So now that the move has gone down smoothly, it’s time to get back to the bread and butter of anime blogging. OK, I’m a bit late with this episode, especially considering it’s a Christmas episode, but I didn’t want to cover this episode until the move had been completed.
A Christmas themed episode! And it’s actually at Christmas time, unlike Hetalia which decided to air its Christmas episodes in mid-August. It was corny, it failed to advance the plot, it was nothing more than filler but you know what? I really enjoyed it. Of course it didn’t have to do a whole lot to improve on the previous episode but it actually produced a story that I could actually get into. Granted, I spent the entire first half of the episode laughing at how utterly ridiculous Lag looked with a beautiful flowing beard (and it seems I wasn’t the only one), but the actual story made me smile. But join me again while we laugh at Lag and detachable facial hair.
*pfft*. Connor could sort of pull of the beard being the tubby fellow that he is. Zazie is one of those people who would look cool if he was wearing a tutu and nothing else. In fact I’m pretty sure any other character in the series could pull off the beard other than Lag, yes, even Steak. Which is odd when you consider that Lag actually has the white hair that should go with it.
I was wondering how they were going to incorporate Christmas into Amberground without the Christianity attachments. There’s been churches in Letter Bee but no sign of anyone practicing their religion and no references to it either. But they bypassed that by changing the holiday altogether to just a bunch of Letter Bees dressed up oddly. Since it’s during winter, I guess the beard my be to keep their face warm. Maybe it was an old Letter Bee tradition to grow your beard out until winter to keep their face warm and they shaved it off in spring. I guess they had to change to fake beards when they realised Lag has a better chance laying a golden egg than growing a beard that impressive. What am I saying, I’m talking right out my arse here. Come to think of it, why do they print the Bee on those hats? If it’s meant to be a secret for little kids then surely a postman symbol should give it away?
D’awww, aint she the cutest little thing? I don’t know why but the scene where she was chopping the wood with that tiny axe was quite possibly the cutest thing I’ve seen all year. Actually no it’s not, Zoku Natsume Yuujinchou aired this year and that had that little kid who hatched out the egg. Oh god was that thing ever diabetes-inducing. But back to the story at hand, what I liked about this episode was it finally showed that the Gaichu as having some genuine effect on normal people other than Letter Bees. There are these 50 foot metallic horrible CGI monsters all over the place, you would think they’d have a bit more effect on townsfolk than they’ve been shown to have. If the Gaichu are drawn to heart, then why do they hang around in uninhabited areas? And how are they even created? As much as I take the piss out of these horrible CGI creations, there is definitely more to these creatures than they’ve talked about so far. I keep harping back to episode one when Gauche shot one, Lag heard a sound he thought sounded like crying.
This episode wasn’t entirely filler though. The episode fleshed out the character of Zazie quite a bit. Orphaned by Gaichu (that seems to be a requirement if you’re going to become a postman in this world), he’s generally a tough fellow and I must admit I didn’t like him that much before this episode. OK, they laid it on a bit thick with the whole ‘look at him feed the kitten, isn’t he the nicest fellow?’ but it was him being a lot more aware of his surroundings that made me like the guy a bit more in this episode. Especially compared to last time where the guy couldn’t spot talking about Gauche negatively to Lag was a stupid thing to do.
So the letter was delivered, Lag cried and the Gaichu defeated. It was a nice Christmas episode but I’d kind of like the plot to reappear soon. However I believe the next episode is also filler. Do Pierrot honestly plan to drag this series out so it doesn’t catch up with the manga? Have they not learned from their mistakes with their other series yet? I know manga readers would cry foul at this suggestion but I wish they would go for an anime original ending and tie up the plot their own way instead of this dragging out.