Shiroi Suna no Aquatope | Episode 5 Review

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Man, why are anime moms so uptight as of late. First we had Sayu’s mother, now we have Fuuka’s mother. My goodness. Atleast Fuuka’s mother seems to be a lot less forceful and a lot more understanding of the situation of her own daughter. On the real episode five was an okay episode, it definitely could have been better though. I mean, it was nice that her mother was very understanding of her daughter’s situation and allowed her to stay because she realized how much working at the aquarium meant to her. In addition to that, I also liked the explanation of Fuuka’s mother as to why she wanted to bring her daughter back home. As expected, when you dream of becoming an idol, you do not get to spend much time with your family at all. In the idol business, it’s in a way, winner takes all because you’re competing with others who have the same goal as you. So to achieve your goal of becoming an ‘idol,’ you must dedicate everything and all available time you have to become one.

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Because of this career path, Fuuka’s mother didn’t feel like she was able to properly be a mother to her child. As a result, she didn’t have the opportunity to be there for her. To finally have that opportunity to be there for your child, I’m sure, was something that Fuuka’s mother dearly needed, and I understand how much it would have meant to her. Luckily in this instance, she understood that her daughter’s happiness trumped that of her own desires and allowed Fuuka to stay.

What episode five does however is that it introduces a timeframe for everything to happen. We now know that Fuuka will make it back home for the new school year in September, which means they only have one month (August) to save the aquarium from closure. This means a variety of things, but to me, it means that the pacing is either going to speed up considerably, or it’s going to slow way down. Given how each episode up until this point has gone, not to mention we’re still on this “touch pool” project, I feel like we’re going to slow way down, and that’s something I am not looking forward to.

I think the pacing of Shiroi Suna no Aquatope will be one of the biggest question marks of the series. We understand that Kukuru has until the end of the summer to save the aquarium, and with episode five, we now know that Fuuka can only stay until the start of the school year, which is in September. This leaves eighteen episodes to cover a month and to tell the story that P.A. Works wants to tell. As I mentioned already, we’re still on the “touch pool” project, and we’re not even past that yet. Any longer and the anime will be over! So you can see why I think the overall pacing of the anime is a major question mark and is a serious concern of mine. If we move any slower, I do not believe the series will end up being as eventful and entertaining as I hope.

Anyway, to sum it up, episode five was an okay episode. I can definitely see a trend happening here. Unfortunately, most of the episodes I’ve watched thusfar have been okay at best. Which leads me to assume that Shiroi Suna no Aquatope will be an okay anime. Which is a shame.