Okay, so apparently I mistook the second episode that I reviewed a month ago for the actual third episode. Today, finally the real second episode and the fourth episode became available It’s confusing, but then again, this show really needs all of the advertising it can get. Especially since it still hasn’t gotten fansubbed…
In nay case, this episode starts with a strange and annoying announcer, and it’s more than apparent that the voice actor of the lead kid can’t act during the dramatic parts. Apart from that though, it again was a pretty good episode here. This time, it focused on the way in which the main cast lived in an era of transition: on one side there was the second world war that people were still recovering from (signified by the scarcity of water), and the way that people started looking towards the future.
The main character is a kid, but at the same time this show also gives ample time to the rest of the characters. I liked how this episode also focused on his brother as he tried to fit into the working culture of Japan, that would later propel the country to becoming one of the top economies in the world.His sister meanwhile also has the problems of finding a guy, and his parents have the problems of trying to raise him, and his grandmother has the loss of her husband. If this show was solely aimed at kids, we probably would never have gotten all of them nicely fleshed out like that.
Oh, and the ED is different this time as well. I’m not exactly sure what the creators are playing, but they sound very authentic. And that’s really a key word for this series. There have been movies that tell slice of life stories that took place around World War II, but there are hardly any TV series that can claim the same. The only one I can think of is Porfy no Nagai Tabi. The animation obviously isn’t that good, but the extra length is definitely going to be interesting here to paint a nice picture of how life was back in those days in Japan. I mean, Rainbow was a very good series and all, but to call it realistic…
Rating: * (Good)
