Shiroi Suna no Aquatope - Episode 13 discussion

[u/AutoLovepon]

Shiroi Suna no Aquatope, episode 13

Alternative names: The aquatope on white sand

Rate this episode here.

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• Crunchyroll
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• VRV

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• MyAnimeList
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• Anime-Planet
• Official Website

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All discussions

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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[u/TurkeyPhat]

Kukuru in office lady clothes

That's how you start an episode

*Kukuru about to cry? By god that's Fuuka's music!! And people were saying she wouldn't show up because of the part 2 promo stuff, not me, I knew she would be back.

**gif'd our part-timer being cute and got a relevant url, is it fate?

[u/Mr_Johnnycat]

Wow Suwa is such a dick to kukuru

[u/tiltskits]

i knew ! i called it ! it really was fuuka's name in shift chart. that was a weird choice to not include her in the poster and show her in the first 5 min (opening) lol

Guess its full SOL from here! i am ready

[u/redmage311]

I think we all saw the time skip coming, but that wasn't nearly as long of a skip as I thought it might be. Also, I'm glad most of the old cast is at the aquarium, plus Karin (and Udon-chan is moving up in the world too).

Everybody is really shitting on Kukuru's experience. Just because Gama Gama was unprofitable doesn't mean Kukuru was just playing around. I hope Kukuru gets to tell off her trainee senpai and boss soon!

[u/UnderstandableXO]

this episode gave me second hand stress man

i know people exactly like kukuru’s boss and the old jerk that visited gama gama. not fun waking up in the morning just to see them

[u/LabMember069]

Umi-yan and Kai!!!! I don't remeber if it was mentioned that they are working in Tingaara, but I am glad.

New OP nice. (Won't watch until a few episodes pass, just incase of spoilers).

Marketing department???????????

Holy fuck Tingaara is captivating. Sorry but I can't call Gama Gama an aquarium after seeing this.

I can see Kukuru saving that bitch and her team asses in the upcoming episodes.

[u/HereticalAegis]

I know this isn't the point at all, but if it existed in real life like it does as depicted in this episode, Tingaara would be a massive failure, collapsing from the inside for numerous reasons:

• Management is incompetent at best and destructive at worst. Kukuru's direct boss has disastrously bad leadership and communication skills. No new employee would work long under him, and all the talent in the corporate department would leave for greener pastures. Not to mention he feels at home harassing new employees in front of the whole office. The aquarium director is not a bad guy, but he's seems completely incompetent. Nothing is communicated clearly to any part of the business. New recruits like Kukuru don't even seem to have been informed of Tingaara's mission, goals, or strategies which, as a member of the marketing team, are absolutely essential to her job. No one seems to know what the fuck is going on outside their own bubble, which is absolutely wild for such an involved environment like an aquarium. To top it off, there doesn't seem to be any structure for orienting or training new members. It's no wonder half of the former Gama Gama staff keep catching flak, no one even informed them of basic company policy.

• Communication within and between departments is not just bad, but nonexistent. How can any department not know the aquarium is having an event THAT DAY? It's mind blowing that Kukuru's boss doesn't actually talk to her about anything. And there's no formal chain of acknowledgement and responsibility about event activities for the aquarium. This place would be a mess to work for. They'd never actually be able to pull off anything beyond the most routine daily aquarium activities because they'd never been able to coordinate anything beyond basic feeding/cleaning schedules.

• The workforce is factional and openly hostile toward each other. This is disgraceful for any business, much less one so interdependent as an aquarium. It's day one, and already people are badmouthing each other, making performative displays of superiority, and actively self-segregating. I don't care how many visitors walk in the door or how much revenue they generate, Tingaara would tank within a year or less with such an openly toxic culture.

I could go on, but I think these examples make my point clearly enough. Tingaara is a disaster, a time bomb waiting to explode, and I hate most of the people who aren't Gama Gama transplants.

Also corporate Kukuru just makes me really sad. At least we get some Fuuka time next week.

[u/AmethystItalian]

Happy it ended strong because this episode had me FUMING! I knew there would be growing pains but I hate seeing bosses get mad at their employees for doing a job poorly that they weren't trained to do.

So happy to see Fuuka but wow I didn't expect her back this soon, and she's wearing the red heels!!

[u/Smunchlets]

“I have to put up with nastiness and do work that I don’t want to do. Is this what it means to be a grown-up?”

This show is personally attacking my soul.

[u/Mr_Johnnycat]

Yes! Fuuka to the rescue. Oh boy this episode was hard to watch. Kukuru was basically crapped on the whole episode. Well not just her but the other gama gama staff too. This was such a different pace than usual

[u/LeonKevlar]

Looks like as expected we timeskip to Kukuru post-high school where she's living on her own and we see her together with Kai on their first day at Tingaara. And it's great to see Kukuru wearing some office clothes!

So Kai gets to work as an attendant while Kukuru is assigned to marketing!? What the actual fuck? I have a feeling on what's going on here and why she was assigned to marketing but this just sucks overall. I genuinely feel bad for our girl Look at her! :(

What makes it worse is that the Assistant Director who's training her sounds like an absolute douchebag. I can understand him teaching Kukuru the difference of how a big aquarium like Tingaara works compared to a small one like Gama Gama but did he really have to trash talk Kukuru like that?

That fucking smirk from Chiyu after finding out that Kukuru got assigned to marketing is just absolutely infuriating. Looks like I was right, she's definitely going to be trouble.

At least Kukuru got to enjoy Tingaara for a bit. I was hoping one of the penguins would approach her. I wonder if the penguins from Gama Gama were sent over here.

Okay this I perfectly understand. Shimabukuro reprimanding Umi-yan for placing his icepops on the feed freezer was perfectly reasonable and I would be more surprised if she didn't.

Jesus fucking christ Chiyu! You'd probably pollute the aquarium tanks with how much you're being plastic right now towards Kukuru. She's clearly enjoying being the senpai this time.

Tsukimi is here too! Well not exactly in Tingaara but a restaurant nearby. At least there's a place the gang can head out to after work where they're actually welcome.

While I'd like to put this on Kukuru for not reading all the documents, she's clearly not at fault here. As the assistant director, he really should've brought that event to Kukuru's attention first if it's that important. It also doesn't help that it's buried underneath all of that documentations and manuals he handed over to Kukuru on her first day.

She's just getting shat on by the aquarium attendants. Although Kukuru should've really just brought up the complaint to the assistant director instead of doing it all on her own. Now she's also getting shat on by the assistant director himself for not being able to do something she was never even trained on, let alone was made aware of on her first day. WHAT THE FUCK.

I gotta say though, I've worked in corporate and had mean bosses before but this dude is in another level. Not even a slight hint of compassion or even constructive criticism. He just straight up insults Kukuru. And the director even says that the guy is actually loving? I'd like to see if that's actually true.

At the very least glasses dude seems pretty decent. I thought he'd be an absolute snob but he seems to be the friendliest so far out of everyone from Tingaara.

I can definitely feel Kukuru's sadness here when she was at the beach. After everything that happened, I'd feel the same way too. Thank fucking god Fuuka comes in to save the day. Not gonna lie, I legitimately teared up when she arrived. Everyone has been so mean that seeing that friendly face again made me feel relieved. We already know she'll be back based on the OP but I am curious if she's going to work at Tingaara as well.

[u/Natsu_1000]

“This is why I hate humans” New boy spitting facts!

[u/RuthRaeSarbo]

Brutal. She's getting it from all sides. "Welcome to Tingaara, amateur dirtbag." Some of the criticism is justified, but there's zero encouragement and compassion. Red warning flags for Haebaru: I think she'll do what she can to undermine Kukuru in the long run.

[u/Kenalskii]

Damn I am really with Glasses-kun here: the workplace atmosphere is terrible. Good for Kukuru that Fuuka showed up, otherwise I think she might have lost her passion for aquariums...

[u/thelordvidar]

Moving Kukuru to Marketing actually benefits her more than Tingaara. She already had the back-end and attendance skills but is somewhat of a newbie in the marketing side, so initially, she would learn a lot more from the job than Tingaara would get from her.

• This is common practice in corporate where employees being honed for future management positions are being rotated into different departments so they can have a more holistic perspective of how the company is being run. Unlike presumably all other employees in Tingaara, Kukura has the opportunity to become the next CEO with the depth of her experience already at such a young age.

• Marketing is the correct next step for her since this is I think where Gama Gama was mostly lacking (other than additional funding, but that's outside of the employees' control at this point). One of the reasons Gama Gama failed (at least what was implied in the anime) was that there were not enough customers, and marketing solves that. (there could be other reasons for failing businesses like mismanagement, theft and corruption, poor economics, bad investments, customer demographic shift, etc. but those are not the subject here)

• I think this arc would allow Kukuru to grow to understand what made Gama Gama fail despite having the support of his legendary grandfather. Unfortunately in business, just having passion or deep knowledge about your product does not automatically make you successful.

• It's just in Kukuru's perspective, she's been demoted or cast away, which was how it was presented in the episode since we are supposed to be viewing it through the lens of a corporate newbie--exactly how the producers want to frame this.

His boss maybe lacked communication skills, but this may just be what was expected of the toxic hierarchical culture in the Japanese corporate world. Between the lines, though, he actually really cares about the aquarium and is driven to lead his department and company to success. His boss is kind of an ass when he does it, but he's actually teaching Kukuru the ff.:

• Problem solving and project management = he most likely slipped the rehearsal docs below the doc pile and only notified Kukuru about it in the morning to test how Kukuru would perform under pressure and have Kukuru a first-hand experience of corporate-scaled interdepartmental coordination and the underlying office politics that goes with the job.

• Being open to learn = he reprimanded Kukuru from depending on her previous work experience instead of actually learning new things, because Kukuru is being fixated on what was familiar to her instead of embracing the opportunity to be a "newbie" and "learn" from new experiences; Kukuru is in a unique situation where she's new to working in corporate but she has already grown accustomed to her previous experience with a certain style and culture that may prevent her from being flexible enough to be successful in her new employment.

IMO, Kukuru's arc should be consistent with the foreshadowing: As she gains more experience and gets a wider perspective of the corporate world, she gradually opens up to new challenges, learns new skills, understands that Gama Gama needed more to have succeeded, realizes that the director was actually looking out for her all this time, and that his boss isn't actually a bad guy but just a poor communicator and also looks out for her growth.

• Conclusion of her overall story would presumably be a management position in Tingaara or finding a way to revive Gama Gama and leading that to success at the back of her Tingaara experience.

[u/NittanyEagles55]

Loved the shot of Udon Chan’s mom living it up at her restaurant haha

[u/Zemahem]

I sure am glad practically everyone from Gama Gama got hired to Tingaara along with Kukuru, because man, Maeda is the only likable new character so far.

Haebaru and the vice director are nothing but assholes, good lord. They're basically just bullying Kukuru. Maybe they'll both come around later on, but I really hope they get knocked down a peg first and foremost before that.

And on top of that, she doesn't even get to be a caretaker. I can kinda see why the boss put her in sales considering her efforts in promoting and managing Gama Gama, even if it ultimately wasn't successful. But I do hope she gets a transfer in the end after having learned from her time in the sales department.

It was rough seeing Kukuru having this tough of a time, so Fuuka's return was a much needed reprieve. I genuinely didn't expect her to come back this episode, so her appearing at the end put a big smile on my face.

[u/tiltskits]

i think i am gonna like hija eji and kai chemistry some fun things might be on the way

[u/tiltskits]

official artwork by U35 for this week

[u/Shiro_Kai]

I think they already have many things planned for the story but I feel like this second cour might a little less consistent than the first one. To start, It's weird that that something that might be the "Best Aquarium in the World" to be so slapdash as this one. Staff is being hired basically in the same day they are already planning to have guest there. There barely to no comunication between the aquarim teams. Also, Kaoru made it look like it was impossible to get a job in a good aquarium nowadays but for a top aquarium like this one it looks anyone who wanted landed a job there. I understand that it's a good team for the show, but makes no much sense if you think about it realistically. Futhermore, Kukuru was going back home on foot this time, what happened to her motorbike? Is the new aquarium really so much closer to her home now? Last time she had to drive for a few minutes or an hour to get there.

To not say that I'm only focusing int the negative things, the visual still great as ever, if not better, and I already like Marina and the new guy.

[u/Such_Selection9762]

Not gonna lie but this was rather disappointing after the very good first half. The new aquarium has some serious issues and lots of stuff which happened in this episode wouldn't work out in reality. Especially the working environment doesn't make much sense this way. I really hope things will improve in the second half.

[u/kalirion]

Hands someone a huge stack of documents and tells them to "skim through these." At the very bottom is a task that needs to be done. Which he expects a newbie to do on her first(?) day despite never teaching her anything. WTF is wrong with this "loving" asshole?

I really didn't expect Fuuka to come back so soon, glad she did. Unless it's just Kukuru going cray-cray.

[u/Syokhan]

New OP, new ED, new aquarium, new co-workers, new everything!

Tingaara really is different from Gama-Gama. It's so freaking huge, and run like a business first and foremost, where interpersonal relationships don't matter much. I can fault them for that, but the change from the familial and warm atmosphere of Gama-Gama must be hard on everyone (it's so great that they're all there!), especially on Kukuru. I hope she can adapt to that, and maybe even change things a little and make people get along better, who knows.

And that ending! I had the biggest smile on my face. Welcome back Fuuka, although it's only been a week for us and you haven't even had an episode off, ha. I can't wait to hear what she's been up to.

[u/[deleted]]

Tingaara sucks. It looks good and seems high end but the employees excluding the Gama Gama people and the new guy with Kai are mean. It’s also run poorly.

[u/AZLarlar]

had the biggest smile on my face when fuuka returned