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.
I wish this series was funsubed! Too bad more people don’t feel inclined to sub masterpiece theather type anime.
I’ve finally caught up with this Porfy no Nagai Tabi. Thus far it’s been very enjoyable, however it has started to annoy me a bit since Porfy is somehow able to find people to help him anywhere he goes. It just doesn’t suit well to an otherwise (almost) realistic show.
One more thing, could you upload the episodes when you get them from Share? I cannot use Share because my ISP blocks the ports(Share gives me network errors and I cannot download or upload) and RAWka is so slow at releasing. It’s really hard to wait for an ep after seeing that you have already talked about it. I have to use all my willpower not to read the entry before I’ve seen the ep myself. So waht do you think?
Zindrel: have you tried port forwarding on share? You need to have the ports you use forwarded on your router, or else it won’t work. For more information:
http://portforward.com/routers.htm
And yes, I agree how in especially this arc Porfy met the right people a bit too easy.
I know of port forwarding, however that only does the trick if the ISP has left the ports open(e.g. the router’s firewall is blocking the ports). So it does not work for me. Thanks for trying to help though.
Hmm, the problem is that my internet connection isn’t the best for uploading such huge files or putting them on a torrent. If you could perhaps suggest a relatively quick way to upload the file, then I could give it a try to share it.
The fastest way of sharing files is torrents, as far as I know. My connection is bad at upload as well – it’s 4 times slower than my download.
Anyway, waiting won’t kill, so don’t worry about it too much 🙂