Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: The aquatope on white sand
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rizuchan
 Posts: 975 Location: Kansas |
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For as much as I didn't like her, I understood where Chiyu was coming from at first - yeah, Kukuru's 17 years old and working Chiyu's dream job without having to put in any of the years of effort. But I was also under the impression these were highly skilled jobs that required college degrees, so now that it turns out that Chiyu (and all of our other heroes) all got these jobs right out of high school... what's the big friggin deal? Kukuru is clearly as passionate as Chiyu, she just happened to be like, 6 months younger when she started.
I'm sure there's a lot of anime logic going on here and that in real life, most aquarium attendants in Japan don't get their jobs right out of high school... but it just kind of rubbed me the wrong way that Chiyu was playing this superiority card when her and Kukuru really aren't different at all. Which is a huge shame because, as a working mom myself, I can really sympathize with that part of her plight. |
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09jcg
Posts: 523 |
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Another week, another fantastic week of aquatrope. The one thing I want to point out is that stories likee this can only really work in a two cour format. Long term planned character growth is something that often gets lost with the move to 13 episode seasons and I'm glad they had the confidence in aquatrope to give it the breathing room it needed. The single parent reveal was fantastic and complete changed how I viewed her character. It's a plot point that's rarely explored in anime and almost makes me wish she had her own series.
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TanyaTheEvil
 Posts: 331 |
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Episode 16 was really good in so many ways. It gave us the perspective that we needed to understand a few things. I really loved the review this week and looking forward to the next episode
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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In no world is babysitting for 2 hours “experiencing parenting”.
 But it was cute that she offered!
Maybe it’s because I binged the first 15 episodes last week, but I think most of the posters here might have forgotten that Kukuru was mean and passive aggressive towards Chiyu first. We’re more likely to forgive Kukuru because she’s a main character and a kid and we know where she’s coming from, but can we blame Chiyu for getting the impression that Kukuru was a brat who got her position through nepotism? She was exactly that in her behavior to Chiyu. The second Chiyu reminded her boss that she can’t do overnight shifts, I guessed that she had a kid, and I wanted someone to stop Kukuru from making assumptions and yelling at Chiyu for something that was quite frankly none of her business. Considering that Chiyu has been forced out of jobs by unscrupulous and unsympathetic coworkers because of the “mommy track” before, it makes perfect sense that she’d see this, and Kukuru’s subsequent substitution job, as a threat. I think they handled the characterization and conflict very well, and I was happy to see Dr. Takeshita again. Plus, a baby penguin! |
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JoelBurger
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As you note, Kukuru is a kid, and bratty behavior can be excused when you're a kid. Not so much when you're a grown adult with a child and a good deal more life experience, who thinks a good way to spend your time is to be passive aggressively condescending to everybody around you, including continuing to pick fights with a child for no particularly good reason. It's like 30+ year olds getting into arguments with teenagers on Twitter. At a certain point they need to look in the mirror and reevaluate how they are carrying themselves with people who are just going to say stupid things and find it embarrassing 5-10 years down the line, because that's what kids do. |
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Picky33
Posts: 265 |
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a couple things surprised me,
1, Reading the post about the latest episode (16) there are a couple people who instead of feeling sympathetic to Chiyu they felt angrier or what ever the opposite of sympathy is. 2, I'm surprised an anime would touch on the subject of single mother working/ returning to work, in Japan its tradition that a female will leave the workforce when she gives birth and doesn't enter it again because the position she held no longer exists. The few exceptions tend to be for clerical or secretarial work even if the person had a masters degree. Shinzo Abe was trying to correct this before he left office, but it wasn't working. 3. I always thought Chiyu had a degree, the first season/cour made it seem that way, but I guess not. I fully support On the Job Training (OJT), being an attendant to animals probably works just fine with OJT, i see it as no different then zoo keepers or Farmers raising livestock, as long as your trained correctly, you don't need a degree to clean up Penguin poop. There are people who you assume have degrees like the Vet and upper management. There are plenty of jobs that you would think need a degree but don't, Lawyers don't need a law degree to practice, they only need to take the bar exam, so when Chiyu said she studied like crazy, I believe her. |
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druv
Posts: 36 |
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Ah, good point. It's probably that you need to get a license or certification to be allowed certain positions at the aquarium (while you can do certain tasks without the certification, or work part-time). Some cursory googling does seem to say that occupational licenses are quite common in Japan, so it's likely that Chiyu had to get one. Otherwise I would have figured that she had gone to a vocational school of some sort, but the prep for a licensing exam is likely comparable.
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Piglet the Grate
 Posts: 561 Location: North America |
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Or a night club hostess (Ryuuji Takasu's mother in Toradora!) or a construction worker (Kunio Murai's mother in GTO).
I re-watched Episode 9 and it is ambiguous as to what education Chiyu Haebaru has. As some others have noted, in Episode 9 where Kukuru and Chiyu first meet, it is Kukuru not being nice at first due to the "being made to train my replacement" factor. Fūka even half-heartedly calls Kukuru out on this. |
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JoelBurger
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I hope the people making this point realize that "but they started it!" is a default thing for children to say when they get in trouble over a fight. It's not something you'd want to try to use to exonerate an adult woman continuously picking fights with a kid. |
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druv
Posts: 36 |
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I guess I haven't really seen her as starting fights with Kukuru, unless I'm forgetting something in particular. She's basically acted like... the woman with short, dark hair that says everything will be very difficult to do. Which isn't great workplace behaviour, of course. |
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JoelBurger
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She was continuously passive aggressive to Kukuru and the rest of the Gama Gama staff, making snide remarks and insinuating to their face that she's too good for the place in an attempt to provoke them. Which as an aside really does not gel with what we know about her now; you would think she would be more mindful of cultivating a positive workplace experience given her own struggles at other aquariums, instead of trying to make it as miserable as possible for everybody around her (including herself). |
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Punch Drunk Marc
Posts: 1742 |
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She was constantly slandering Kukuru and Gama Gama as a whole and belittled the lessons Kukuru's grandfather was trying to teach her. |
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Piglet the Grate
Posts: 561 Location: North America |
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My point is we do not have a angelic Kukuru facing off against a demonic Chiyu, but rather two young women in conflict due to each focusing on one apparent negative rather than stepping back and seeing the other's situation. |
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rizuchan
Posts: 975 Location: Kansas |
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I mean, I could care less about Chiyu's fight with Kukuru. She's just been a... peach all around. I understand she must have felt so frustrated having to request to work at an aquarium closer to home for her child's sake, and not getting to train at the aquarium of her dreams, but that's no excuse to take it out on the people at Gama Gama who were proud of what they did. And she didn't even bother trying to understand why Kukuru's grandfather was so highly regarded, she just jumped to the conclusion he was a washed up has been.
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Piglet the Grate
Posts: 561 Location: North America |
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Episode 17: Quite a turn of events from what we have seen before between some of the characters; I was surprised to find spoiler[conflict replaced by iyashikei].
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