Porfy no Nagai Tabi – 43

Short Synopsis: The reunion with Mina doesn’t become so certain anymore and Major SPOILER ahead.
Highlights: It’s finally time for the creators to use everything they’ve built up for…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Holy crap, I knew it! My suspicions became sure at the beginning of this episode: the creators have been systematically removing everything that ties Porfy and Mina to Simitra, up to the point where there were just two things left: Apollo and Apollo’s medallion that Porfy made. Yeah.

The episode starts with Porfy, arriving at a local farm, and he asks the farmer whether he can give him some water. The farmer’s wife then returns a bit later with a rumour about a small girl who travels with her fortunetelling mother in the next town. It sounds too good to e true, but Porfy goes to check it out anyway, as the farmer gives him a few apples, and he and his wife feel pity with the guy.

Meanwhile, we see Mina again. She’s inside a train, and at that point she asks Isabella to tell her fortune. The first card that she opens unfortunately happens to be the death-card (foreshadowing, anyone?). Isabella then comments on how Mina has changed a bit. She’s indeed become more open when compared to when we last saw her.

Porfy meanwhile arrives at the town from which the rumour came, and indeed the villagers seem to recognize the description Porfy gives them. Meanwhile, Isabella’s father has troubles with his back (foreshadowing, anyone?), and they decide to travel on foot because the train won’t show up. Porfy meanwhile finds the inn the rumoured Mina is staying in, though they just checked out. He manages to find them, just before they hit a bus, but like suspected, they are some completely different people.

However, they do seem to know Isabella and the others, and in fact they met them once. Especially the girl was able to accurately describe Mina. They’ve got no idea where they are now, but nevertheless, there’s a good chance that they’re going to be heading to Paris. So, Porfy plans to head North, with the assurance that Mina’s doing fine (foreshadowing… anyone?).

At the local inn, Mina enjoys Isabella’s performance, and then suddenly she breaks down due to some vision she had or something similar (foreshadowing, anyone?). A bit later, we see that Porfy’s lost in some remote forest, with a hunter nearby (if that isn’t foreshadowing, then I don’t know anymore…). Porfy runs into said hunter, who asks what he’s doing there. It turns out that Porfy’s on some private property of that hunter, and even though Porfy tries to apologize and tell him that he’s lost, the hunter doesn’t believe him, and thinks that he’s the guy who has been stealing from his lands. He then sees Apollo and shoots him.

Meanwhile, something strange happens with Mina, and she somehow seems to feel Apollo’s death, and this time, she breaks down completely. She even calls out Porfy, for the first time since they separated. We switch back to Porfy, as he has just created a grave for Apollo. We never see him cry about it, nor do we know whether he did or not. And the episode ends.

I must say that even though there were so many signs of foreshadowing, Apollo’s death still made a lot of impact there. I think that this episode also introduced the final arc of this series. There first was the Greece-arc, which was slice of life, then the Earthquake-arc came, which was downright sad, the Slow Travel-arc then came, in which the stories took up three or four episodes, then the Fast Travel-arc, which was instead episodic, and now the Final Arc comes, which focuses on both Porfy and Mina, travelling to Paris, and it’s probably going to go back even more to the Earthquake-arc, but with an even more depressing mood. The question is of course going to be: does the final arc have what it takes to surpass the amazing Earthquake-arc?

With this episode, we also know for sure: SOMETHING is going to have to happen to Isabella’s father. There’s no other way to interpret his aching back. I also predict that whatever it is that will happen to him, it’s going to trigger Carlos’ time-bomb. What surprised me was how mellow Carlos was in this episode. There wasn’t even a bad word that came out of him.

There’s also something I’ve been wondering for episodes right now, because I’m also watching Perrine Monogatari at this point. Porfy grew up in Greece, so he’s not used to bad weather. Now that he’s in France, and it’s starting to become Winter, then won’t the guy catch a cold at one point? It’s strange, because there have been no signs foreshadowing this yet, and at the same time with nine episodes left, there still is enough airtime left for that to happen.

I’m also wondering: Mina’s death card was about Apollo… but did the creators mean more by that? The creators have been systematically killing everything from Simitra so far. Will they also give Porfy and Mina the same treatment. Like mentioned above: their reunion suddenly doesn’t become so certain anymore.