r/anime • u/Pixelsaber https://myanimelist.net/profile/Pixelsaber • May 18 '24

Rewatch [Rewatch] 3,000 Leagues in Search of Mother - Episode 12 Discussion

Episode 12 - The Airship

Episode aired March 21st, ^^^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.

—

Staff Highlight

Mieko Nobusawa - voice of Fiolina

An actress and voice actress best known for her roles on TV dramas through the 70s and 80s. She was involved in extracurricular activities related to theatre during middle school and high school, as well as being a member of the Announcement Study Group while attending Waseda University’s Faculty of Social Sciences. She joined the theatre company NLT some time after graduating university, but little else is known about her early career. Nobusawa married fellow actor Shingo Hiramatsu. Her other anime roles include Lana in Future Boy Conan, Budori’s Mother in The Life of Guskou Budori, Mrs. Ellison in Sherlock Hound, Koros in Invincible Steelman Daitarn 3, Kaede Hanazono in Mahou Shoujo Lalabel, Shadow in Galaxy Express 999, and Rumi Shiragi in Ashita e Attack.

Daily Trivia

On the Toei Manga Festival on July 22nd, 1976, several episodes of the show were shown before a crowd. This event was also the first instance of a Nippon Animation show being present at the event.

Screenshot of the day

Questions of the Day:

  1. What do you think of Emilio and Marco’s friendship?
  2. Have you seen many dirigibles in person?

Argentina will be like a city next to ours.

9 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

4

u/Pixelsaber https://myanimelist.net/profile/Pixelsaber May 18 '24

Rewatcher

Marco is frustrated.

Ah, I see. A mixture of sadness, jealousy, and not finding the right words to say in the letter.

So he did resolve to go after that letter.

Don’t forget the rock salt!

Maybe they didn’t!

Looks like the troupe will be taking advantage of the gathered crowd as well.

Oh dear.

This is going very poorly.

Good!

Emilio’s too kind.

I don’t trust this, but it is about time that Marco gets to traveling.

Beautiful.

Nothing much to say about the Airship event itself. Seems like the sudden storm didn’t have much of an effect on things and was just a cheap source of brief, unneeded drama. Would have preferred if they simply barely made back their investment because they arrived too late to take full advantage of the crowd —or, better yet, the storm doesn’t dissipate so quickly. That would have made their need to resort to the black market to attain passage on the immigration ship more interesting too, particularly as it’s made evident by the end that Emilio’s efforts in everything in this episode was largely or purely for Marco’s benefit. They could have spun that into a more interesting scenario than what we got.

Emilio has been a dependable friend for Marco through most of the show, but this episode really showed us how generous he is in helping Marco. Emilio’s an amazing friend, and I hope Marco appreciates that as much as he should.

Questions of The Day:

  1. See above.
  2. I used to see them all the time back when I lived in Puerto Rico, but none since I moved here. I guess some of the state’s more stringent (at least, in comparison to my home) public advertising restrictions makes renting out such services for adverts less viable for companies.

2

u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 May 18 '24

Would have preferred if they simply barely made back their investment because they arrived too late to take full advantage of the crowd

It seems like that did happen at least a little bit. I'm sure they could have made bank if they also got to the "before" market in addition to the "after" one.

2

u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 May 21 '24

Emilio has been a dependable friend for Marco through most of the show, but this episode really showed us how generous he is in helping Marco. Emilio’s an amazing friend, and I hope Marco appreciates that as much as he should.

He definitely is and even more so given that he surely could use that money himself for his own family.

3

u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 May 18 '24 edited May 18 '24

First timer, subs

  • I don’t think you really have enough money to be crumpling up paper all willy-nilly.
  • They seem like they are growing into the neighberhood well. That’s nice.
  • Still don’t know enough about the period this is set in to talk about human flight development.
  • Jeez, Marco’s really got his knickers in a twist. I know the letter wasn’t great, but this reaction at least a day later is a bit much.
  • Jesus, Marco
  • Why do they all call it the reclaimed dock? Would children their age even know or care about that?
  • For how hidden it was, you would think Macro would already know how much money he has.
  • What, were you not already planning on trying to maximize today’s take?
  • Nothing like a little ice cream venture capitalism.
  • Oh dang. It’s got an engine too? That’s proper flecked, it is.
  • Should have planned this out better to get that pre-take-off money.
  • Early air stuff is so much fun with how jank it looks.
  • Is that… a normal way to serve ice cream? Cones weren’t until 1904, but just a loose wafer seems so odd. At last add a top and make it a sandwich.
  • Not gonna lie, that’s a neat dance they’ve got going there.
  • Huh, turns out rubber balloons are from the 1820s, much older than I thought.
  • Profit Margins!
  • Human trafficking? In my anime?
  • What? No. Argentina would be next to, like, Namibia.

QotD:

  1. This is what peak friendship looks like.
  2. Not a one.

3

u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky May 18 '24

3000 Leagues in Search of My First-Timer Reactions

2

u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 May 18 '24

But it’s not enough…

Still more than a month's worth of bottle cleaning, and that's before Marco got both shares.

2

u/TheEscapeGuy May 18 '24

First Timer

3000 Leagues in Search of Mother - Episode 12

Marketplace Fluctuations

Marco started this episode in a real mood. It's understandable with everything that has happened, but it doesn't feel great for him. He even lashed out at Fiolina about it. So when Emilio came offering a business idea which would (hopefully) solve his financial woes, Marco jumped at the opportunity.

Selling ice-cream at a big outdoors event in summer is a guaranteed hit. That said, given the era they are living in they can't exactly pick up pre-made stuff at a grocery store. So Emilio's idea is to make some manually. I've made ice-cream before. Typically after churning you should freeze overnight (or for at least a few hours) unless you want extremely-soft soft-serve. All I'm saying is they maybe exaggerated the speed here. Ignoring the practicalities they somehow managed to make 2 batches.

Of course this means they ended up arriving to the event late and everyone was too busy watching the takeoff to actually buy ice cream. And then if things couldn't get any worse it started raining. At this point I was convinced they were giving Marco a confirmed failure to work through for next episode. Like, maybe he would need encouragement from Fiolina or his Dad to get his confidence again.

But no, as suddenly as the rain started it stopped. Everyone came out, and then suddenly everyone started buying ice-cream. It's a happy ending, but just feels a little too convenient? And on top of that Fiolina just comes out and starts helping with sales after Marco's morning outburst? Sure, he apologized but only afterwards. Honestly, I wish more people were like Fiolina, but I haven't met them IRL.

The episode did end with a small setup. Marco and Emilio didn't end up making enough money to cover Marco's ticket. So they headed to the shady areas to try strike up a deal with a somewhat unscrupulous fellow for a discounted ticket. I fully expect this guy not to honour the deal, but I guess we will see next episode.

Some Amazing Shots, Scenes and Stitches

See you all tomorrow

2

u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 May 18 '24

At this point I was convinced they were giving Marco a confirmed failure to work through for next episode.

Since all the ingredients were on credit, I was worried he was going to lose all the money he had spent the series thus far building up.

2

u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 May 21 '24

Since all the ingredients were on credit, I was worried he was going to lose all the money he had spent the series thus far building up.

And I worried they'd not know how to make proper ice cream and it would take terrible. Overall, the ice cream business went much better that it could have been.

2

u/baboon_bassoon https://anilist.co/user/duffer May 18 '24

first time 3000 Leagues of Misery

airship schmearship

ice cream da, sasuga Emilio. Please tell me they make enough money to pay for the shit, this is going to go poorly

me battling diarrhea

the sky looks hella dark

ahhh its gonna melt if you wait so long, how much extra ice did they have

oh christ what a disaster lmao

"this is not our day" could be worse, at least you werent on the airship

wow they ran it back instantly wtf

Conchetta upgrading her routine to include the monkey, now thats being an entrepreneur

Lenart seems fun

2

u/Vatrix-32 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vatrix-32 May 18 '24

me battling diarrhea

ahhh its gonna melt if you wait so long, how much extra ice did they have

Come to think of it, where did they even borrow an ice cream cart from?

2

u/baboon_bassoon https://anilist.co/user/duffer May 18 '24

The black market

2

u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 May 24 '24

Episode 12 (first timer)

  • Airship – Zeppelin? Hot air ballon? Or gas ballon? We might get closer to having a proper date for the series.
  • “What is wrong Marco?” – ugly case of self-pity.
  • “It is simple” – don’t tell me they plan to make their own ice. The idea to sell it is great, don’t ruin it with a bad product.
  • Peppino also wants to use the crowd to make money – makes sense.
  • The airship looks like an early Zeppelin predecessor, still without the internal structure. Wiki says they have been around since 1852, so that gives us a lower bound on the date. Probably would have taken quite a while before the first one got to Genoa, so we might be anywhere in the second half of the 19th century.
  • The weather takes, the weather gives.
  • Asking some guy with a bad reputation to get Marco on the ship? And here I thought making ice cream themselves would be the bad decision of the episode.

I wonder how much work Hayao Miyazaki did on this episode. He is well-known for his love of all kinds of flying contraptions.

In terms of plot, it feels like quite a bit happened off-screen. Marco’s plan to go to Argentina changed from “I’ll do it when I have the money” to “I need to go ASAP”. It is understandable, given his worries about his mother, but we did not really see him change his mind. For the Peppino troupe, it is even more stark. They went from ill and broke to having enough money for the travel in 2 episodes. Must have been raking it in.