What They Say:
To cover the increasing costs of mountaineering, Aoi takes her first part-time job at a sweets shop run by a friend of the family. Can she overcome her shyness and lack of confidence enough to give the customers a friendly smile?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While no real climbing went on the last time around, the show did some fun stuff in giving us a chance to watch the girls at a nature park where they got to enjoy things in a simple way. There was the roundabout way of getting Aoi to deal with the fear of a rope bridge, but it wasn’t the scary Indiana Jones type of rope bridge but almost just bridges in general. It’s hard to say she conquered her fear, but she had friends with her that are trying to help her through it and that’s important. With their plans starting to setting for their next place, they’re also starting to deal with the increased cost of things, which is nice to see coming into play for high school kids as they can’t rely entirely on their parents.
While Hinata makes some extra money in tutoring, Aoi’s not sure what she can do. Luck comes into play as her mother has a friend that runs a sweet shop and that gives her an in to trying to get a part time job as they’re looking for help. There’s some real cuteness in how she does this, with her making the call herself after her mother set the basics up, but we also get to see Aoi doing her best to come up with a resume all on her own. Naturally, it’s not hard to get this kind of job in this environment and there’s some cuteness in seeing Aoi in her uniform and meeting Hikari, another part timer that’s’ working there for awhile. A new job like this isn’t super complicated, but for someone like Aoi who is almost always seemingly a bit nervous, she’s in the usual mode of just trying to do her best while being thrown to the wolves.
The bulk of the episode works through this experience, which includes her having to deal with customers for the first time, something that she’s not exactly keen on in a way and overdoes in a comical and exaggerated way. Things get a little more “complicated” as it goes on as well as Hinata shows up to do some shopping, which just puts her in a real mood since Hinata plays up in a fun way that you know most friends would do on some level. It’s not often that we see Aoi in this form as well, so getting her with a displeased face like this definitely makes for some very cute moments. It also rounds things out with some nice time with her mother, another element of the series that I’m glad is touched upon sometimes since so many shows just exclude adults at all.
In Summary:
While there’s nothing radical here with what it does, I do like that they work the whole first real job angle well with a part time gig and the reason why. It’s not doing for just a quick bit of cash but part of the overall need for money and the reasoning that if she wants to really get into the mountaineering, she needs better gear and has to really work for it. There’s some nice tie-ins with Hinata and Aoi’s mother that gives it a bit more of an overall warmth and proper feeling to it. I do wish for a bit more mountaineering, but these kinds of episodes complement those episodes really well.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
