Category: Finished Series: Slice of Life/Drama

Honestly, the level of nostalgia for this series is starting to get overwhelming. This series is even giving Seirei no Moribito a run for its money in terms of realism! Why the heck have I been the only single blogger who said anything about this series? Okay, I can understand the ones who are dependant on the subs, but even the raw-watchers didn’t even post a first impression. In any case, this series seriously needs to get lisenced. It’s just what the western anime-industry for kids (especially in the Dutch case) needs to get back to the level it was fifteen years ago, before all the shounen-crap like Bedaman came.

The episode starts with Porfy waking up, and heading to his the car repair station. In there, Christopher is already busy with one of the jobs that he got from the Americans. Christopher reminds him how he should wake up early now, and it turns out that in the last episode, Porfy decided to leave taking care of the goats to Mina, so that he could concentrate on helping and learning from his father, which was explained in the bit I didn’t understand. In any case, this has given Porfy obviously a lot of appetite, so he’s getting all excited as he tries to stuff his mouth with as much bread as possible.

Christopher notes that thanks to the Americans, he suddenly received a lot of different jobs. Obviously, Porfy can’t resist boasting about how he was the one who made sure of that deal, but he quickly takes back what he said after he sees the faces of everyone else. Later that afternoon, we see him study hard, and fixing things under one of the cars that Christopher needs to fix. He’s so worked up in it that he bumps his head when another car arrives.

This car belongs to the father of John and Tom, who has a few more jobs for Christopher. Of course, when John and Tom found this out, they kept asking him to take them to Porfy and Mina, so the rest of the episode basically is the two of them having fun with Porfy, Mina and Zaimis. Porfy does have a few doubts in the beginning, as he is leaving his father with a huge amount of work, but his father just lets him have fun.

Porfy first shows the two siblings around his house, and they’re really surprised by the authenticity of it. There, Mina sits and is busy sketching a picture of Apollo. The latter also comes and greets Tom, who clearly is afraid of it, and it was probably the first owl he saw in his life. Next up, Aneke treats them to a few snacks for lunch and Porfy goes to play catch with Tom and John, while Mina watches and sketches some more. John, can’t resist to confuse Porfy with a curve-ball. Zaimis then passes by along with his father, and he too gets permission to join with Tom and John, while his father takes off to go and do his chores for the day.

A few attempts are given to invite Corrina to play as well, but she, stuck up as ever, declines with the excuse that she’s got piano-lessons. Meanwhile, Christopher gets yet another job. This time it’s from Corrina’s father, who’d like to have it delivered back within a day so that he can take Corrina out. This means that he’ll have to work till late at night, especially now that Porfy’s gone for the day.

Porfy and Mina then decide to show John and Tom their favourite place: a tree with a fantastic view, though John declines to climb the tree, in the fear of being scolded by his mother. That, or he was scared at the time to climb it. So, next up is a fishing lake, where Zaimis teaches Tom to bounce stones over the water, and Porfy and John both try to catch a fish, but pull it in too much so the line snaps. John also explains that Tom is a bit afraid at times, but he’s very good at studying. Porfy asks John which kind of country he’s liked the best (hoping of course that John would answer Greece). John answers that the United States, Italia and Greece all have been fun, but he can’t really come up with a concrete answer. When Porfy pushes him even more, he just answers that the place you grew up in will always be the best. Oh, and by the way, Mina is still sketching.

Porfy then strips and takes a dive, and the others soon follow him. And yes, they all do this in front of Mina. That was one cultural difference I didn’t see coming. You also know when an anime doesn’t try to rely on fanservice when all the guys get nude, yet the girls remain fully clothed. 😛 Mina just makes a random jealous side-mark and then leaves it.

Later, a fisherman named Tony passes by, and shows his latest catch. It shouldn’t really be a surprise that Porfy’s goofing off causes the fish to end back up in the water. He tries to jump after it, but by then it’s already enjoying its freedom, and Porfy tries to apologize with a strange voice. Later, Porfy has dried up, and John is passing out cookies. Porfy ends up stealing Mina’s share when she’s not looking, so they end up chasing each other. Seeing this, Zaimis notes how great it must be to have a sibling. John says that Porfy told him about the sister or brother that Zaimis was to be expecting. And proposes that once it’s born, it can go and play with Mary (the baby from last episode)

Before they all head back home, Tom still wants to go to one more place: the tree with the view, and he’s finally gotten the courage to climb it. The view indeed is amazing, especially with a sunset that’s about to happen. Porfy points out to his and Zaimis’ house, and tries to guess where John and Tom live in the distance. After that Mina has finally finished her drawings, and hands them out to the four guys. She’s a pretty good drawer, especially considering that she’s so young. I’m not sure whether this was a conscious decision or just lazy animators, though. Let’s just attribute it to the fact that Mina can draw well, though I wonder why her room doesn’t have many drawings hanging. When I was a kid, I would have covered the entire walls with them if I could draw as well as she could. 😛

In any case, when he sees the sketches, John and Tom’s father proposes to take a photo of the four of them. During this, John gets a suggestive blush on his face, and Porfy is way too concentrated, trying to force a smile and look perfectly (which, of course, backfires horribly). That evening, Porfy just can’t stop telling his father about the things they did, so Aneke really has to force him to eat his dinner, to prevent him from getting distracted.

When Porfy and Mina are asleep, Christopher returns to his job, as he still needs to get Corrina’s father’s car fixed. Only deep in the night, he manages to get it working. The next day, Porfy obviously is the first one to arrive in the shop, and he jokingly notes how Christopher has turned up late, as a reference to what happened back at the beginning of the episode.

Well, I think that now that we’ve passed episode 10, the countdown for the earthquake has begun. This episode still didn’t give any indication as to when it will happen, but then again, earthquakes usually come with an element of surprise. My bet’s currently on episode 13, which allows for just enough time for one more small arc before the story will shift its focus entirely, and turns from a realistic slice-of-life series to a travelling-series. Unfortunately, it’ll also mean that Christopher and Aneke are going to have to die to make that happen. 🙁

I must say that, ignoring obvious series that take place in America like Red Garden, that this has been one of the least-stereotyped portrayals of Americans I’ve ever seen in an anime. Finally, these people are portrayed like ordinary people, instead of the cocky blonde arrogant types that you can basically find in every other country as well. I admit that the baseball-episode in for example Samurai Champloo was funny, but the fact remains that the Americans were portrayed at complete idiots and brainless bad guys (but then again, that show also had a homosexual Dutch ambassador).

The episode starts with Porfy waking up after what happened at the end of episode eight. It turns out that Barnes was in te car that hit him, but because he saw him in time, Barnes managed to slow the car enough to not cause any wounds to Porfy. Barnes then reveals the nails that Porfy carried him (and it seems that Mina too filled him in about Porfy’s plan), and because of that Porfy finally has to confess his plans. Of course, Christopher scolds him for it, but Barnes mentions how Porfy did feel sorry about what he did, and picked the nails he dropped back up.

Chrispoher is glad that Porfy realized that he was wrong, but warns him not to do it ever again. Barnes then asks Christopher to look at his car a bit, as his engine has been having trouble lately. The next morning, Christopher fixes his car, and Aneke gives him a bit of food for the trouble. Barnes then comments on what a nice family he and Aneke have, while watching Porfy and Mina fool around, and then he notices Mina’s tree.

When Barnes is about to leave, Christopher again forces Porfy to apologize, and then Barnes drives away. Aneke then tells Porfy and Mina to go and do their morning tasks (take care of the goats). As Mina talks to the goats about how stupid Porfy has been, Christopher arrives and tells Mina to go and help her mother. Christopher then tells Porfy that if he’s really determined to help him with the stations, he should abandon his tasks with the goats, or something similar (that’s one line that I wasn’t able to translate, unfortunately). Porfy refuses, and because of this he accepts that the progress of the repair station will be slow.

That afternoon, after class, Porfy yawns because of the obvious lack of sleep. Zaimis comments on how he shouldn’t have done it. Porfy notes that he did change his mind, though Mina and Zaimis both retort that he was a little slow in realizing what he was about to do. Mina also reminds him how he still owes her money from the nails.

Later, we see how Porfy helps Christopher with another job, after which the mailman arrives with a letter from Barnes who invites him to the local American camp to help out with a few car-related things. Of course, Porfy and Mina are allowed to come to, and Christopher starts teasing on whether he should take them or not.

Barnes may live in a relatively small house, but it seems like an entire mansion in Porfy’s and Mina’s eyes. He also enjoys luxuries that they can only dream of, like bikes and most importantly: a refrigerator full of ice-cream. ^^; Christopher then looks at a picture of Barnes’ family as Porfy and Mina enjoy said ice-cream. He then leaves with Barnes, in order to do his job, so of course Porfy and Mina can’t resist the chance to eat even more ice-cream. ^^;

They then walk around the camp a bit, and it turns out that some soldiers have taken their families along with them. Porfy and Mina run into two children, playing catch. Their names are John and Tom, and they’re quite friendly to Porfy as they teach him how to play catch as well. In the meantime, Mina laughs at how lame Porfy looked at his early attempts. Their mother then arrives, and offers John, Tom, Porfy and Mina a some cake. Later, the mother shows Mina a few pictures, like a wedding-one, and Tom and John when they were younger. She also mentions how they’ve been travelling across the world, due to the fact that they’re the family of a soldier.

Tom comments at how it indeed can get kind-of lonely at times, but he loves seeing all kinds of different places. (Yet again foreshadowing ;)) John meanwhile plays a few records for Porfy, and Mina notes how it’s similar to the movie that they saw at the last episode. Tom and Nohn’s mother notes how she saw that movie too, and found it very interesting. She seems to be proud that it was made in America. Mina wonders why the film was made in America if the setting was Paris, and John and Tom’s mother replies that it’s simply the magic of films, and how any country can make a movie about any other country (could this be a subtle jab from the director’s side? In any case, I fully agree with it, and I really support anime that take place in a different country from Japan)

Then, a baby starts crying (named Mary). Of course, Mina and Porfy are incredibly interested in this little child. I originally thought that Mina would now be obsessed with babies, but I guess that she decided to wait till Zaimis gets his little brother and sister. Something tells me that she’ll be spending a lot of time with him or her, depending on whether the earthquake happens before, or after he/she is born, of course.

In the meantime, Christopher is finished with his job, and he comes to pick up Porfy and Mina, who are of course incredibly disappointed that they have to go so soon (seriously, that scene felt SO nostalgic!). It then turns out that they picked up a little habit from Tom and John, of putting up your thumb in a triumphant way. I guess that we’ll be seeing that one back later.

When Porfy and Mina are back, Porfy still laments on the fact that they haven’t got a fridge, though Aneke replies that they don’t need such a thing. He also tells to Christopher that he’s really surprised at how large the world is. He already had this feeling when he met Alecia, but it feels like America is even further away. Christopher then promises to take him to a foreign country some day.

That last line was so important, because I feel that that’s exactly going to be the reason why Porfy will decide to go and travel, instead of settling down at one place. Of course, it does feel a bit random for a boy to just travel around like that after losing his parents, but now that we know that people like Alecia, Tom and John made such a huge impression on him, it suddenly makes much more sense.

Yet again a flawless episode for this series, and this one has a good chance of being the best episode of Porfy no Nagai Tabi yet. World Masterpiece Theatre seriously rocks!

The episode starts with Porfy, watching the cars drive past, and recognizing them instantly. The fact that his father gets very few customers is still very much on his mind, as Christopher turns down yet another customer who hopes to get some gasoline. Zaimis then arrives with great news: he’s going to have a little brother or sister. Zaimis is thrilled now that he know this, and its clear that he’s always been jealous of Porfy because he has Mina. He also asks Porfy what it takes to be a good brother. After all, Mina follows him everywhere. Porfy’s reply? Keep looking important, because if you look important then your sibling will follow you everywhere.

Mina, meanwhile, is still thinking about the movie, and actually replays the biggest scenes when she things she’s alone. At one point, Porfy catches her doing it, and she starts yelling at him. Porfy later complains about this to Aneke, and she just assures him that Mina hasn’t changed at all, her mind is just occupied with a wonderful meeting (aka, the movie). That evening, Zaimis tries to take Porfy’s words a bit too literally, and starts to patronize his mother’s belly. That was too cute.

Porfy meanwhile tells his parents about how Zaimis is about to get a new sibling. In response, Mina asks Aneke for a new sister as well, as she’d love to have one too. Porfy then changes the subject by asking how many customers came to the station that day, and it turns out that only one of them showed up, and in Porfy’s mind, this is just way too little.

The next day, Zaimis’s father and Christopher talk a bit about their son’s antics, while Porfy is still thinking of a way to increase the amount of customers for the station along with Zaimis. Zaimis doesn’t understand why Porfy wants to change, because things are running fine as they are. Porfy then gets an idea and leaves. He goes home and looks for some money. He hardly has any so he asks Mina for her savings, with the excuse that it’s for the well-being of the car repair shop.

It turns out that he uses this money to buy a bag of nails. In other words: his plan is to destroy the tires of random cars, so that they’ll be forced to come to Christopher. When he tells his plan to Zaimis, he really thinks high of himself, like he’s some kind of genius. Zaimis of course disagrees, so Porfy leaves, though he tells Zaimis not to say anything about it.

Later that afternoon, Zaimis is clearly struggling not to say anything about Porfy’s plan. After all, with such a dangerous stunt, Porfy is bound to get punished a lot when this is found out. Then, Mina arrives with the souvenir she bought last episode, after which Zaimis tells her about Porfy’s intentions. Mina then rushes home and discovers the bag of nails. She then begs her brother to stop. What if an accident happens? Porfy however replies that he’s doing it for his mother and father, and how he wants to help her after seeing the reaction on that old friend of hers. He also mentions how Mina has been distracted lately (because of the movie and all), and Mina suddenly apologizes for this, and starts crying.

That evening, it’s very silent at the table during dinner. Christopher tries to lighten the mood by proposing another car-trip, but Porfy and Mina are still mad at each other. Late at night, when the others are all asleep, Porfy leaves the house and finds a good road to drop the nails on. Apollo goes along with him. He doesn’t really try to stop him directly, but it’s clear that the doubts Porfy already had only get amplified more and more. He sees a shooting star, and wishes for lots of customers to come to the repair station.

He then drops the nails at a road and returns home, thinking how tomorrow will be a busy day, and how he’s going to have to help his father too. However, when he returns home, he’s too scared to enter it, and spends a little while, sitting on the doorstep. It’s there when e regrets his decision, and runs back to where he dropped the nails, and goes to pick them up. Meanwhile, Mina wakes up as well, and notices how Porfy is missing. As Porfy is nearly done, a car comes from out of nowhere into his direction, hits the breaks, and the episode ends.

I don’t think that there’s much else to say about this episode. It was a wonderful one, and we’ve hardly even scratched the surface of the real potential of this series.

By request of Chris, I’ve decided to write full and detailed summaries for Porfy from now on. It’s the least I can do for this series.

The episode starts with Porfy, thinking back about the previous episode, and more specifically Alecia. Ever since she left, she’s been on his mind, and this is getting on Mina’s nerves. She then shows Porfy a letter that just arrived from Alecia, and she starts teasing him with it. Aneke then tells both of them to go outside because of the fuss they cause. In the end, the letter tells Porfy and Mina how they’re the first friends that Alecia has ever had, and how she had a great time with both of them. She also invites both of them to come to Italia once, so that they can play. Porfy is so caught up in this that he hardly notices how one of the goats is about to eat the letter. 😛

Porfy then leaves Mina and runs to Christopher, wanting to show the letter to his father. Then a customer arrives who mistook the service station for a gas-station, and believes that there should be gasoline at a station like this. This has a really big impact on Porfy, seeing a customer leave his father disappointed like that. He then suggests his father to also install some kind of gasoline tank for his customers. The sooner the better.

That afternoon, the family makes another trip to the city. Christopher is going to try and get his hands on a gasoline pump, while Porfy, Mina and Aneke go to a movie while they wait. Christopher borrowed another car for the trip, and he picks up his family. On the way to the city, they come across Zaimis, who is running errands with who looks to be his mother, and Porfy tells him how they’re going to see a movie. Mina then says that she’ll bring a small souvenir for him.

When they’re in the city, Porfy gets distracted by random cars as usual. Then the cars arrive at the theatre and Christopher drops Porfy, Mina and Aneke off. The movie was… cheesy. Remember that this is Greece in the 1950s, and apparently even then the movies weren’t what you’d call top-notch. What’s interesting is that it was an actual live-action movie. Did the creators actually go and film it, or did they just grab a random Greek movie from the shelves? I suspect the latter, though I do admit that it’s an interesting way to save budget. The story is about a rich boy who falls in love with a poor woman, but they break up in the end due to their differences in social status.

In any case, Porfy and especially Mina were really impressed by the movie. It was probably the first time they saw one, and I can imagine how awesome it must look if you’ve never seen it before. Mina also starts comparing the female heroine with Alecia. *wink wink*. When they exit the theatre, Christopher also comes back from his errands. He didn’t succeed in buying a gas pump, but h tries to keep this hidden from Porfy. Afterwards, Mina buys a red pencil for Zaimis as the souvenir, after which all four of them have dinner at a local restaurant.

Mina notes how the food is delicious, but it’s nowhere near as good. Of course, after hearing this Porfy just has to say the same, even though he had his mouth full at the time. When the dinner is over and Christopher is probably washing up or something similar, Aneke runs into an old friend of hers. Apparently, this friend didn’t yet know that Aneke married someone as poor as Christopher, and once she finds out, she quickly tries to find an excuse to leave.

Mina then starts comparing her parents to the couple in the movie, as Aneke too married a poor guy, even though she belonged to the upper classes. The last thing that Christopher needs to do in the city is refill the gas of the car that he borrowed, and during this process Porfy looks like a small kid in a candy-store.

During the drive back to Simitra, Porfy and Mina fall asleep on the back couch of the car. Porfy then has a dream of how he in a cool costume refills the gasoline for all the different cars (after all, it looked like a very simple task for him to do). He wakes up just early enough to overhear Aneke and Christopher talk about how the gasoline pump will be impossible. It’ll just cost too much money. Porfy clearly becomes upset, and even tries to suggest that Aneke’d borrow some money from her rich family.

When they reached back home, Porfy is still disappointed. Aneke tries to comfort him a bit. She also explains how she and Christopher decided that they wouldn’t depend on the money from her family after they married. It really had it coming. Porfy had a huge imagination, so it was only a matter of time until this would go out of control and he’d start demanding unreasonable things like a gas pump. It was Christopher’s dream to own a local garage, and something tells me that he’s already happy enough with just that, while Porfy’s ideals are a bit bigger than that.

I must say, though, that the creator went really into the mind of a child for this production. That’s one point where this series is already better at than Les Miserables. In terms of drama it may be very light and all, but the amount of realism is overwhelming. Porfy and Mina behave just like how real children would in this situation, and even Ghibli doesn’t come close to the level of realism for this series.

I’d like to call this episode a subtle foreshadowing one. It had so many hints about what we may expect in the future of this series, after the earthquake takes place. Basically, Christopher’s car repair shop has been moving well, when at one point he gets visited by a father who travels along in a truck, along with his daughter. His next job is going to be a bit dangerous, so he decides to leave his daughter with Porfy and Mina for half a day.

At the end of the episode, this girl called Alecia (I hope I spelled this one right) leaves again, but there are many things that should be noted:
1: She appears in the OP.
2: She travels along with her father in a truck. When Porfy starts travelling, he just HAS to run into her at some point.
3: Her mother died two years ago, which is why she’s travelling around with her father.
4: As she tells this to Porfy, the creators show an image of Christ, hanging on his cross, with the nails through his hands as well.
5: Right before she leaves, she kisses Porfy.

Point 3 and 4 confirm what I’ve suspected all along: this series won’t be afraid to show death and dark scenes. Point 1 and 5 also show that she made a huge impression on Porfy for this part. She developed quite fast for a series as this one. It’s only one episode, and she went from a potential tsundere to a versatile and three-dimensional character, and it’s pretty safe to assume that Porfy made a huge impression on her as well. Porfy and Mina are probably the first friends she’s had in years, considering how reluctant she was when her father announced that he’d leave her behind for a few hours.

Like expected, Porfy no Nagai Tabi has been by far the most realistic of all 2008 anime, and it doesn’t look like anything will be kicking it from its throne. There are so many moments that feel nostalgic to me, from when I was a kid myself and the world seemed so simple. Porfy also remains an idiot, but I couldn’t be more positive with that. You just have to love how he kept ringing the church-bell, hoping that it would reach Alecia’s mother in heaven.

Ah, now everything becomes clear: the thing that Porfy’s father wanted to build was his own car repair-shop, so that he could work, while being at home. He manages to finish building it this episode (which is quite fast for a World-Masterpiece Series, by the way, though I’m glad that the creators still showed exactly how Christopher built the shed, instead of most anime which show a bunch of random good-looking pictures).

This episode was mainly meant to develop Porfy and Zaimis. Porfy is really one of these kids who’ll put his entire mind and soul into what he believes, and ignoring the rather important things around him in the process. In this episode, this is school. Porfy basically skips school in order to help his father build his shop. It turns out that Zaimis wants to be a school-teacher later, so he of course tries to stop Porfy, but fails. It’s quite interesting how he doesn’t want to tell Christopher about this, and leaves it to Porfy to tell this for himself. In the process, though, he does avoid Porfy, and Porfy in his turn does start to feel a bit lonely. Corrina makes this even worse, by stealing away Zaimis whenever Porfy wants to talk to him.

It’s an interesting way to get Porfy and Zaimis closer together. The lie was quite a small one, though because it was really given time to develop throughout the episode, it worked out really well.

I’m getting rather annoyed at the huge negligence of this series. Sure, this definitely isn’t the first time that I blogged a series that almost nobody watches, but it’s really getting extreme here: this afternoon, when I checked up on my google-keywords this afternoon, I found out that eighty-four people came to this site, searching for the “Porfy sucks”. I mean, what!?

Okay, rambling aside, this was another excellent episode, as it continues to develop the characters. The episode starts with Porfy, waking up, and heading downstairs without waking up Mina. It’s here where he starts working on Mina’s birthday-present. It’s going to be something, carved out of wood, but he still refuses to show it to anyone. We also see him, borrowing a piece of string from his mother.

Mina then wakes up, and climbs downstairs. There, her mother (whose name is Anek, by the way) and father (whose name is Christopher, by the way), congratulate her on her eleventh birthday. Mina then rushes over to Porfy, though he acts like nothing happened (obviously, because the present isn’t done yet ^^;). Let’s just say that Mina isn’t happy. In any case, since this day it seems to be weekend as well, so Porfy and Mina are off from school. Therefore, Christopher offers to give the whole family a ride.

For that, however, a car is needed. It then turns out that Christopher is a car mechanic, and he can use the car of one of his clients (Corrina’s father, to be exactly), as long as he fixes it. And suddenly a lot of things become clear; most importantly Porfy’s obsession for cars. Of course, if your father is a car mechanic, you get to see a lot of cars. Now that I mention it, Mina must have become interested in Ancient Greece because of her mother. She came from a wealthy family, so she obviously has been schooled in these subjects, and she must have told Mina a lot of wonderful stories of those days.

Christopher indeed teaches Porfy a few things about cars as he works, after which Corrina drops by, looking for Zaimis. Once she left and the job is done, he takes the car along with Porfy to Mina and Anek. What’s also interesting is that he didn’t ask for a fee at all, as long as he could use the car for one day to go out with his family.

On the way home, Christopher and Porfy pass Zaimis and his father, who are just painting their stone hedges. Porfy wants to use the paint a bit to decorate his present for Mina (which we still didn’t get to see, by the way). After this, Anek and Mina are picked up, and Christopher heads to the ruins of an ancient Greek city, along with its own ancient theatre; something which Mina loves; you can really see that as she tries to imagine how that might have been. She even starts singing in Greek at one point. I must say that her voice-actress does a decent job. It definitely beats Les Miserables’ attempts at speaking French. 😛

While the foursome has lunch together, Porfy finally gives his present to Mina: it’s the wood-carved Apollo that you can see in the OP. This will probably have a huge symbolic value, later on in the series. When Christopher and the others return, a guy named Nicholas arrives at his house as well, delivering various materials that are used to build a house with, along with a very young tree, which gets to be planted in the back-yard of the house. It seems to be a “minen”-tree, though I’m not sure what that translates to. I did find a tree called a “minesakura”, which means a Japanese alpine cherry, though I wonder whether those exist in Greece. In any case, because the name of the tree sounds like Mina, the tree is called “Mina’s tree”, and the episode ends. I’m not sure what kind of house Christopher intends to build, but I’d guess it’s some kind of inn.

On a side-note: I’m still surprised at how detailed, yet simple the dialogue for this series is. For every episode, there’s usually just two or three line that I just can’t understand. Apart from that, I’m having no trouble at all to figure out what the characters are saying. Ever since I started watching raws, there hasn’t been any series that I was able understand as well as this series. That’s also why it’s such a shame that no subs have come out: it’s the perfect series for beginning translators to practice their skills.

Oh my god, what a wonderful episode, considering that we’re only three episodes in, and we barely even scratched the surface of the real potential for this series. Seeing Porfy and his sister finally reunite with their father was such a heart-warming scene. The creators really know what they’re doing.

The key to this episode was really to make the viewer wait along with Porfy and Mina, for the bus that was supposed to be carrying him. Here the two of them were in a town they hardly knew, waiting for a bus that had quite a bit of delays. Of course you’d start to feel anxious whether or not the guy would come. I also loved how Mina suddenly disappeared when Porfy got distracted by yet another car, and it’s clear now that she really likes it when her brother pays attention to her. That moment showed how this can get out of hand, because Porfy himself really wants to protect his sister, despite how he can get distracted really easily.

I also like how the creators used the story of Orpheus in this episode. For those who don’t know: Orpheus’s wife died, and he couldn’t forget about her. Hades then promised that he could take her from the underworld, on the condition that he wouldn’t look behind. When he nearly reached the exit of the underworld, his curiosity and doubts about Hades’s intentions took the best of him, he looked behind and saw how his wife got sucked back into the underworld. Porfy just can’t understand that Orpheus didn’t get any reward at all for the long path that he already crossed without looking at his wife.

What I also noticed in this episode is how the World Masterpiece Theatre-series often uses dolls to symbolize the relationship between the rich and the poor. Little Princess Sara had Emily, in Les Miserables, Cosette also receives a doll that she’s been longing for from Jean and now in this episode, we get introduced to a new character who also just received a doll from her rich family in France. Just like with Les Miserables, this girl (whose name I didn’t pick up, unfortunately) uses the doll to create jealousy. It seems that she loves Zaimis, though she can’t stand how he keeps spending time with Porfy and his sister.

Just like expected. For second episode of this season, I’ve found something to nitpick about, but not Porfy. This series has been building-up perfectly for the past two episodes. I like series that don’t play all of their cards on the table, right from the start, which is probably also why I like Ghost Hound and other mystery-series.

In this episode, we learn more about Porfy’s mother. It seems that she grew up in a rich household in some kind of city, her mother died when she was young and she doesn’t know what happened to her father, though when she married Porfy’s father, the two just didn’t have enough money so she moved back to the countryside. The only thing that she took with her was a fancy-looking watch. A letter from Porfy’s father also arrives in this episode, and he get back in about a week. Probably for Mina’s birthday, which is about to happen. He also sends two books along: one about cars for Porfy and one about the Greek gods for Mina. He probably guessed what they wanted from what they wrote in their letters to him. ^^;

Zaimis also gets fleshed out a bit more in this episode, as it seems that he often hangs out with the two siblings. It’s quite funny when the two of them have completely different interests, and he has to pay attention to both of them at the same time. It’s obvious right from the start that he likes Mina’s interests more than Porfy’s. The second half of the episode is about an owl that settles into Porfy and Mina’s bedroom. They name him Apollo, after one of the Greek gods from Mina’s book.

The thing I like most about this series is how genuine the relationship between Porfy and Mina feels so far. You can really see that they’re brother and sister, and not moeblob and geek, like you see in way too many series. Mina likes to follow Porfy around as well, even though she’s often angry with him, and Porfy in his turn is often distracted, but he does show signs that he watches out over his sister.

So far, there has been no earthquake. Judging by other world-masterpiece-series, I’d guess that it’ll happen around episode 12 or 13, though the end of the episode was a classic foreshadowing-scene, with a clear sky making way for a bunch of thick thunderclouds. Seriously, this needs to be watched. I’m still not sure why people find the length of 52 episodes too much of a commitment, and yet you never hear the same complaint about series like Gundam 00, Code Geass and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.