Episode Synopsis:
Our quartet is here at their ultimate destination. WE MADE IT!!! The girls start their busy Antarctica lives, but Yuzuki seems to lack the umderstanding about what it means to truly have friends.
Episode Review:
OH MA GAWD! Episode 10 is the first true Antarctica episode. Our quartet spends a lot of this episode learning the way of life on the frozen continent. Like Scott, I actually don’t have a ton to say about this episode, but that doesn’t indicate that the content of the episode wasn’t fun to watch.
There isn’t much to say about the life in Antartica. It was interesting to see what the girls had to do, but a lot of it was in rapid shots without explanation. I did enjoy what I believe is foreshadowing of that hot spring scene from the opener though. I also loved Shirase’s psychotic love of penguins. I mean…just look at this face…
In other news, thank goodness for this moment. I’m so glad Brendan didn’t get ALL the best “weird use of the English language” moments.
What I’ll focus on for this episode is Yuzuki’s misunderstanding of what friendship is, and how that filters out into Shirase and Hinata’s barely passable knowledge of the subject. Believe it or not, it’s Mari who is the fountain of knowledge on this one. Yeah I know right? That girl knows her compass, and she knows about friendship. Those are two skills you can take to the bank!
When a comment is made from Mari about how the group has become friends, even best-friends now, Yuzuki feels left out. She’s confused about when the group made the transition from acquaintances to “friends”. Does it involve contracts? If everyone signs Yuzuki’s well written Friendship Consent Form, will they all stay friends forever? Mari and Co. teach Yuzuki a thing or two in this episode.
The theme here is cute and as always, the girls coming together to “help” Yuzuki with her question about friendship has amusing and touching sequences to it. That being said, some of this episode felt…a touch random. At one point the girls are bringing everyone Christmas cake (since apparently it’s Christmas?!) and the Yuzuki seems less than thrilled about all the celebratory stuff going on. She then randomly comments about how everyone has a birthday but some people don’t get to celebrate them.
This was a really ham-handed way to hint at what Mari and the other girls are doing as they sneak around in random scenes throughout the episode. It was nice to see everything play itself out though (even with the ham-fisted handout about the suprise at the end). The sequence where Shirase and Hinata are trying to explain friendship to Yuzuki is comedic gold. I want to high five the writers of this show for just nailing it every time with these characters.
Summary:
This episode was cute and gave Yuzuki the chance to understand friendship. I continue to love the character interactions here. These girls just gel together so well and honestly I’m really sad there are only three episodes of this show left. I could go for a whole other season of these girls just bumming around chatting with each other about random stuff. Now if you’ll excuse me I really need some powerful chicken…
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