Ruri Rocks

Episode 9

Despite having an eye and an ear for the complexities of mineralogy, Ruri Rocks is not, itself, a complicated show. Ruri and pals hunt for rocks and learn about them, and life, along the way. This dirt-simple premise has carried it weekly, and nevertheless, I've been soundly impressed by the series every time. The reasons vary and betray the sedimentary layers of success the show has going on. Sometimes it's down to some impressive story-driven characterization depths, as in Shoko's introductory episode. But a lot of other times, the anime works based on plain ol' powerful craftsmanship. This week is one of those episodes.

The hornier predilections of the perverts at Studio Bind are even more evident in this episode. The sweat and water splashing on Ruri and Shoko is but one sign of attention to detail. Nagi simply being obviously even bouncier than usual is another. If that wasn't enough, this episode comes loaded with a fully featured Nagi fanservice montage, complete with a ludicrously indulgent fashion show where Ruri and Shoko stand in for the audience to cheer about how hot she is. Shoko may have a barely concealed crush on Imari, but even she can't resist the siren song of Nagi in a maid outfit. But of course, even that slideshow of saucy setups is punctuated with lovingly grounded animation of Nagi hammering apart rocks while wearing said maid outfit, as the Ruri Rocks crew are, above all, creators of culture.

The sex appeal is, just as it has been previously, simply the most visible lens through which to gape at this group's work. The backgrounds in this week's episode are effortlessly flexing, and I'm not even just talking about the natural outdoorsy ones. The empty library that Shoko and Ruri study in is angled to dwarf the girls and display how late and lonely they've found themselves there after hours. Nagi and Imari's lab is darkened by the clouds of the storm until the light comes out in real time (during the antics of that fashion show, in fact), surrounding and glowing around the characters. Even simple, goofy cuts like Shoko curiously checking out Imari's costume collection are cinematically highlighted with touches like Ruri busting open the door to frame the two of them through its small window. Oh, and not for nothing, but so many of the big background-highlighting shots in this episode come with some especially delightful low-detail distance drawings of the girls.

The plot-driving thrust of this episode revolves around searching a big area defined by a big feature, a dam, so pulling back far to gawk at all these details makes sense. Depicting the sparkling outdoors and the differentiating weather of the typhoon also fits. There are hard cuts to communicate how impactful these torrents of rain really are, doing the job alongside factoid recitals explaining why dams are important and how they can affect mineral deposits. As Ruri Rocks regularly reminds us, the history of rocks is the history of weather moving them, as well as the history of humans interacting with all that. Hence: dams. No wonder Ruri's so awed by the sight that they go the extra mile, animating her looking back so far she nearly falls over, and Imari has to catch her. It's dam impressive.

I could go into more detail about the in-story process of finding the opals—the anime itself happily does, and makes these Cool Rock Facts™ as appealing as ever in doing so. But in this instance, that really felt like surplus to how I simply couldn't stop looking at this episode. The massive sparkling deposit of opals found by the characters is an ultimate reminder that gemstone hunting is often about figuring out where to look, as much as it's another instance of the series' only mildly unbelievable sparkling discoveries. But the anime's rendering of it is so breathtaking that those elements are secondary. The size of the dam is important in the grand scheme of all the writing, but the way its scale is conveyed in one short scene, where Ruri and Shoko see the wind pick up against them when they climb on top of it, astounds with that instantly palpable real-world-style detail. It's not even limited to the grandiose backdrop of this excursion, as even the tire's-eye-view animation of the road the group drives back home on is positively pornographic.

It's all in service of communicating the gravitas of the scale geology operates on and the simple joys of those studying it. That's visible in different reactions like Ruri bouncing around barely contained as Nagi narrates geological trivia, compared to the latter's very deliberate leaping-down animation in her own hunting. This is all the episode's own lesson about looking for treasure, alongside the textual information about waiting for the sky to open up and deliver the rain that leads to that opulent opal deposit. Simply wait a moment, whether that's through a rainstorm or a wet-Nagi fanservice montage, and you might be very surprised by what kind of other treasures will be revealed to you.

Rating:

Ruri Rocks is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris doesn't know much about cool rocks, but he could talk your ear off about cool anime and cool Transformers. Catch him doing so over on his BlueSky, or see previous posts over on his blog.

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.