ARIA company has received a specific request for Akari to give a gondola tour even though (and precisely because) she is a still a Single apprentice. LOL as her friends speculate on worst case scenarios: Aika suggesting that customers who think that Singles are easy to take advantage of or bully while Alice speculates that she may be a legendary investigator who may demote Singles back down to Pairs if they don’t perform. As this is ARIA, no mention of serial killers.
The customer, Amaranda, seems kindly enough but seems to be able to one-up Akari at every special spot that she’s introduced to. Akari ends up being distressed that she was not able to show Amaranda-san anything new but Amaranda will still treasure the memories made today, memories that are made up of sharing Akari’s enthusiasm and love for Neo Venezia. She deliberately chooses Singles precisely because their n00bness is innocent and refreshing and maybe because she enjoys embarrassing statements. Alicia reveals that she also gave Amaranda a tour when she was a Single; Akira and Athena too - that’s the trick, get ‘em while they’re young! Suitably inspired without resorting to motivation posters, the junior trio resolve to work hard to achieve the status of prima. [See Totali's summary.]
This episode was very well balanced with large doses of ‘Wow isn’t this scenic and calming?’ on the one hand and ‘Dekkai mystery and comedy desu’ on the other. Akari, along with us viewers as fellow passengers, gradually realize that there’s more to Amaranda than meets the eye. Like Orion [gah, I made a mistake again], I enjoyed Aika and Alice’s shadowing of Akari immensely; it added comedy, variety and pace to the main event which might, on its own, get a bit too calming.
LOL at Aika and Alice’s poor tactical movement and situational awareness. Alice tummy rumble was the best ‘line’ of this episode.
Alice, in these kinds of mapless GPSless fly-by-seat-of-pants(u) topo situations, the driver drives and the vehicle commander commands. Aika ‘outranks’ you anyway so you can always blame her if you get lost. ;)
Also pretty hilarous when Alice asked Amaranda if Single Athena was a big bother, given how accident prone she was. Oh man, I still ROLFMAO when I think of her Glorious ‘Ahhhh~~~ matte~~~!!’ from Ep 11 of the first season. *goes off to ROLFMAO*
“LOL at Aika and Alice’s poor tactical movement and situational awareness. Alice tummy rumble was the best ‘line’ of this episode.”
That tummy rumble was pretty hilarious. x3
And yeah, the two of them makes sure terrible stalkers. But of course, that just made it all the more entertaining!
Errr….”sure make terrible stalkers”.
I be to can speaking the English good!
Ep 11 of the first season.
That was one of the best music scene ever. A real show stopper. ( This is coming from someone who has seen some real show stoppers by various classical musicians )
Orion, we only speaking the Japlish so is ok. I did try to implement the comment edit plugin but it doesn’t work with K2 though… :(
maglor, was it the instrumental or the singing?
The singing. You know Athena is a good singer, but it was in this scene where she gets to sing the full song without any distractions, and with some added background to enhance the feeling.
Aria also gets high marks for using Monteverdi style festival instrumental music in one of the episode. In case you are not well versed in Western Music History, Monteverdi is one of the most important musician at the started of Baroque period, and he is the most influential musician in history of Venice.
By the way, another of OMG music moment in anime was Rosa Canina from Marimite singing the “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” from Camille Saint-Saëns’s Samson and Delilah. I wish I could have heard that in proper recital hall. Below is the best recordings of the song I can find
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9piRiiZ0C4Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qSy1g4yP1M
Sorry for repeated post, but found one even better
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzOrE33Y-MI&feature=related
Thanks, maglor. That was very educational! I always wondered how Shizuka and Athena’s singing matches up to professional singers and have found a new appreciation for their seiyuu’s professionalism.
BTW fyi the Rosa Canina comment got put into a moderation queue by Akismet because it had two links in it.