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The
Setup: It's high summer, and Nuku Nuku,
Ryunosuke and Yoshimi are going to the beach. Nuku
Nuku's in charge, because Kyusaku is busy with some
project, and she gets them there at roller-coaster
speed with her trusty bike (equipped with a
sidecar). Akiko gets wind of this (goodness knows
how!) and confronts Kyusaku through his computer
(again, how the hell does she manage this? God, the
military-industrial complex is powerful!). She's
extremely displeased at the thought of her precious
boy going to the dangerous, dirty beach. Before
Kyusaku knows what's going on, she's declared that
if ANY harm comes to Ryu, she'll take him
back.
Arisa
and Kyoko think Akiko must want them to follow
Ryunosuke to the beach and give him a little
scratch or something, but once she's finished
yelling at them for proposing to injure her baby,
it turns out Akiko has a sneakier
plan...
My
Review and Thoughts: This is a fun, silly
episode, and it's obviously a great episode
for anyone enamoured of Nuku Nuku's, uh, physical
charms, because she spends a lot of time in her
swimsuit. Yoshimi's uncle Shinichi is certainly
charmed! I find his attempts to act smooth around
Nuku Nuku hysterical. *^.^*
Although
I'm not one of the smitten, I do love the range of
facial expressions Nuku Nuku goes through in this
episode - two of my favourites are alongside! This
episode also features the Best Mecha Ever,
Mishima's Armoured Octopus. It's magnificently
silly-looking; the perfect vehicle for Arisa.
Phase
OII is very important for establishing the
relationship between Akiko and Ryunosuke. It
emphasises that, crazy as Akiko's behaviour is,
it's all motivated by love. When he first comes on
board the Sun Cauliflower, her maternal
questioning and anxious once-over ('You look as if
you have a sunburn') are as natural as you could
wish, and the situation is only marred by her
unnatural behaviour over Yoshimi.
Ryunosuke's understandable anger with Akiko is
tempered by the love he shows in saving her life.
It may sound weird in amongst all these robot
octopi and dream-programming machines, but I felt
this really helped make the family relationships
more realistic. And in the end, Akiko actually
behaves like a reasonable person!
There's
not a whole lot else to analyse in this Phase, of
course - hey, it's a swimsuit episode! Just kick
back and enjoy it.
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