A city of riders looking for a race.
What They Say:
Episode #5: “Disappointing Person”
Aichi and Mie are up in arms and things are tense after all the shachihoko in Nagoya were blown up. Can the girls bring peace to the warring nations?
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Next stop for the Rolling Girls is the city of Nagoya. I’m guessing the lightning strike in the end credits of the last episode was just a gag after all, but the girls did run into a mini-crisis of running out of gas. Pushing their bikes along the road they make it to the city only to meet with a very familiar customs agent. Yup, it’s a running gag that the border crossing agent is always the same lady à la Nurse Joy.
Trouble is afoot in Nagoya though. The city has become a haven for motorcycle races, and a big grand prix is coming up. However, just before the girls arrive someone or something causes all of the shachihoko (mythological tiger-headed fish) gracing the rooftops to explode. Including the gold ones that sat on the top of Nagoya castle. (Note: the US bombed that castle up in WWII, so this isn’t the first time those fish were destroyed.)
Coinciding with all of this is the arrival home of a girl called Himeko. She walks into her father Mamoru’s workshop only to be ignored. He’s a potter who specializes in making shachihoko. His workshop is badly damaged when everything explodes. It turns out there’s a fierce rivalry between the Aichi and Mie groups, and suspicion for the explosions immediately falls on them.
The girls are lured into a restaurant in the city and get down to the hard work of eating, and that’s where they meet Himeko. It turns out that Nozomi met Himeko before when she visited her town. Himeko even made Ma-chan’s moonlight stone into a pretty necklace at Nozomi’s request back then. Himeko doesn’t particularly remember, and she says she didn’t send the request for assistance that Nozomi has.
It’s then that the vice captain of the Mie Motor’s group arrivers and picks a fight with the restaurant owner, who happens to be the leader of Aichi’s squad. He refuses the rider, whose speech is drowned out by the revving bike motor. He doesn’t exactly take no for an answer, and a competition for who will shape Nogoya’s future hinges on a race.
The problem is the Mie Mottor’s leader, Tomoki, won’t consent to a race. His second tried to persuade him to no avail, and the rivals show up and suddenly it’s a show down. It’s the sort of high octane action we saw back in the first two episodes making a comeback, however brief.
While the Rolling Girls split up to help out as thanks for the hospitality, Himeko faces her father. He wants her to take over the family business, and she doesn’t want to. He goes so far as to try to trick her into it, and she claims to think the shachi are stupid and wants nothing to do with them. The argument comes to a slap, and Himeko flees her father in tears. She’s shown as a child being very into the art of making the shachi, so we have to wonder what happened to drive her away from it and her father.
One thing is certain though, she has a stone and is friends going way back with Tomoki, who should be a rival.
In Summary:
The Rolling Girls have arrived in Nagoya and are ready to try to help! This show is so packed with blink and you’ll miss it bits and pieces that it’s asking a lot of it’s audience to pay attention to. (Wait…. did Chiaya just turn into a squid? Did Ai toss her into the fridge?! Is she actually a shapeshifting animal creature or something?) I do think that some of the city and cultural references being played with in this show are going to fly over all of us outsiders heads. This is probably one of those shows where having some knowledge of the areas the girls are traveling to would hugely benefit in the enjoyment of watching how they’ve been altered. Still, the sense of joy and movement it brings week after week is the sort of lighthearted fun I wish more shows would embrace.
Episode Grade: B +
Streamed by: Funimation
Review Equipment: 27” iMac running OS 10.10.1, via Safari 8.0.2, FIOS 15/5 Mbps connection. Your milage may vary.
