Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 15

So now we know why Porfy started his travels. Finally, everything makes perfect sense. But the real highlight of this episode was without a doubt Mina. Never have I seen a character act so genuine as she did in this episode. The loss of her parents blocked out everything, apart from her deepest feelings. I’ve said it before, but the refugee-camp arc was just gut-wrenchingly sad. And to think that the real meat of this series has only just started.

Inside the refugee-camp, Mina is sitting with Apollo on her shoulder, smiling at the creature, while nearby Porfy and Zaimis are washing dishes. Zaimis wonders when he can go back to Simitra, though Porfy doesn’t want to go back to that place anymore (with his house being destroyed and all). Helena then takes over from them, so that Porfy and Zaimis can take care of their sisters. It turns out that Mina does have a few physical scars as well, but these will probably disappear completely when she becomes an adult. The same can’t be said from her mental scars, though.

A guy from the village named Lucas, delivering supplies for the refugee-camp then arrives. As he starts up his car to go back, it malfunctions. Porfy then runs to his and Mina’s bed (ignoring Mina’s greetings and leaving her behind, looking disappointed), and grabs his father’s toolkit, and fixes the car. Lucas then gives him his very first self-earned fee. When Porfy goes back to Mina to show this fee, she’s gone.

Porfy looks for her, but he can’t find her. He then runs into Zaimis and he also helps searching, and soon a lot of the people who take care of the refugee-camp are searching for her. Eventually, Porfy finds her behind a rock near the sea, singing the song that she used to like when her parents were still alive. Mina may have lost a lot, but it looks like she’s desperately holding onto her love for theatre. Porfy scolds her, and she suddenly looks much gloomier again, so Porfy tries to cheer her up a bit more.

It actually works, especially when Porfy tries to act out other parts from that play. Mina even joins him with the acting, looking very happy. Then, however, Porfy shows her the money he earned from Lucas’s car, and immediately Mina feels down again. I suspected this before, but it’s really true: Mina doesn’t like Porfy’s obsession with cars. I always had the feeling that she felt left out whenever Porfy started rambling about cars, and this scene indeed confirms this.

In any case, Mina is brought back to the camp, and falls asleep. A little while later, Helena passes out different letters to the refugees. Zaimis’s mother (finally I know her name! It’s Dori) also gets one, and it comes from her aunt (either that, or Zaimis’s aunt). It turns out that the two can live with her. Zaimis is shocked when he finds out that he isn’t going back to Simitra, but after all there’s no way in which they can go and fix their house just like that. Porfy tries to cheer Zaimis up when he finds out, but it’s clear that Porfy himself is also very unhappy with this turn of events.

It’s then when Barnes arrives, and he immediately goes to Helena, so that Porfy doesn’t have the time to greet him. Porfy then goes to eavesdrop on the conversation between these two. He hears how Helena finds that things aren’t going well with Mina, and how she doesn’t speak at all. Barnes then says that he’s find a very nice family for Porfy and Mina, though there’s one thing: this family only wants to take care of a girl. In other words: Porfy and Mina will separate, and Mina will go all the way to America!

This news devastates Porfy. He runs to Mina to tell her the bad news, and he suggests to run away from the camp. His plan is for her to run away when she’s taking care of the dishes away. Porfy will then leave the camp with his own excuse, and they’ll meet up later at a certain landmark. During dinner, they eat more than usual, to strengthen them for the trip, while Zaimis still laments the fact that they’re not going to see each other anymore. Porfy obviously couldn’t care less, because he has more urgent things to worry about.

Then, it’s time to carry out Porfy’s plan. Porfy, unfortunately, runs into Zaimis, and barely manages to come up with a good excuse, and is also helped by the fact that Zaimis is holding his little sister. Porfy then says goodbye to Zaimis in a cryptic way, and heads off.

The plan, however, turns out to be a disaster. Mina sees a nearby bicycle and gets fascinated by it (because there was a bicycle in the movie that they watched as well). The angry owner of that bike then turns up, however, and Mina runs away, terrified at what to do against such an angry strange man. Unfortunately for her, she runs towards a village, where all sorts of scary people walk around. Porfy meanwhile realizes that something’s wrong, and starts searching for her, guided by Apollo and the episode ends.

The amount of building-up that this series did in its first quarter is just overwhelming. More and more scenes that once just seemed to just fill time now turn out to have an incredible meaning. I don’t just mean Mina’s visit to the movie, and the scene at the theatre, but also in episode three, where Mina got separated from Porfy. That too lays a parallel to the events that happened in this episode: back then, Mina just played a prank, but in this episode, her fears are everything but a joke.

I’ve also began to wonder: where will Porfy and Mina sleep? How will they get food? I originally thought that Mina and Porfy would be separated from each other, but now it really looks like the two of them will travel together, which makes things only sadder. Not only is Mina without a doubt the best-developed character in this entire series, but it also means that Porfy is going to not only take care of himself, but Mina as well. I can see how he’ll end up trying to repair cars to get some money, but will people really trust their car with a small boy? And what will Mina be doing when Porfy is out there, trying to make money, even though she hates his obsession for cars.

Seriously, the more I think about it, the more I realize what an amazing amount of potential this series has. Spring may have come with a very good collection of interesting series, but even the BEST of them are going to have to try really hard if they want to be able to top this series.