dora once had a child, who died. Chiro father also tells how the city they lived in was once a Greek colony, in the time of the ancient Greeks.

In any case, when the guy who found it reveals that he’s seen Dora carry the backpack, Porfy starts yelling at him, calling him a liar. He doesn’t believe that the nice Dora would do such a thing. Obviously, the guy gets angry, but his partner stops him, saying how everyone in town knows that Dora is rather eccentric. Porfy still won’t listen, but before they can continue their argument, Chiro’s father steps in between them.

Chiro’s father takes Porfy to the local church, if I understood things correctly, and he explains how Dora didn’t hide the backpack in order to harm Porfy, but instead she wanted him to stay, since Porfy is about the same age as her dead child. Porfy then returns to Dora, who is more delighted than ever to see him, though she then notices that Porfy has his backpack back. She then tells him that she hid the backpack because of what Porfy said that evening, how he was planning to leave the next day.

The then starts calling Porfy Antonino (her dead son’s name), and starts yelling that he’ll remember soon if he stays here. Porfy says that he needs to go away, in order to search for his sister. Dora then throws a wine-glass at him, screaming at him that he should leave. Porfy leaves, but after a minute, he finds that he can’t just leave things as they are and returns again.

He talks to Dora, through a closed door, and he reckons how Dora and he are possibly the same, and how he lost his family as well. Dora says how it’s painful to remember Antonio. Porfy reckons that if it hurts so much, it would be better for her to forget about Antonino, but he himself will never forget his family and the time they spent together. They then say goodbye, after Porfy tells Dora to stop drinking so much, and obliges to Dora’s request of calling her “mother” one final time.

We then cue to a shot of Dora, emptying all her wine-bottles, Chiro and his father happily doing their jobs, collecting firewood and Porfy and Apollo have left the city, while Porfy complains to Apollo how he keeps sitting on his shoulder and should instead fly for himself, and the episode ends.

I must say, that the scene where Dora suddenly started yelling at Porfy was really powerful. It was wonderfully animated, and I never suspected that she’d end getting so angry as she did, after all her nice acts against Porfy. But then again, when she saw Porfy as her own son, and her son suddenly rejects her and starts yelling, I can imagine how her mother-instinct would break down.

And indeed, Dora was a perfect person for Porfy to run into. I originally thought that this would be just a lesson to Porfy to stop trusting everyone, but as it turns out, it was meant to show him how there are people, suffering even worse than he does. Dora has been living all along, thinking about her lost son, so much that it becomes painful when she remembers him. He instead has the knowledge of Mina, being still alive that helps him.

Still, in any way, Porfy really grew up in this episode. You can see how he’s learned to accept his parents’ death a bit more, compared to his scared looks at the beginning of the previous episode, and he also learned to watch what he says to others, considering how Dora reacted to his words.

And really, such gorgeous background art! I was already getting used to the look of Simitra in the first quarter of this series to really notice, but the art in this series really looks beautiful, and to think that this is a travelling-anime we’re dealing with, so the creators are going to have to come up with many more interesting city-designs. I can’t wait!

The summary is going to be rather short this time, as I’m a bit busy with other things right now. Still, this episode was everything a travelling-anime should be: exploration, anxiousness, openness, making mistakes, meeting different people and places, trust and betrayal. It’s amazing how much the creators can stuff into one single episodes, especially considering how slow the pacing is in this series, and how there still are plenty of episodes left for this series to explore.

Porfy is ready to eave Leon, who gives him a bit of advice for the train journey he’s about to make. “First take care of yourself, then God will take care of you”. When Leon says how Porfy can return anytime, the train arrives and Porfy needs to rush to be able to get it. Apollo needs to spend the journey inside Porfy’s backpack, and of course he has a bit of trouble remaining quiet in there. ^^;

Porfy’s obviously fascinated by the huge train, and is surprised at how smooth it rides. He talks a bit to himself while doing so. A bit later, a pregnant woman enters the cabin, and Porfy offers her a seat opposed to him. Very soon a middle-aged man joins in too, and the three easily have a nice conversation. It then turns out, however, that the train is going west, instead of the North where Porfy was planning to head to. In his haste, Porfy gets off at the nearest stop, but this turns out to be right in the middle of nowhere.

Porfy looks around, and sees a nearby city. The dogs in the area are ferocious and will do anything for a meal, which already suggests that the area Porfy’s in is really suffering from poverty. When he reaches the city, however, it turns out to be nearly abandoned, and he only runs into one kid, who immediately runs away. As the evening falls, Porfy tries to leave, though he gets lost and can’t find the exit. He ends up falling asleep at one of the houses, which turns out to be occupied by a middle-aged woman.

She’s first angry at Porfy, though she becomes nicer when she finds out that Porfy has been travelling to Greece. She gives him a bit of candy to eat, and she tells him why the city ended up abandoned. It was basically during the war, the Italian government offered the residents a better place to live, probably so that they could be drafted more easily. Only a few people remained in the city, and that’s why the children aren’t used to seeing outsiders.

Porfy then falls asleep, the woman runs off with his backpack, laughs like an evil witch and the episode ends.

After the previous episode, I considered Porfy to be very lucky when compared to Perrine (from Perrine Monogatari, another World Masterpiece series): he didn’t have to take care of his mother, and whenever he tells how he lost his parents in an earthquake, people all try to be nice to him. This episode shows how much of a double-edged sword this is. The nice people will be really nice to the guy, but this also makes him really vulnerable and easily deceived. These are all lessons that Porfy needs to learn the hard way. Oh, how I’d love to see his character in twenty episodes.

And really, that random chatter in the train with random people: more anime should do this. It’s really fun. ^^;

Travelling-anime with random stories usually come in two categories: the saviour and the observer. The first one is by far the most common one: the protagonist arrives at a place where there’s some kind of problem, and at the end of the episode he or she has solved it. Examples of this are El Cazador, Mushishi, Mermaid’s Forest, Otogi Juushi Akazukin, et cetera. The second category is much rarer, and in there, the protagonist basically arrives, but his or her actions have no major influence on the places he/she visits. The only examples I can think of right now are Kaiba, Kino no Tabi and Perrine Monogatari.

And here Porfy comes and creates a totally different category: in this show, Porfy doesn’t save the people he meets: the people he meets save him. Such a young boy all alone on a journey obviously has a lot to learn, and thank goodness that Porfy manages to run into kind people who wish to help him further.

Porfy exits the ship on one of the trucks, and he gets dropped off at a local square as the truck driver mentions how hot the females are, although Porfy’s probably too young for that. He looks around a but, sees a bunch of punks and suddenly realizes that he hasn’t eaten anything since that morning. He runs towards a local fried-potato stand, after which a guy named Leon arrives as well. The stand owner comments on how he’s slacking off again, but as it turns out, Leon’s boss ordered him to get a bag of fried potatoes.

The woman at the stand then hands Porfy his potatoes, though she asks to be paid in Lire (Italy’s money before the Euro). Porfy gets all worked up when all he has is Greek money. A middle-aged man who happened to be passing by offers him to exchange Porfy’s money at the local bank, and Porfy does so, gullibly. While the man is away, exchanging the money and putting half of it in his own pocket, Porfy asks around for Mina.

The man returns and hands Porfy half of his money, though Leon quickly notices that the money he received is far too little and gets the remaining money out of the guy. The stand woman then tries to beat up the man, saying how he should be ashamed of himself to deceive such a young boy, as Leon walks away. Porfy quickly notices and runs after him, asking to return his money.

As it turns out, the punks were still there, and they had their eyes on Porfy’s large amount of money. Leon helps Porfy escape and the two exchange money and potatoes (which Porfy was holding when Leon confronted the old man). Leon warns Porfy, and asks if he has any plans of where to go next Porfy obviously hasn’t any, so he takes him along to his shop for now.

The shop turns out to be a car repair shop. The owner is a bit pissed off since he can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong with the car of one of his clients (and his potatoes that Leon was supposed to get were delayed), though this changes when he hears Porfy’s story. Unfortunately, neither he nor his wife has seen Mina. Porfy then prepares to leave, saying how he needs to find Mina. Leon however, says that he’ll get into big trouble if he just continues to search for Mina, his money will run out very quickly. Porfy says that he’ll manage somehow.

The store owner then offers him to work for money for a bit, since Porfy told how his father was teaching him to be a car mechanic. Leon mentions all of the dangers involved in travelling alone (he says this very bluntly, otherwise it just wouldn’t get through Porfy’s head). When Porfy has eaten a bit, the store manager gets a bit angry at how Porfy’s confidence in car mechanics. That’s why he brings Porfy to the car he himself was having trouble with.

Obviously, Porfy has a lot of trouble figuring out what’s wrong, with Leon watching from the side-lines. After a long while, Leon decides to subtly help him by suggesting that something might be up with the transmission. This is where Porfy breaks down, however, saying how his father didn’t teach him yet about that. What follows is a very touching scene, where Porfy gives up the strong impression eh tried to set up and starts crying, saying how he needs to find Mina. Leon assures him then that Mina is alive. The town they’re in is a small one, and a girl without anyone to take care of her will quickly be noticed.

Now that Porfy is cheered up a bit, Leon decides to help him some more by directing the problem to the battery, which turns out to be the culprit. When the owner of the car then comes to pick it up, he’s really glad for the work Porfy did, and gives him a little tip. Porfy then cleans up, and that night Leon takes a look at Porfy’s toolkit and gives him some pointers: it misses a few essential tools, while others will hardly be used at all.

Porfy then mentions the past World War. If I remember correctly, Greece never played a big role in it, though Italy was a major party there. As it turns out: Leon lost his family in that war. He hopes for Porfy to quickly find Mina. If she isn’t in this city, then he suggests Porfy where she might have gone to. He then gives Porfy a compass, in case he gets lost, and says that he ever gets lost, that he should use his brains, and the episode ends.

This was a really interesting episode, because for the first time Porfy came into contact with guys who were out to harm him. Porfy has never really been deceived by any stranger, so he had no reason to doubt the old man’s actions. This was really an episode, meant to make Porfy see the reality of his decision to start travelling. Sure, it sounds nice, but you have to take many things into account.

This is also why the store manager and Leon were so harsh to him at times. Porfy said full of confidence that he could fix any car, and so the store manager puts him on a problem which he knows he can’t fix, in order to teach Porfy to just say what he can do and what he can’t do. Porfy has been trying so much to be strong for his own and Mina’s sake that he started to ask the impossible from himself.

I must say that, when comparing the first nineteen episodes of Porfy to the first nineteen episodes of Les Miserables, then Porfy no Nagai Tabi so far has been better. But that’s only logical: Les Miserables only really started shining once it hit its second half, while Porfy’s height seems to have been the arc around episodes 13 to 17. Still, I’m interested in what the creators have in store for the rest of this series. Will it stay away from tragedy and instead focus on Porfy as he tries to find Mina, or do they still have some trumps left on their sleeve? Either way, it’s going to be awesome.

This was the most light-hearted episode of Porfy no Nagai Tabi in what felt like ages. The tragedy has finally settled down a bit, and it’s time for Porfy to move on and search for Mina, as he travels to Italy.

Porfy walks around the harbour, searching for the place that sells tickets to the boat that travels to Italy. When he finds the ticket booth, he’s confused by all the complicated talk, and ends up ordering the cheapest ticket. The woman behind the counter then wonders where his family is, and gets a worried look on her face when she finds out that Porfy’s alone, and especially when she finds out that Porfy has no relatives whatsoever in Italy. She also warns Porfy that it’ll still take a long while until the ship departs, so that he doesn’t need to worry and take things easy, and also to buy some food in the harbour, since the stuff they sell on the ship is expensive.

Porfy buys a sandwich and waits a bit, and talks to Apollo. A girl then arrives, a few years younger than Porfy is, and she gets interested by Apollo. She wants to give him a few candies, though Porfy notes how owls don’t eat sweets. The girl is disappointed, and then her parents come and pick her up. She gives two sweets to Porfy, of which he saves one. Mina loved candy, and he wants to save that one for when he meets her again.

Porfy then falls asleep and nearly misses the boat, though Apollo wakes him in time for him to barely catch it. The ship departs, and Porfy looks at the ever-shrinking shore of Greece (if you ever believed that this series didn’t have quality-graphics, then this scene will prove you wrong). The small girl then arrives again, and introduces herself as Marika. She too wonders where Porfy’s parents are, and Porfy says that they’re not there. In response to that, Marika drags Porfy to her parents. Porfy then explains what happened to him. All three become worried about him, but Porfy says that he’ll be fine. He leaves them after tasting some of their cheese-pie that reminds him of the cheese-pie that his mother made.

Porfy then looks at the ocean, and reveals to Apollo how today is supposed to be his thirteenth birthday, and he gets a bit nostalgic again. When it’s evening Porfy looks for the cabin he’s supposed to sleep in. To his luck, it’s also occupied by a bunch of scary truck-drivers. These guys mean no harm, but of course they seem scary in Porfy’s eyes, so he runs away when one of them tries to touch his backpack with his father’s tools. Out of all places, he ends up falling asleep at the same spot that Mina slept at, two episodes ago. So sweet.

The next morning, Porfy is woken up by Marika an her parents, who are of course wondering why Porfy didn’t sleep in his room. They offer him breakfast, and then Marika grabs a piece of bread, and manages to feed it to Apollo. Marika’s father then suggests Porfy that some of the people boarding this ship might have been on it when Mina boarded it, like truck-drivers who went to Greece to stock up. In the end, one of Porfy’s “roommates” (they’ve all been wondering how he spent the night, by the way) remembered having seen Mina, along with a gypsy-woman. They then tell Porfy that the two of them left with a car, and had no idea where they went afterwards.

Porfy is a bit sad to still be far away from Mina, but at least he now knows that she’s with another woman. The ship arrives at the port of a certain city in Italy, and the episode ends.

One thing that’s really caught my attention in this and the previous episode is the emphasis on the kindness of humans. I’ve seen so many series now with a lot of focus on hate and other dark themes, which it’s quite refreshing to finally see how humans also have a side that helps out others. One series that especially looks like the complete opposite of Porfy no Nagai Tabi is Kaiba, where people and human lives are considered as trash at times. Incidentally, those are two of my favourite shows at the moment. ^^;

One thing that I really miss in nearly every anime is the ability for characters to just walk up to random people and make a small talk, without that character suddenly turning out to be really important for some sort of side-plot. I can understand how you’d usually ignore random by-passers, but when a character is alone on a ship like in this episode, and needs a bit of time to kill, it would make much more sense to find a random person and have a small chat with than just sit around and do nothing. It’s a shame you don’t often see that, because it’s exactly those things that make the world that the story tries to create come to live. Not every character needs to spawn his entire live-story if he’s introduced, and Marika and her parents did very well as serving as random people you just run into, without ever putting the focus on themselves, and instead they just try to help Porfy. I hope this rambling made sense.

There’s also one long-term thing I’m really curious about: what age will Porfy be at the end of the series? I’m intrigued at how the creators are planning to end this series. Will he just be like Damon, and remain a traveller for his entire live, or will he settle down? Will this series just like Les Miserables feature a major time-skip? Will Porfy remain a kid forever? Or will he grow up? Will he ever see Zaimis again?

I also wonder: how are the creators going to handle the language-barrier. Porfy obviously doesn’t know Italian, though I’m fine if the creators just ignore this. For as far as I know, NO series (or movie or whatever for that matter), whether anime or not anime, has ever managed to handle the language-barrier perfectly. Black Lagoon’s attempt, for example, failed horribly. Kishin Taisen Gigantic Formula gets points for trying, but that series too got hammered down by horrible Engrish.