I did not see any of the last few minutes coming, especially since I thought that this was the last episode.
The good news is the captain is not dead and there's still another episode to go, so this was not the finale. The bad news is, the situation got so much worse. I thought that they'd hit rock bottom in terms of obstacles to overcome last week, but boy was I wrong. While I still have confidence in the characters, I have no idea how they're going to solve this.
But this is what good stories do. Just when we think it can't get any worse, it does. Just when we're about to give up hope, the solution becomes clear. And I'm really interested in seeing what the solution to this problem will be, since it looks like the characters have completely run out of options. However, as cheesy as this may sound, I think that the answer will come from the friendship that has sprung up in this group over the run of the show.
It already happened in this episode to an extent. Akira's character arc is done, having made a complete 180 from being completely dedicated to his job to deciding that he going to do his best for his friends and for the world, not just because of orders. Yuki figures out how to hook the dragon by correctly guessing Haru's favorite color (red), explaining why Haru latched on to Yuki in the first place (he liked his hair) as well as what was up with the scene in the first episode when Haru saw Yuki as a fish. The hanging threads in the narrative are starting to come together, and I'm sure that there's some other random detail that we've forgotten that will lead to the resolution.
In the meantime, here's hoping that the Duck leader doesn't get trigger happy. To go off on a tangent for a minute, I found the news coverage that's been shown in the last few episodes to be pretty interesting because they treat the Duck Corporation normally, like they're used to reporting on them. Up until this point, all we had to go off of was how Akira handled himself and his communications with his superiors, which made me think that Duck was the equivalent of the MIB. However, the mass media is aware of them, and they're cool with announcing their operatives names on TV. Add that to their comic-relief status in the show, and I don't know what to make of them anymore.
So here's a random theory, even though we're right on top of the ending and I doubt that this will be addressed. Does Tsuritama take place in a world where alien contact is normal? Do corporations, like Duck, have branches for dealing with and monitoring aliens? Duck consistently treats Haru as a threat, and with the otherwise normal portrayal of life in this show, alien invasion is clearly not common. However, it would explain why Kate didn't seem to mind at all when Haru told her the truth. It's a fun theory to think about, even though I doubt it's true.
Anyway, the real finale is next week, and I have no idea what to expect besides excellence. I've still got hope for a happy ending. And by "happy ending," I mean that they save Haru. It says a lot about the characterization of this series that I'm far more worried about him than I am about the impending missile launch. This series has been completely captivating, and I'm really excited to see what the real resolution will be.
Images from Crunchyroll.com.
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