10 Second Anime - Non Non Biyori Repeat - Episode 4

Renge learns lessons of life, death and birth. Rain causes mischief for several people.

Episode 4 - "I Made a Teru-teru Bouzu"

Heh.

That's a nice pink bike, Ren-chon!

 

I liked that Kazu-nee joined in the arts and crafts of making super teru-teru bouzu to make the rain go away. Too bad for Komari's fragile heart, though.

I remember that this cat wasn't always so fond of Renge.

 

It was interesting to see the other girls try to gauge how hurt Renge's feelings were about the poor little shrimp. They invited her on their weekend excursion, but they didn't ask her directly how she was feeling.

Renge's face usually only shows surprised happiness or just surprise, so it gave me a hitch in my chest to see her express her feelings with drawings of herself.

That's right. The flat guys were born. Ren-chon yay!

Hmm.

Another episode where the seemingly disconnected vignettes were all intertwined. In the prologue, Renge collected some tadpole shrimp to take care of as class pets and the inclusion of one of the girls' bike in the scene segued into Renge receiving her own bike, marking a rite of passage for childhood in gaining independence. But because of the rain, she couldn't ride it, so she embarked on making herself into a teru-teru bouzu to invite the Sun back, scaring the bejeezus out of Komari. The teru-teru bouzu and the bike connected her to the Candy Store Lady. While Renge was enjoying her progression through life, the little shrimp finished theirs, leading the usually unexpressive Renge to draw her feelings of sadness. The kicker for all these little episodes, and making Natsumi the hero of the episode, was that the little shrimp had laid their eggs before they died, starting the cycle of life all over again.

 

Living in a rural setting makes these life lessons much more obvious and much more poignant, but also helps in learning these lessons at a much younger age. Look at first grader Renge dealing with death and loss, even perhaps guilt that she didn't take care of the shrimp properly, but then learning the joy of birth and relief that these things happened as they were supposed to. Now she just needs to take those training wheels off her bike.