Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Rescue Wings â€“ episode 6

March 26, 2006 on 8:45 pm | In Rescue Wings | Comments Off

“Bright Side of Life (part one)”

An episode that occurs during the o-bon festival, yet another Japanese holiday. The episode works on the triplet fronts of Uchida, Megumi and Hongo with some overlap. Again the home lives of the characters are on offer and one can more accurately see what these people are like.

The episode begins in 1993, with the funeral of Inoue, a man who worked at Komatsu. The next year, Hongo is transferred to the helicopter division of the SDF.
In the modern day, Hongo visits Inoue’s family for o-bon while Uchida and Megumi visit their own families and each other.

Uchida and Megumi have traditional families that run businesses out of their homes: in the case of Uchida, a wine store; in Megumi’s a veterinary clinic.
Uchida is an only child and his relationship with his parents carries on as such. The highlight of the episode was watching Uchida walking with his wheelchair bound father and talking about career dreams: that imposing a business on your son is a transference and is not fair. The way the conversation runs, one gets the feeling that Uchida and his father have had differences in the past; it’s nice to see them reconciled now.

The Megumi scenes emphasise not only how pretty she is, but how close and funny her family are. The thorn in Megumi’s side is her hilariously misbehaved teenage sister, who mercilessly torments the poor publisher at every opportunity. Her parents are, of course, cheerfully resigned to the fact.

Uchida and Megumi together is again natural and far removed from their disconnect of the past. What detaches me from the situation is that they would go and see War of the Worlds. Anime characters aren’t supposed to do real things!
But they’re sweet together, I’ll give them that.

This is part one, so looks like we’ll get more of a feel for Hongo next episode; at any rate, I’ve got a strong sense that we’ll see the thread of fate that links Hongo and Uchida’s souls explored in greater detail. Can’t hardly wait.