10 Second Anime - Amanchu! - Episode 5

Hikari and Futaba formally meet their Diving Club seniors, the Ninomiya twins, Ai and Makoto.

Episode 5 - "The Story of the First Time at Sea With Friends"

Heh.

I was a bit puzzled by the title of the episode because Futaba was nowhere near ready to do open water diving, but the first official club meeting, complete with a Big Sister Corny yet Wonderful Saying, explained what was going on. The title itself is corny yet wonderful!

I can't stress enough how tight the narrative structure was to set up the humor. Starting with actually meeting the official club members last week but not knowing who they were to Futaba needing to get stronger to carry all her dive equipment, the story flowed from those details using misdirection and normal ignorance.

Supporting the comedic tension were the events of the 2nd episode and how the two first-years "borrowed" the club's equipment to float around the pool.

The two new girls had been meeting with Ms. Katori since then, but never the club members. Now we know why. The club president was furious with them and didn't want to forgive them!

Before all the comedic cascade happened, we needed to see Futaba told she needs to harden up.

I'm not showing Futaba's bloomers just because they look nice. It's important for her future identity! Oh, but they do look nice.

Futaba is not an outdoorsy girl, so it's not a surprise to see her lagging. This was a chance to see both Futaba's and Hikari's personalities when it comes to their friendship. Futaba wanted Hikari to go ahead with her training and not just jog next to her.

Here again we saw how tight this narrative was to serve the comedy. Using character development to separate the two so they met the Ninomiya twins at different times enhanced the comedy and ratcheted up the tension.

Ha! Hikari may have been touched that Futaba wanted her to run at her own pace, but then she revealed she wanted to lap her too!

The comedy relied on the Ai Ninomiya being so angry that she didn't even want to meet the two girls who expressed interest in the Diving Club during the trial period. The kicker was that she had already met them earlier last episode. Even better, she tried to recruit Hikari after she told her about the terrible girls who used the club's equipment without permission.

The twin sibling's relationship dynamic was established pretty early too. And again, Ai's need to dropkick her brother Makoto served to cause the interruption necessary to Hikari from telling her that she was already joining the Diving Club. Delaying the moment when Ai found out the two nice girls she already knew were the bad girls she wanted to punish just kept ratcheting up the comedic tension.

Add in Futaba showing up late to make Hikari even more nervous just kept building it up.

Cha the Cat lives on fear-spiced sweat...

The chase was on!

It was high noon for the final confrontation!

What!? She apologized? And so did Futaba with her pants around her ankles and her bloomers flashing the whole world? How could Ai stay mad at these two nice girls?

Well, she still has her brother to kick around. This is the spirit of youth too, according to Katori-sensei.

After all the comedic catharsis, it was time for this show to reestablish the healing part of this slice of life. That means forgiveness and nice gestures from President Senior Big Sis.

The Japanese love using nicknames to signal close friendship, so it meant something that Ai already knew who Pikari and Teko were, plus adding her own addition with Monkey Panties for Hikari and Half-Naked Bloomer Tracksuit Girl for Futaba.

This was actually the very first official club meeting, so there was stuff like setting a schedule and some goals. The first one was Futaba getting Open Dive certified so she could join the rest of the kids in ocean diving for when the plankton blooms are done.

But then it was time for the funny stuff.

This school sure does like drawing on the chalkboard.

I wonder if they were inspired by Katori-sensei's excellent chalkboard art.

The colorful chalkboard scene of the Diving Club (and Cha) having fun under the sea afforded Ai the first chance to offer her corny yet wonderful quote, "This is the first water the four of us dove into together." So corny, yet so wonderful.

It was also a nice chance for Futaba to add her character to the club as she encouraged her friends to take a picture of this ephemeral moment. We've seen from the first episode how important those pictures moments are to her, so this is a punctuation mark for Futaba in embracing her new home and friends.

Chalk art is only temporary.

But if you take a picture, those memories can last much longer.