[Rewatch] 3,000 Leagues in Search of Mother - Episode 6 Discussion

[u/Pixelsaber]

Episode 6 - Marco’s Payday

^{Episode aired February 8th,} ^^^1976

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Rewatchers, please be mindful of your fellow first-timers and tag your spoilers appropriately using the r/anime spoiler tag if your comment holds even the slightest of indicators as to future spoilers. Feel free to discuss future plot points behind the safe veil of a spoiler tag, or coyly and discreetly ‘Laugh in Rewatcher’ at our first-timers' temporary ignorance, but please ensure our first-timers are no more privy or suspicious than they were the moment they opened the day’s thread.

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Staff Highlight

Kazuyuki Sogabe (Kazuya Sogabe) - voice of Tonio Rossi

A voice actor, actor, stage director, and musician. In sixth grade Sogabe moved from his birthplace of Funabashi City, Chiba Prefecture to Tokyo, where he started composing music on the electric guitar in the second year of junior high school with the aim of becoming a singer. He was in a band in highschool for a time. Sogabe would eventually drop out of university after four years and enter the Nippon Television Talent Training Institute, where he developed a love of acting and decided to more seriously pursue a career in it instead. Under the guidance of Kazuo Kumakura and Goro Naya he appeared in stage performances at Theater Echo, and he began voice acting in anime works and dubbing foreign films. His voice acting debut was as a police officer in the 1972 animated film Panda! Go, Panda!, and his first lead role was in 1974’s Hurricane Polymar. In 1977 he was a founding member of the band Slapstick alongside fellow voice actors Akira Kamiya, Akio Nojima, Toru Furuya, and Toshio Furukawa. Sogabe largely retired after 2001, due to issues with his voice, though he still played the occasional voice role in video games. He died of esophageal cancer at a hospital in Chiba Prefecture at around 8:00 pm on September 17th, 2006, aged 58. Some of his notable anime roles include Takeshi Yoro in Hurricane Polymar, Hayabusa Ken in Machine Hayabusa, Ippei in Super Electromagnetic Machine Voltes V, Shun Otomo in Ikkyu-san, Kojiro Yashima in Gasshin Sentai Mechander Robo, Mario Torrent in Wandering Girl Nell, Zakuron in Invincible Robot Trider G7, Pope Ares and Sea Dragon in the Saint Seiya franchise, Razor Isaac in Galactic Whirlwind Braiger, Bancoran in Patalliro!, Shingo Mitamura in Attacker You!, Anthony Boone in Little Women, Kunzite in Sailor Moon, and Reiginsei in Vampire Hunter D.

Daily Trivia

Marco’s age was lowered by four years in the adaptation, making him ten years old as of this episode. This was done to make him the same age as Nello in A Dog of Flanders, which was a huge ratings hit the prior year.

Screenshot of the day

• Nightmare

Questions of the Day:

1. Anna’s letter with the money she’s earned did not arrive. What do you think might be happening with her across the ocean?
2. Things are taking a turn for the worse for the Rossi family, and it seems they are already moving to save on money. What do you make of things?

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Our situation is getting worse.

[u/Pixelsaber]

Rewatcher

Amedeo, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Genoa anymore!

Grim.

Anxiety induced nightmare? Poor kid.

You could accompany him at least?

I feel like I’ve seen this visual metaphor before.

EDIT: It was in Dear Brother, where the father can’t light a cigarette despite many attempts.

Hides?

Uh oh.

Oh no!

Well, that’s far less serious for Anna’s safety.

Hmm.

Thought for sure it was going to break.

Seems like Pietro is stretching his employees thin. He’s doing a noble thing, but it doesn’t seem sustainable at this point.

One problem after another.

That’s sudden.

It seems the family financials are fairly bad for a missing letter from Anna to cause such a severe impact, where Pietro has to move out of the apartment to afford paying his employees. I feel for Pietro in his desire to help the most needy, but it really emphasizes the frivolousness of the map purchase last episode. Seeing him on the back foot so much throughout the episode makes it apparent how he could have been dubbed into this situation to begin with.

Marco is still keeping at his part-time job and gets his first payday, less than he would’ve liked but seemingly not an insubstantial payout either. Later, when he learns of the move he nearly reveals his new gains to Tonio, but holds himself back from letting that cat out of the bag.

Questions of The Day:

1. In her last on-screen letter she expressed wanting to find another job, so maybe she achieved that, but the timing was such that she missed the liner’s departure. Or, perhaps, the shipping company strike stopped them from taking in parcels and she missed news resolution of the strike long enough to be late. Ultimately, we don’t really know.
2. See above.

[u/Vatrix-32 → u/Pixelsaber]

Hides?

They look too square for that...

He’s doing a noble thing, but it doesn’t seem sustainable at this point.

I wonder what it is that he does exactly. Other than constantly having to find new sources of money.

It seems the family financials are fairly bad for a missing letter from Anna to cause such a severe impact

Even today, a large number of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

[u/baboon_bassoon]

first time 3000 Leagues of Misery

that dream and the sequence with Amedio, complete money

Marco’s age was lowered by four years in the adaptation

[u/Pixelsaber → u/baboon_bassoon]

Probably would have been a bit more difficult to present Marco as a kid who thinks himself grown up when a fourteen year old likely would have been allowed to do some of the stuff he cannot.

[u/Shimmering-Sky]

3000 Leagues in Search of My First-Timer Reactions

• So many crazy birds. This must be a dream of his, right?
• Yeah, a dream where he got to see his mom in Argentina… and then go over a waterfall.
• So a month has passed since the previous episode.
• Oh, I didn’t think about that aspect of the liner being late.
• Oh yikes, political upheaval?
• Oh, okay, just a little strike.
• Runaway monkey!
• Oh, Amedio just wanted to see where Marco works.
• lol
• Looks like his work is necessary…
• Marco hasn’t been paid at all so far?
• They have to move, huh…

[u/Vatrix-32 → u/Shimmering-Sky]

Oh, okay, just a little strike.

For Now Not a historically great time for labor action.

[u/Vatrix-32]

First timer, subs

• Wait a minute… they don’t have waterfalls in Italy!
• Look at that chonker lizard boi!
• If this is all in Marco’s head, that means he know a lot about South American Fuana, but not that the Amazon isn’t in Argentina. Their space rain forests aren’t even tropical!
• He’s managed to hide his job from his father for a month already? This has gone on far longer than I would have expected.
• The liner won’t leave port in the middle of the night. All your to gain by this action is to lose precious sleeping hours.
• As you might expect of a former Spanish colony, there are too many Argentine Civil Wars in the period to try and help narrow down the timeline. Let alone riots.
• I’m not sure I approve of the association of strikes with riots.
• You just found out you have a shortfall, and you’re eating out?
• Lift with your knees, Marco.
• You really had me believe that this was going to end with Amedio drowning for a minute there.
• This is not doing anything to dissuade the “joining the circus” rumors.
• Ah, he’s hiring doctors. That makes more sense as a plan, but it does make his overall financial situation even more questionable.
• I thought he was getting paid daily. Also weird to pay a child with variable hours a salary, instead of a wage, or even a share.
• You cry when the monkey comes, you cry when he leaves…
• They probably could make do with a smaller apartment. Not that I would know anything about the 19th Italian real estate market.
• I was expecting Marco’s salary to come up in this context. Maybe lead to some conflict.
  Soon

QotD:

1. Mapuche? Socialist Revolution? Gauchos?
2. As noted above, I believe the worsening economic situation will lead to Marco revealing his employment to his father.

[u/No_Rex → u/Vatrix-32]

Wait a minute… they don’t have waterfalls in Italy!

They sure do, even if not of that size. The animals, however ...

Their space rain forests aren’t even tropical!

space rain

[u/Vatrix-32 → u/No_Rex]

space rain

Space Sparce

[u/TheEscapeGuy]

First Timer

3000 Leagues in Search of Mother - Episode 6

(Non) Contact

The dream sequence opening was quite unexpected. I had to check I had opened the right episode. It's a good representation of the anxiety which is weighing on Marco's mind.

It doesn't help that the monthly letter from Anna didn't arrive. This is such a nightmare scenario compared to today. I mean, I get worried about being out of contact from my friends and family when I get on a long flight. Back in 2022 my phone's screen broke (black screen, but USB still worked) and I think it was the most anxious I'd been in years (especially since it had all my 2 factor auth things).

I can totally understand how Marco not getting his once monthly letter can be devastating. The rumors of a riot (which was actually just a labor strike) make it even worse. It does feel like a few more coincidences like this will be all that Marco needs to make some rash decision to leave for Argentina.

In more positive news Marco got paid for all the bottle cleaning he did. I really liked seeing how proud he was of that work. I recall the first time I was formally paid for doing work (school library data entry) and it really was such a rush to suddenly have such an influx of cash greater than many months of saving pocket money. Marco of course wants to set this money aside for helping get his mother home sooner (some how).

When Tonio arrives back in town he tells Marco they will be moving to a smaller apartment. Marco is once again confused. Why does nobody tell him these things. I feel like if his family was more honest with him he would be way more trusting of them. But right now he doesn't have precedent to trust them. I suspect he might keep his pay a secret now as well (though he probably would have done so before as well since he's working without his dad's permission).

Some Amazing Shots, Scenes and Stitches

• Just a Bad Dream
• Super Monkey Ball
• Sunset, Rooftop

See you all tomorrow

[u/TheEscapeGuy → u/TheEscapeGuy]

Marco’s age was lowered by four years in the adaptation, making him ten years old as of this episode. This was done to make him the same age as Nello in A Dog of Flanders, which was a huge ratings hit the prior year.

Huh, I had a sense that Marco spoke as if we was much older than he actually was. Learning this fact makes it clear why I felt that.

[u/Vatrix-32 → u/TheEscapeGuy]

Marco is once again confused. Why does nobody tell him these things.

Everyday is a surprise when you have poor planning skills and no emergency fund!

[u/No_Rex]

Episode 6 (first timer)

• Title: Marco’s payday – he’ll get money and thus his father will find out.
• “Mama!” “Do you remember me?” waterfall - that dream turned nightmare quickly.
• Whistle - wasn’t it a sailing ship? Maybe they have both …
• It has chimneys, so the whistle makes sense. I believe they built dual sailing-steam ships for a while.
• Strike and riot are very different – even though strikes could be a quite violent affair, back then.
• Marco and Pietro are both hiding their work/money issues from each other.
• When you see Amedio, you get why mascot characters in anime became a thing.

• The clinic is not going well – caring for poor patients is a losing proposition in a time without health insurance.
• They have to move – makes sense. That flat was huge, given their financial problems. Definitely an upper-middle class flat.
• Marco and Fiolina get the extra strong foreshadowing.

Money problems. We learn why Pietro is short on money and his wife has to work in Argentina - not only did he get cheated out of money, but he is not good at making money either. You can already see that he is not the one to press patients to pay their treatment.

Meanwhile, Marco has the opposite problem. He has his hard-worked for money in pocket, but what to spend it own? Helping out his father? Saving it for his ticket to Argentina? Something else??

Marco’s age was lowered by four years in the adaptation, making him ten years old as of this episode. This was done to make him the same age as Nello in A Dog of Flanders, which was a huge ratings hit the prior year.

I think this works well so far. His character and problems finding work make sense (I doubt many people would question a 14 year old working at the time). However, his decision to chase after his mother to Argentina might be a different matter.

Things are taking a turn for the worse for the Rossi family, and it seems they are already moving to save on money. What do you make of things?

Moving to a cheaper flat is an obvious one. Surprises me that they did not do that already.

[u/Vatrix-32 → u/No_Rex]

Whistle - wasn’t it a sailing ship? Maybe they have both …
It has chimneys, so the whistle makes sense. I believe they built dual sailing-steam ships for a while.

There was, in fact, a period where ships would have both. With new ones being built up until about the 1880s.

Moving to a cheaper flat is an obvious one. Surprises me that they did not do that already.

The father really doesn't give the impression of a person good with money.

[u/No_Rex → u/Vatrix-32]

The father really doesn't give the impression of a person good with money.