What They Say:
A comedy manga, “Shonen Ashibe,” that follows the friendship between baby spotted seal Goma-chan and first-grade student Ashiya Ashibe. First serialized in 1988 and adapted to anime in 1991, the adorable Goma-chan created a massive following and a spotted seal boom. This spring, Goma-chan returns to “Tentere Anime.” A cute, pleasant story of Ashibe and Goma-chan and their unusual school and their neighbors. Sometimes endearing, sometimes bizarre, it’s a fun anime for the whole family!
The Review:
With a couple of weeks between episodes, I’m still having fond memories of the last one where they tried to get the Goma-obsessed nameless brother to “graduate” to something else. The fun of the show continues to be in its wide cast of characters and the way so many launching points can be made, which reminds me a lot of Urusei Yatsura in some regards. The fantastical element of Goma-chan himself allows for wackiness to happen, though they’re far more restrained here, but the real joy for many comes from the supporting cast. But as it goes, you have to circle back to your leading characters regularly in order to deal with the main draw to the show and that can be hit or miss sometimes.
This episode takes an odd twist with the arrival of Dot-chan, a whale shark that Goma-chan came across while swimming in the river. Which is also nicely timed as Ashibe was about to join in a swim even though it’s deathly cold. With a little help, Dot-chan gets brought to the local aquarium to take up residence and it’s fun to see the gang making their way through the place – though Ashibe keeps wanting to strip down and go swimming. It’s enjoyable to watch how Goma-chan gets along with Dot-chan as they play a lot but I just liked seeing everyone enjoying the experience of the aquarium itself, reminding me of my many trips to one. What becomes a bit sad is that Goma-chan wants to stay in the aquarium with Dot-chan for a while and that creates the feeling that he may not come home with Ashibe again. The two have grown apart just a bit in recent episodes but this opens up the path to more communication with the gang as a whole trying to convince Goma-chan to come back where he’s had such a great life so far.
In Summary:
In my weird mind, this is a great way to end the series as it would be a slap to the kids to say that things leave and you have to accept that. Of course, this isn’t the end of the series and there’ll be some possible resolution coming in the next episode, but I like that the show puts the kids into a hard place where they have to deal with emotions and all that comes with it. It’s a fun episode in showing Goma-chan finding someone like him that he can spend time with and that in doing so ends up forgetting about Ashibe in a lot of ways, even with all the fun that they had. I’m curious to see what the execution of it will be like.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
