The explanation behind this series… actually turned out to be pretty simple: there is an alien who controls people using water. Haru and his sister are out to stop him. Duck investigates both of them. That’s it, and I’m impressed that the creators managed to make an entire series out of just that.
What this show did was very risky, but still: I like how it didn’t force anything here to put in extra tension. This episode pretty much explained what was going on. There will be one point of confrontation with that alien: the typhoon. The characters took a while to venture out to its location because in the first half of this series, they had no reason to, and they’re not going to go back again because they’re not stupid. This show is about fishing: being patient and letting things come naturally. The downside of this is that you also don’t know if you’re going to catch something.
And that’s the double edge of the series structure that this show picked of letting everything evolve naturally, compared to the series that start out action-packed: I’m not advocating action, but rather characters and storylines who show themselves off and bring up emotions. Having a slow pacing either works out really well because it allows us to really get a feel of the characters, or become completely boring because nothing happens. The trick I use in an attempt to guess how well a series will end up based on just the first few episodes is by looking at its potential: what is it building up to? Is the characterization good? How do the characters work together? And this is where Tsuritama scored really high.
all that’s left now is the pay-off: these final episodes have the daunting task of using all that build-up and delivering a very memorable finale. You can have amazing characters, but if they don’t do anything or don’t get pushed to their limits, then it’s a bit of a shame. The one thing I noticed in this episode was the impact that the scenes about the Bermuda thingy made to me: I got really excited there when the music started playing. Keep that up.
NB: holy crap Natsuki looks different now!
Rating: ** (Excellent)
Example of a slow series done right: Mushishi.
I wasn’t interested in the whole fishing thing and the weird characters so I stopped watching it after the first episode.
I think that if the show (or any show) that is REALLY GOOD (see Mushishi) then the fast or slow pace doesn’t really matter if the show is mediocre or just “good” and you have a slow pace with not much going on then. . . you notice the slow pace. . . you really aren’t supposed to. . .if you notice that the story is dragging, then something has gone terribly wrong
Mushishi is my favorite series so I am not disputing it’s awesomeness but I find the comparison with Tsuritama odd as they are largely trying to accomplish different things.
Also I don’t blame you for dropping the series if it didn’t do much for you but it is also hard to judge it after only one episode. Yes fishing is an important element of the show do are aliens but these things are mainly back drops for the main focus which is on friendship, family, and character development; all of which Tsuritama excels at.
To be fair, from what the fansub I watched, the premise isn’t just a simple “mind controlling alien” affair. Water is the medium this alien species uses to communicate with eachother, but when used on humans that’s when mind control happens. Sort of like the E7 Scum Coral or Ender’s Game Buggers.
And obviously the premise involves the Duck organisation, which are clearly the real bad guys here with their own suspicious motives.
If that’s the case, this alien could either be failing to properly communicate with people, which is pretty sad; or it’s just being mischievous. I’m going to make a guess it’s been somewhat lonely this entire time, and this will of course relate heavily to Yuki’s life – they are probably very similar, but slightly different in that one has run away and the other made friends.
It’s not as simple as it might, but of course this show is about characterisation either way so it almost doesn’t matter. It’s nice to see there’s some thought there though.
Denizen, I don’t know how accurate the fansub you are watching was, but some of that information is wrong. The aliens can control each other as well, that’s what happened to Haru in episode 7, and that’s why he acted so wierd. Haru also cleary states that the alien is their “friend” they use the word “nakama” which has a pretty broad meaning, so it could mean friend or just one of their own species, since Haru and his sister uses the japanese language in a somewhat awkward way, and don’t always have a good grip of a words proper meaning. They also state clearly that their alien friend has come to earth to do mischief, and pretty much lost track of his own power and that he doesn’t really like/get along with humans all that well.
also the reason why they dont get their alien friend themselves is because if they get close to him, they go under his control, so they want to use Yuki to lure him out, so they can get the upper hand.
sorry it’s meant to read episode six, from
17:40 into episode six, haru is being mind controlled 🙂