夏のあらし！ Episode 06
(Summer Storm)
Natsu no Arashi! – 06

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Jun talks with Kaja about the time period they are from, showing her the research she’s done on the subject. Jun tells Kaja that she won’t help Kaja by forming a connection with her. Kaja, thinking Jun is a boy, assures Jun that since Kaja can only connect with girls, Jun is safe. However, when Kaja grabs Jun, they connect and disappear in front of Master. Arashi and Hajime return from the past to find Master in a state of shock. When Master reports what she witnessed, Arashi and Hajime are stunned.

Jun and Kaja arrive in 1945 Japan in the dining area of Ark. Since Kaja only connects with girls, she asks why Jun is disguised as a boy. They are interrupted when “Tenchou” arrives. A cop also arrives, having received a report of a light in Ark and initially is going to arrest Kaja as a spy since she’s a foreigner. However, Tenchou tells the officer he knows the girl and that she’s German. For the sake of the alliance and Tenchou’s bad leg, the officer agrees to let the matter drop but warns them to keep the lights out.

As Tenchou serves them some tea in the dark, Jun realizes that Kaja and Tenchou are in love with each other. When Tenchou offers to take them home, Kaja agrees and they walk through a cherry orchard to see the sakura in bloom. Jun tries to give them space for their love but Kaja insists Jun stay close. Further, half-way through the orchard, Kaja tells Tenchou that they must part. Once he’s gone, Jun demands to know why Kaja is acting this way to a guy she obviously loves. Kaja is afraid of changing history and knows that Tenchou will die in one month due to an air raid. For over sixty years, Kaja has let the man she loves die, something Jun cannot understand.

The air raid sirens go off, so Kaja and Jun hurriedly return to Ark, which was not bombed during the war, thus making it the safest place in Japan. However, Tenchou is not there and Kaja realizes she’s changed the past. Despite Jun’s terrified pleas, Kaja leaves to save Tenchou and reluctantly Jun follows. Jun has a severe panic attack as the bombs fall all around but Kaja snaps her back to reality.

They find Tenchou at his parents house where Kaja assures him that they are safe. He’s not sure since she won’t explain exactly how she knows. Jun gets angry with both of them for foolishly risking their lives at this time. However, the fires from the bombs have the trio surrounded. Arashi and Hajime arrive with fire extinguishers, having seen Jun’s research and realizing where Kaja and Jun went. They provide a means of escape and they all return to the present.

Thoughts/Review:

I don’t like SHAFT’s over-stylized form of storytelling, but in this episode, the panic Jun experienced as the bombs fell and the air raid sirens wailed seemed well expressed with the over-stylized method. I still don’t like SHAFT’s over-stylized presentations everywhere else in the anime and I wish they’d stop but I know that’s not going to happen. At here it worked because it did portray feelings of panic, terror, and helplessness pretty well.

Again, I couldn’t help but feel just a sliver of terror that it must feel like when being bombed. I think back to other comedy shows like the British comedy Are You Being Served? where there were several jokes about Great Britain being bombed during World War II. Obviously, that doesn’t give one a feel for what it was truly like.

Next is the Doctor Who episode (from the 1st season of the new series) where the Doctor and his companion Rose go to WWII Great Britain and are almost immediately caught in an air raid by German bombers. There too, while one got a feel for the terrible beauty of squadrons of bombers flying overhead and dropping their loads, I never really felt the terror of being in an air raid. So kudos to SHAFT for twice giving me a glimpse into that experience.

I did note the almost bitter remark about civilian casualties in this episode. I couldn’t help but think about today where if a civilian gets scratch during a bombing run or a fire fight, there are people screaming for war crimes trials to start and the gallows to be constructed. Heck, lying sacks of “you know what” who can beat women for shopping too much or execute them for getting to close to a man not their husband or family can claim that massive civilian deaths occurred as a result of American actions when those very people may have accidentally (or on purpose if they used them as human shields) killed those civilians.

My point is that war is hell. We didn’t attack Japan first during WWII — they bombed the crap out of Pearl Harbor. Japan for a long time kicked America’s butt in the Pacific until America could turn its full attention to the region, at which point the bombs rained down all over Japan. War is not a nice thing and people die, that includes civilians (unfortunately). So the bitter remark on the part of the writers may be a commentary on what they saw as American slaughter of innocent Japanese, but from the American perspective, those people were just as much part of the Japanese war effort and you destroy the enemy’s resources including human ones.

OK, I’m done now. I guess the fact that both of my grandfathers served in WWII and that I did so much research on WWII during my school days make me get a bit passionate on the subject. ^_^;

Now this brings me around to Arashi’s mission to save people in the past and apparently change history while Kaja goes back to the past but instead does nothing. I can’t imagine going back to the past, falling in love with a girl, and then letting her die over and over and over again during a 60+ year period. Apparently, Kaja has been doing just that with her love from 1945 — a previous owner of Ark. Kaja is scared of changing history while Arashi is determined to change things. I wonder what will become of all this?

Two interesting secrets were revealed this time around, as we new they would be from the first episode. Kaja discovers that Jun is a girl (since she can only connect with girls in order to time travel) and Master discovers that Kaja has special powers. I can’t remember, but does Arashi know that Kaja can only connect with girls? If so, she’d know that Jun is female but I doubt she’d ever say anything. Regardless, we still don’t know exactly why Jun is filling the role of “reverse trap” and pretending to be a boy.

So another good episode in spite of SHAFT’s presentation style and that stupid short at the end of the episode which wearies me so. I’m going to have to try to read the manga at some point.