Tsuritama Episode 4--How to Be Friends

While it's not as emotional as last week, good things are happening with character development.




While the overall plot is still a mystery, I think the show has nailed down the individual character arcs and how they intertwine. Yuki still has problems with his shyness, but it's improved drastically thanks to Haru--the "water" only reaches his waist this time! Haru is gradually learning what is and isn't acceptable when dealing with people. And Natsuki is still having issues with his dad.

Haru's actions drive the episode this time around, since despite having a natural affinity towards making friends, he still doesn't know when he's crossing a line. While his attempt to get Natsuki and his dad to fish together was well-intentioned, it brings up the problems from episode two all over again; what worth is a friendship--or any relationship for that matter--if you can always make the other person do what you want and/or what you think is right? Yuiki also repeats a line from last episode; since Haru is an alien, he can't understand.

But Haru is definitely trying to understand, and in four episodes he's come a long way. Now that we and the other characters have spent more time with him, it's easier to tell the difference between a random outburst or just one of Haru's personality quirks. For example, in case we hadn't noticed it earlier, this episode brings attention to the high possibility that Haru is a fish in addition to an alien. He waters himself, finds the lures delicious-looking, and jumps in the ocean at the end of the episode because he felt "dry." It'll probably be unclear for a while why a fish would want to learn fishing.




Regardless of Haru's true identity, his "power to melt people's hearts" is slowly but surely working it's magic on Yuki and Natsuki. One of the things that stuck out to me in this episode was how much Natsuki was smiling, and in front of Haru and Yuki! I thought that he would keep up the angry mask forever, but it only came back when his dad would enter the picture or during his catchphrase ("I'm only saying this once"). He's also becoming more helpful and patient as he teaches Yuki and Haru how to fish, eventually talking Yuki through his first catch. Two episodes ago, I doubt he would've cared.

I've already mentioned that Haru seems to be having the biggest effect on Yuki, since the only person he seems to talk to more than Kate is the alien. This is a big change from the last few episodes, where Yuki's lines were mostly monologue. Too bad most of what his says to Haru has to do with voicing his frustrations, but the end of the episode showed that he does care about Haru a lot. Kate's ominous line, "What would you do if he disappeared?" obviously had an effect on him, since he jumped into the ocean when he thought that Haru was drowning...despite not knowing how to swim. For me, that was the best moment in the episode (second place was catching the fish) since we don't know until after the fact that Yuki was willing to risk his life to save Haru even though he was perfectly fine.

The only one that isn't getting on the friendship bandwagon is Akira, who seems to be perfectly content with Tapioca. Like I mentioned last week, he's singularly focused on his mission. At the end of the episode, he seems confused by the realization that perhaps Haru is only really interested in making friends. In a way, I can understand Akira's frustration that he doesn't know what the aliens (read: the plot) is up to, but this show has made it clear that it wants to be character-driven. With characters this well-realized, I have no problems with this.

Images from Crunchyroll.com.