This really was an excellent episode for this series. It’s really clear that this is a character-study, and this time it’s Gigi’s turn to be placed under the loop, and I must say that he has quite an interesting backstory, and I think that this was one of the first convincing stories of adultery I’ve seen in anime.
So as it turns out, Gigi is Lorenzo’s half-brother. Lorenzo was born because Gigi’s father committed adultery with his own brother’s wife. The interesting thing though, is that none of them really hold a grudge against each other, and the two of them actually grew to be really close. It was Lorenzo’s father’s winery that fueled Gigi’s passion for liquor, and what’s also ironic is that Gigi’s father himself, even though he was outraged by his brother, did commit adultery himself with another woman, which gave Gigi another half-sibling.
I’m also starting to get the central theme of this series: the past. Sure, every character here has his or her own past, and collection of bad memories, but this series asks the question: why would one still hold a grudge for these events? Nicoletta came to Rome in the first place to smack her mother for the things she did to her, but then she came to understand how her mother found happiness that way, and she just stopped with trying to make her mother’s life miserable. Claudio and his wife must have shared a few sad memories when they broke up, and yet the two of them still are on good terms with each other. And this episode shows the same with Lorenzo and Gigi: sure, their parents did some stupid things, but is that really enough to hate them and get emo over it? The only one who got worked up over it was Gigi’s father.
This really is a-typical of most anime, who most often put lots of angst in these sad past events, but this series shows that they can also be very well used in order to flesh out characters without any angst whatsoever. Vito’s up in the next episode, so I’m interested to see what he can offer to this.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Excellent art direction, combined with Gigi’s fascinating backstory.
I found this episode a tad bit on the melodramatic side though, but solid throughout. I’m slightly confused though about you saying that Gigi’s dad committed adultery too, since I don’t remember it being mentioned at all in the episode. Unless you’re implying the woman at the start and end is Gigi’s half-sibling, but the grave she referred to as her father’s was different from Gigi’s dad’s at the start :S
Oh crap, I thought that they were coming for the same person. Thanks for pointing that one out.
Yeah, it was actually Gigi’s mother that commited adultery and gave birth to Lorenzo. Overall however I really enjoyed this episode and how it delved in Gigi’s backstory. I did love how it cleverly hinted at his unrequited love for Nicoletta’s mother.
What a fantastic episode.
Can’t believe how much depth we already have in just 5 episodes.