Nagi no Asukara Episode 22 | TFP Review
EmperorBrandon: It did feel a little odd at the end of last episode when Manaka seemed rather surprisingly indifferent (from what we knew of her before) to seeing Tsumugu again. Very intriguing to see Hikari start to question her and find that she’s lost some memories, not all of them but pretty specific gaps. And frustratingly for Hikari, we find that the romantic moments with him are gone as well. Got him upset and storming off past Miuna and Sayu. I really loved Sayu’s so intensely angry response there.
We actually do get “Uroko-sama explains all” here, which was rather interesting. Manaka was actually trying to free herself, but she not only loses her ena but her ability to love someone had been sacrificed as well. And her being taken out of the sea also means the disaster on surface will come sooner. She chose this herself (feels like things would have been even sadder if Akari had been the Ojoshi-sama) but still feels so unfair to her how things turned out. Can it be reversed? Does seem like Miuna is going to play an important part if so, but what? Definitely quite curious.
Certainly adds even more complexity to romantic situation going forward into the last few episodes. Sayu gets to overhearing Chisaki and Kaname, and Tsumugu makes it clear he’s staying because he wants to be with Chisaki, so we got developments on that side of things too.
GingaDaiuchuu: When they were going through things Manaka didn’t remember, it did seem selective for things involving romance, so I wasn’t surprised that when Uroko-sama dropped all the exposition on us, that was basically the case. In addition to ending up being the big info dump we’ve been waiting for, there was a lot of romantic tension throughout the episode, with both boys bringing up their confessions before everything happened, and Sayu also thinking more about it after hearing Kaname. A few episodes ago also confirmed that Tsumugu also thinks a bit more about those emotions than he seemed to before, and putting him in the position to hear that added to the tension as well. It made sense as it progressed, given the explanation of what happened to Manaka and how it relates to her potential romantic role (or lack thereof). Needless to say, it all serves to hit Hikari harder and harder with each revelation. Now the mysteries are largely out of the way, so the last few episodes should be another case of trying to find a way to fix the situation, similar to the end of the first cour but this time requiring an actual conclusion.
And I love Sayu’s reaction to Hikari running into her. I was hoping for something like that when he did, but it was more extreme than I expected. It felt a bit more like when she was a bratty little kid, and surprisingly I actually really liked it. I guess it was just how sudden it was.
Hitsugi Amachi: That was an interesting revelation. It also does a lot to explain why she’s so carefree and childish. Romantic love is something that’s really only understood better as one gets older. Manaka will eternally remain a small child, mentally.
Of course, this can’t be the end of things, it would be too depressing an ending if it consists of Manaka being emotionally stunted for the rest of her life and the surface being doomed to freezing over in a century or so, just because the Sea God is a bit of a jerk (not Uroko the shell, I’m talking about the original Sea God). Some god.
Well, I hope that it’s a logical and meaningful ending, not a “pull something out our asses to make everyone happy” ending.
Sly05: An interesting twist with what Manaka lost. Like with like everything else in this series, I have no idea where they are going to go with it. Maybe they can return Manaka’s emotions and stop the upcoming ice age if they restore the Sea God? I have no idea how they would even approach doing that though.
I find Akira’s fascination with Manaka kind of cute. The men of Hikari’s family really seem to take to her.
