10 Second Anime - Amanchu! - Episode 2

Hikari finds a kindred soul in Ms. Katori. Futaba discovers the joys of a diving suit.

Episode 2 - "The Story of Doing Something Bad with Hikari"

Heh.

Last episode gave us the broad strokes of the series, so now is the time to establish the characters, their quirks and how they're all going to get together for the fun scenes we see in the opening credits. Holding it all together will be dive-crazy Hikari and her morning ritual showed that pretty well.

All of her checks are based on the diving checklist to make sure conditions and equipment are alright. She made sure to check her zipper this time to avoid the little embarrassment from last episode.

As the spiritual successor to ARIA, the use of the funny faces is important to set the tone of the humor. But a funny thing they've done this episode is use obstructions to change the faces back to normal. It's a neat little touch I appreciated.

Katori-sensei

Hikari was in her own little world enjoying the bus ride and the scenery, she didn't even notice that her homeroom teacher was sitting behind her. She didn't even check who it was that took away her chance to push the button for the next stop. Their little conversation through the shopping district emphasized their similar sentiments about enjoying their town, but it was their need to get somewhere first that showed their even more similar personalities.

And then, it was on!

Well, Ms. Katori isn't going to beat Hikari in audacity while wearing sensible heels.

She's a wily veteran, that Katori-sensei. She used her "adult charm" to hitch a motorcycle ride!

During this time, we had also followed Futaba who woke up much later. But she rides a moped to school so she didn't have to go through what Katori and Hikari went through. I wondered if Hikari was going to hitch a ride with her.

Oh, Futaba finally got a text from one of her friends, putting her in a good mood. However, Futaba was already looking forward to school because of her new weird classmate.

But no, Hikari found her own way, but cutting across the hillside and taking a huge leap from pretty high up. Being dive-crazy, she used her "great stride" technique for entering the water.

Lots of cute girls are falling out of the sky and hurting their legs when they stick the landing this Summer...

The revelation for the first set piece of the episode is that Katori-sensei is a diver like Hikari. I'm a bit surprised they haven't crossed paths before as divers considering how much Hikari helps out at her grandma's dive shop, but I presume we'll get some kind of answer about that.

The second set piece, which is the basis of the episode's title, is Futaba joining Hikari in raiding the diving club's room by the pool.

Diving Club Advisor Cha

Borrowing again from ARIA, the friendly cat Hikari met on the first day of school became her "advisor" because the clubroom appears to be its favorite spot.

Hikari named it "Cha" because that's the sound it kept making instead of the usual anime "nyaa~." This cat also either has no fear of the water or had quickly become trustful of Hikari to catch him when he jumped into her arms.

The bad thing that Hikari convinced Futaba to do was to try on a drysuit. These are different than wetsuits in that they have tight seals around the extremities so as not to let any water in. They're mainly used for cold water conditions and some warm water conditions if the divers are going to be submerged for hours instead of minutes.

While Hikari was sneaking around, the background music added some lilts from the Pink Panther theme. Some big heist was about to go down!

Well, you can't just put on a drysuit and not use it, right? Futaba learned about how to force excess air out of the suit and immediately felt the effects of the extra clinginess. I think a weird switch got flipped on over there...

Futaba's funny face reinforces her shy reluctant nature. Before she ran into Hikari about to sneak into the Diving Clubroom, she mused that she would probably join the go-home club. She also going to say "denied" a lot (another running joke borrowed from ARIA) since "Pikari" insists on using her made-up nickname of "Teko."

Look at Cha just jump right in!

In the end, Futaba made that leap to define her new self in this place instead of holding on to her past self with her far away friends.

The image of her hair flowing in the wind as she jumped in matched the flowing hair we saw on her moped in the first episode. Both instances signify new things about herself that happened in this new town.

Another image that was important to her new life was matching the brightness of Hikari with the brightness of the picture of her friends that she keeps on her phone. It's a confirmation that she's already thinking about Hikari as her friend. Good stuff.

Now, she just needs to meet that cat in the end credits that match her funny face eyes and this foursome of new friends will be complete for the show.