Sakura Quest offers a pretty much Sakura Quest-esque this week, and I come to believe that this is a strong mini-arc to close-up the first half of its run. For the Tourism Board, the Manoyama Founding Festival will become their most ambitious project in term of scope they have encountered so far. Moreover, documenting the girls and their efforts for the festival sound like a pretty good idea too, as it’s more a less a time for our girls to look back and see how they have grown, and do a bit of meta for their own show. After spending the first half completing character arcs for everyone, it’s only natural that the Manoyama town has a central focus in this arc. Then Sakura Quest adds little twist at the end with the inclusion of super popular band Plotemaios (who had a hit song in a soda commercial no less) and a character focus on the Queen Yoshino. My primary complain about Sakura Quest has been lifted as well in this arc, as there’s clearly a continuity to the main story. We see almost all the supporting characters from different arcs (the woodcarvers, the chef, the producer, the Community Club, even Nao appearing in the commercial), we see our girls have passed their own crisis as well. Seriously, the strong continuity like this event, with some winks to previous arcs and side characters, is all I could ask for.
For this arc, Sakura Quest really goes all out for their biggest tourism impact. The Founding Festival is already their biggest event of the year, and then we have a popular Moving Mountains reality show that of course will bring good publicity for the town, and then the Festival itself turns into the music night of sort when that rising unpronounceable band decides to show up. For a brief moment there, I was sure the band would bail out in the end, since this could be a real disaster because the whole plan somehow turns itself to rely heavily on the presence of band. But the preview next week makes it clear that they come, so I guess the main conflict would be the band overwhelming the Tourism’s Board efforts. When you think about it, it kinda sounds like a disaster too. Yoshino and the girls personally go such great length to ask for the town’s support for their trivia questions, to their point of begging for more fund and volunteer (by the way, I really love Chitose’s decision to use a reserve fund to help out. She’s always reasonable). This concert will overwhelm their efforts and all their efforts plus fund will come to naught. The tourists will come and go without much impression to the town, because they come to the town for music. I am intrigued to see how Yoshino address and resolve this issue.
At the same time, there is a documentation about our girls and their efforts to market the town. All of the girls, save Mari, are too self-conscious on the whole filming and I have a good laugh or two when they act so out of characters: Shiori wearing that fashionable glass, old man Kadota keeps saying “chupa” all the times and uses every opportunity to jump on the screen with exclaim, Sanae using big, technical words and my Ririko wearing mask at the meeting and Sandal-san, well he just being himself- Costner style. When the girls ease up in front of camera though, it’s time for the director Amamiya – himself a Manoyama native – to ask them about their motivations and what they think about the Queen. The answers are too varied that Amamiya has a hard time on how to frame Yoshino and he flat out declares that Yoshino’s bland. Well, she’s anything but bland, I assure you. Her heart is devoted for reviving this small town and if you can’t see it, it’s your loss dear Mister Director. He seems to fire up at the idea of raising more attention to this town as well and so far he’s taking a good lead. I also feel they better don’t use the information bit that Yoshino was a little Princess (the 100,000th visitor no less – exactly how could they count that?) for to impress the Director. It’s like a miracle story, yes, but she still hasn’t earned her Queen title yet, as far as the public’s eyes concern. Here’s hoping Yoshino will wipe out the band and get people acknowledged her efforts for this little town.
