Subculture Anime Blog

I love Aika, yes I do~.

Summary:

The time has come for the Undine to change their outfits according to the weather. While practicing with the girls as usual, Aika brings up Akari’s recent Traghetto experience. Akari confirms this, making Aika determined as usual. The girls begin searching for a bread shop in the market, when Athena passes by in the water nearby. Singing her beautiful song, those around her are quickly put at ease. A girl loses her hat to the wind afterwards, but luckily for her, Alicia is nearby to catch it for her. Alicia leaves after politely returning the hat to the girl, and Aika notices that the salesgirl next to her is as amazed as she is. The girls finally get to eating, and a discussion about their seniors is brought up. When Alice describes Athena and Alicia’s talents as unobtainable, Aika becomes troubled. She wonders about Akira, but Alice and Akari believe that she is just as amazing because of her hard working personality.

As the girls get back to practice, Alice shows her two seniors some impressive skills. When Akari’s turn comes up, many citizens around her compliment her new summer outfit. Alice expresses how this always happens, as Akari seems to be on good terms with everyone in the city. Of course, Akari believes this is wonderful. Aika almost gives Akari her usual scolding, but she again becomes troubled when red petals begin falling in front of her. Remembering Alice’s words from earlier, Aika cannot help but become troubled. After seeing her two friends off that afternoon, Aika disappointingly states to herself that hard work is not a gift. Aika finds a heap of items in the hall when she arrives home, as well as an energetic Akira. She tries to get past this, but eventually gives in to helping out with the chores.

Aika finds a photo album while finishing up some work, noticing an old picture of the three water fairies. She sees that Akira is the only one who remained a single in the photo, and Akira confirms that she was the last one to become a prima. Aika emotionally wonders how Akira can laugh about this, as she believes that it would have been painful and hard to deal with. Akira states that she did not have any talents like Alice or Athena, so it was a given that something like that would happen. Aika wonders if it wasn’t painful, but Akira confirms to her that it was. Aika wonders how Akira can be so strong, so Akira decides to tell Aika a story.

It was the day that Athena had become a prima. Akira had congratulated Athena, and Alice decided that Athena’s turn would be next. She smiled at the time, but could not help but be troubled once she reached home. Wandering around the city, Akira wondered when it was that she became alone. She recalled that she was unlike her two friends, in that she was not born with any special talents. She had found a large amount of clovers, but could not find a four leafed one. This made her wonderful further more about if she was destined to be a normal person, unable to become a prima. She wondered what she should do, but her thoughts were interrupted by a young Aika.

Realizing what she was doing, Aika attempted to search for a four leafed clover as well. She could not find one either though, so she suggested that Aika give up. She suggested that it couldn’t be helped if something could not exist, and these words hit Akira harder than they were intended to. Aika then suggested that if something did not exist, she could simply create it, taking a rose petal to create a four leafed clover. She stated that she actually preferred this, calling the single rose petal Akira’s heart. This finally made Akira realize her place, as she gained the inspiration to approach her friends and obtain comparable skills. Aika is extremely moved by this story in the present, making Akira realize that Aika does not remember that she was the girl of the past. Akira decides to give the rose petaled four leaf clover to Aika, which in turn makes Aika wonder if the rose petal is what made Akira chose her famous title. Akira refuses to give her a direct answer, but Aika is overjoyed all the same. When Aika returns to practice with her friends later, she has returned to being her usual energetic self.

Preview: Is it Alice’s turn to have an episode?

Impression:

Woah, this season of Aria just keeps getting better! As a resident Aika lover, this episode was 100 percent win. It’s funny, because I’m usually not a tsundere type character fan. I would usually lean more towards the dumb main character types like Akari, but Aika just has something amazing going for her. Every time I see her go emo (which happened multiple times in this episode), my heart stops. It was quite awesome seeing Akira in a casual get up, and even more awesome learning about the important role Aika played in her past. That caught me completely off guard, not even gonna lie. Akari herself said some amazingly powerful lines during the story, and I was blown away when they added this to the great shot composition they used throughout the episode. Hey, when you’re operating on scenery porn, I guess it is a necessity to have things look good like that.

The theme of this episode was, of course, extremely powerful. I love how all of the company’s girls share talents and thoughts that relate to their seniors, which was represented quite well in this episode. Akira’s inner struggles were represented beautifully, as they were a reflection of Aika’s. Again looking to real life situations, it’s hard not to empathize with Aika. I think everyone has felt like they could not compete or keep up with their peers’ talents at some point or another. Maybe that’s why I like Aika so much. She’s the most normal, using her heart work and energetic drive to succeed beside the two talents beside her. Learning to create your own talents is an important life lesson, and you just learned it from Aria. Yea, who said anime doesn’t teach you great things? It looks like the focus will shift to Alice next week, which I know will make at least one person happy. Alice looks kind of like Impz, huh?