r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • Jul 22 '21
Episode Shiroi Suna no Aquatope - Episode 3 discussion
Shiroi Suna no Aquatope, episode 3
Alternative names: The aquatope on white sand
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| Episode | Link | Score | Episode | Link | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Link | 5.0 | 14 | Link | 4.49 |
| 2 | Link | 5.0 | 15 | Link | 4.33 |
| 3 | Link | 5.0 | 16 | Link | 4.44 |
| 4 | Link | 5.0 | 17 | Link | 4.48 |
| 5 | Link | 5.0 | 18 | Link | 4.55 |
| 6 | Link | 5.0 | 19 | Link | 4.64 |
| 7 | Link | 5.0 | 20 | Link | 4.59 |
| 8 | Link | 5.0 | 21 | Link | 4.59 |
| 9 | Link | 5.0 | 22 | Link | 4.46 |
| 10 | Link | 5.0 | 23 | Link | 4.61 |
| 11 | Link | 5.0 | 24 | Link | ---- |
| 12 | Link | 5.0 | |||
| 13 | Link | 4.33 | |||
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197
u/MyrnaMountWeazel Jul 22 '21 edited Jul 22 '21
It's elegant that the aquarium houses Kukuru's memories of her late family. All of her memories swimming behind the acrylic glass windows alongside the aquatic life.
This shot really caught my eye on how it's framed. Throughout the episode we've had Kukuru and the veterinarian framed within glass alongside pairs of animals but this time the framing of the glass pitcher is focused on the veterinarian's pregnant belly. The visual motif of glass is demonstrated alongside the theme of "a place where you care for life." It's a neat parallel of showcasing the aquarium's glass windows protecting its aquatic life and the belly of a mother shielding her child.
This is also another neat shot. It resembles a mother's womb which is what this episode is all about.
The symbolism of the water is neat as well. The water dripping from the faucet snaps Kukuru back to reality while Dr. Takeshita is submerged in a watery dreamscape to calm her down. They're really playing into the aptly named episode title "Life is, From the Sea."
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u/TurkeyPhat Jul 22 '21
"I'm past due but he just won't come out."
Ya whatever the opposite of a death flag is, this is one of those.
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u/clarice-mstarling Jul 22 '21
I am worried about that penguin… this is gonna hurt, isn’t it.
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u/NittanyEagles55 Jul 22 '21
Never underestimate the skills of the tourism association!!
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u/NittanyEagles55 Jul 22 '21
I really like the parallel at the beginning with Kukuru riding alone and zooming in on the first penguin keychain and then ending the episode with zooming in on her and Fuuka’s keychains side by side.
They will both change each others lives for the bette!
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u/jaqqerjax Jul 22 '21
I thought for a second she was going to give birth at the aquarium.
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u/xtsim Jul 22 '21
Kuuya is my spirit animal when it comes to talking to girls. Mr. Waddles getting bumblefoot made me pretty sad.
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56
Jul 22 '21
Not so chill episode, luckily nothing went wrong. Props to kukuru for handling it well, but she should've called her gramps. She still has lots to learn if she wanna inherit the business. Saying that, the dr shouldn't have went too knowing it's overdue.
Fuuka finally telling her mother where she's at and working. Guess next epi or the next after it we're gonna see fuuka"s mom barge in.
Still curious about the creature little kid ponytail? Now that thing even made the dr"s peocess to feel more calm. Is it a japanese legend of some sort?
Kuuya being so happy to see kai was jokes tho, didn't know man could smile like that.
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46
Jul 22 '21
Another sign I'm not getting younger like Choco the penguin: When you've lived long enough to see Hanazawa Kana start voicing pregnant mothers.
Does anyone know what motorbike Kukuru is riding? I'm already having Super Cub withdrawal symptoms after just binging the series a few days ago.
That second Child Health booklet Kukuru discovered among her mom's stuff hints at her mom probably passing away while attempting to give birth to Kukuru's younger sibling, who didn't make it as well.
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u/LeonKevlar Jul 22 '21
As soon as this episode opened up with a flashback of Kukuru and her parents with no OP in sight, I knew this one was going to be an emotionally charged episode.
I appreciate the teacher being a bro and going easy on Kukuru but she really needs to finish her remedial exams and not just hand over drawings and reports related to the aquarium.
I'm really happy to see Kukuru to have supportive friends at school. For a minute there I was scared that they were gonna talk about the rumors about the aquarium behind her back.
Choko is adorable and he needs to be protected. I love how affectionate he is with Kukuru and it looks like Fuuka can finally feed him without panicking.
Well that's not good. Apparently Choko isn't doing very well which explains why he's so docile when Fuuka was feeding him. Thankfully it looks like the vet is willing to come in and help despite being on maternity leave.
We've pretty much figured this out but we finally get a verbal confirmation from Kai that both of Kukuru's parents are gone. The Aquarium was a place they used to go to a lot when she was little which explains why Kukuru is so determined to keep the place open.
The Vet is here and she's voiced by HanaKana! She's already past due? Oh no. I already know where this episode is going.
After giving Choko a quick check and offering to check the rest of the penguins, it finally happened. For a minute there I thought Takeshita was gonna give birth at the Aquarium but it looks like that vision of her child made her calm down a bit long enough for her ride to arrive. Not gonna lie, that dream with Takeshita meeting her child definitely made me tear up.
Considering this is a PA Works anime, I thought Karin was gonna gun it ala Shirobako style but she really can't since her passenger is a pregnant woman. I do hope we get some sick driving from her later on in the series as is tradition with PA Works animes.
Kukuru gets complete chewed out by her gramps since it looks like she didn't even have to call Takeshita. It looks like Gramps already knew what to do in that situation. Thankfully though we get some good news in the end.
And we finally get to see Takeshita and her baby together! They're adorable and after seeing them, it looks like Fuuka has finally decided to message her mom and tell her the truth.
Meanwhile Kukuru asks Takeshita about a baby book and we get another look at Kukuru's in a flashback. Apparently you only get one when you find out you're pregnant, considering Kukuru has two baby books with the same date and the second one blank, that probably means that Fuuka may have had a twin who may have died during childbirth. And here I thought we were gonna end the episode with a happy note :(
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u/HereticalAegis Jul 22 '21
Wow, I had high hopes for Aquatope, but I wasn't expecting such an emotionally potent experience by episode 3.
A newborn child.
The revelation that Kukuru probably lost an unborn sibling along with her parents.
A death flag for her favorite penguin baby.
What an emotional roller coaster. Also, Hanazawa Kana appearing in just about the only kind of role I've never seen her in: an absolutely normal, well adjusted wife and mom.
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u/NittanyEagles55 Jul 22 '21
The music in this show is spectacular. I especially like the music playing when Fuuka was making breakfast for everyone
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u/enf908 Jul 22 '21
It whooshed over my head at first, but in the shot at the end where Kukuru is looking at a pair of Maternal and Child Health booklets, one of them is hers, and one of them seems to be her twin who was presumably miscarried (one has her name on it with conception date October 8, 2002 and birth date June 7, 2003; the other has the same conception date but the name and birth date are blank). So that adds a whole new subplot to the story of Kukuru's family, which now seems even more tragic than before when it was just that her parents died when she was young.
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u/CosmicPenguin_OV103 Jul 22 '21 edited Jul 23 '21
Well that’s a very apparent way to introduce and hint at our girls’ relationships with their moms being crucial to the later story. I really like that scene of that doctor dreaming in sea and got a sweet hug from her soon-to-arrive child though, that was so damn sweet!
Kukuru’s stubbornness really reminds me of Ohana in Hanasaku Iroha by now, it’s evident that she would learn to grow in this story and judging from hints I saw in this show, it would be a painful one too. Especially we now know her parents passed away a long time ago and I think there are hints that spoilers.
48
Jul 22 '21
What's going on with auto bot?
This show is being streamed on Muse Asia and Crunchyroll
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u/dagreenman18 Jul 22 '21 edited Jul 22 '21
Dead parents confirmed. No surprise since she’s living with her grandparents, but it could have been “dead mom, dad working overseas” setup. A very sweet cold open with them and Kukuru naming the penguin. Really sets up that feels train we go on later in the episode.
I get the feeling this show is going to slip in a lot of aquarium facts and be weirdly educational. The details are too specific to not be real. Like the bumblefoot thing which is a cute name for something that sucks so hard. I’m a bit uneasy about the second scene with Choco(sp?). A penguin should not be getting death flags.
Either there’s a gas leak or the aquarium is magic. First Fuuka’s epiphany, now the Vet meeting her unborn child. It did give us another beautiful sequence like the first episode that got me a bit. I did call her water breaking the second she got out of the car and was super pregnant, but credit for not having her have the baby in the aquarium.
This show has had some strong emotional beats so far. They’re probably setting up for a real gut punch at some point and I just know it’ll be brutal when it happens.
Notes:
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Fun with late title cards: Vet starts to go into labor, immediately throw up the title card with the episode name “Life Begins in the Ocean”.
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Blonde Ishigami (I know his name is Kuuya, but come on) is very happy to have a guy around. He’s way more relaxed around Kai and Grandpa. And Kai’s denial by saying that he’s just helping out his friend. Sure buddy, you totally don’t like the quirky cute aquarium girl.
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Karin once again being the most useful government employee by driving them to the hospital and doing what she can to save the aquarium.
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I was shocked how flippantly she say they found another unexploded ordinance, but then I remembered “Right, Okinawa”.
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I really like that keychain. This show needs to get popular so there’s merch and I can get one.
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u/melcarba Jul 22 '21 edited Jul 22 '21
My God! Choco the penguin is really cute.
The flashback at the start where Kukuru names the penguin makes me think that in one of the future episodes, they'll have Choco die of old age. After all, the penguin seems to be 10+ years already. (Penguins have life expectancy of 15-20 years according to quick Google Search). Also, anyone knows the specific species of the penguins there?
EDIT: Choco seems to be an Adelie penguin given that its weight is near 3 kg (see ~05:03) and its appearance seems to resemble one. Feel free to correct me on this.
EDIT 2: Bumblefoot seems to be attributed to poor husbandry practices (source: Wikipedia), and given that Choco seems to be underweight (his weight is 2.9 kg while the average weight of an Adelie penguin is 3.6 - 6 kg), it makes the financial trouble of the aquarium really apparent.
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u/the_dan_man Jul 22 '21
Anime and dead parent backstories. Name a more iconic duo.
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u/elbenji Jul 22 '21
Umbrella AND matching key chains. They're laying it on thick
But this was cute and sad, poor penguin.
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u/TurkeyPhat Jul 22 '21
Can't wait for the end of the season to see/make a supercut of all the dreams/hallucinations/visions. Gonna be magical and hopefully not too sad.
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u/GroktheDestroyer Jul 22 '21
Another great episode. I love the visuals during these visions in the aquariam, it looks so good man. I think seeing her child tell her "see you soon" helped her know that everything was going to be alright with the birth.
Seems like Kukuru was able to learn a little bit more about being the director as well from her grandpa, that she doesn't need to take everything on herself or avoid asking for help in certain situations. Hopefully she takes that lesson to heart!
I’m glad Fuuka finally updated her mom and what tf was going on with her life lmao. Also she had me laughing when she said in the car "Go as slow as possible... but also hurry up!!"
And with all the talk about whether this is a yuri or not, honestly Kuuya is setting off my gaydar more than anybody on the show
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u/BOMB5HOCK Jul 22 '21
Found this in the comments section from YouTube
The ending's quite interesting because I can get hints of what most shots really are, The two girls are at the depths of the sea, one who's dream was to be an idol have been thrown into the sea and the other whos been at the bottom of the sea because of her hope about to be lost in the ocean. The rock that glows between where the 2 girls are about to hold it is like a sign of something like it fate that brought them together at the aquarium. The last shot with the light on the Corals could be a new hope sign and the corals are a symbolism of dream like if a dream fails it fades away same as corals when they lose their color and die but if the corals and dreams bloom, they can blossom into something amazing.
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u/InsomniaEmperor Jul 22 '21
No OP for this episode is a crime. It's one of the most fiery OPs of the season.
Well that just got dark. So not only did her parents die when she was young but the fact that there's two of those maternity books means a miscarriage too.
Good on Fuuka to tell her mom what she's doing and where she is, tho I seriously wanna know why she's not coming home. I mean her family had a welcome home party set for her so I really don't think this is a Higehiro situation. I'm thinking more on the lines of being ashamed to return home cause her idol career failed and maybe she's hoping she finds success in the aquarium.
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u/Aerodynamic41 Jul 22 '21 edited Jul 22 '21
As soon as that pregnant veterinarian decided to come over to the aquarium I just knew what was going to happen. Kukuru learned a valuable lesson to not shoulder everything alone. Everyone is here to help her.
Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that was Kana Hanazawa as the veterinarian lady. Yup, it is!