10 Second Anime - Amanchu! - Episode 9

A full memory card on her phone brings up Futaba's worries about her past friendships and the permanence of memories and feelings.

Episode 9 - "The Story of the Memories You Can't Erase"

Heh.

This episode shows why Healing Anime excels as a genre of slice-of-life. Built on nothing but a full memory card where image files might need to be deleted or moved, we got a meditation on the persistence of memories, the ephemeral nature of the feelings attached to them and a character study on Futaba's feelings about friendships on either side of a relocation.

That sensitive girl just needs a hug. I'm glad she has several people there to do that for her.

It was nice to have faces and voices to the girls we've seen in Futaba's pictures since the first episode.

Still no diving from the Diving Club. But hey, you get Cha wearing a cape for some reason.

Futaba's friends noticed she was taking another picture, so they figured it was time for a group shot. Poor Makoto got left out.

Ha! Ai doubled down on her English phrase "Come on!" to get Makoto to take the picture. Scary!

Uh oh. The phone card was full! Futaba would have to delete one of her other pictures or move them to another card to keep this one. And that started Futaba's full blown crisis.

Makoto understood Futaba's reasons for keeping pictures with feelings attached to them. They were like his mementos that Ai found. She got to complain again that he had too much junk.

For Futaba, this issue of how easily data could be deleted or moved brought up her other hard feelings of when she moved. She worried that every conversation with her friends Akane and Chizuru from junior high would remind her that they were moving farther apart.

Another big deal for Futaba was that she had not opened a phone strap that the other girls had gotten her before she left. She felt that if she used it or expressed gratitude, it would mean she had accepted it as a parting gift. That would make their distance and goodbyes more real, more permanent.

But! Hikari figured out a solution.

Futaba agonized over moving a precious memory to make room for a new one. Is that how life should be? Is that how worthless the past should be? She couldn't figure out a way around those dark thoughts.

It was interesting that she rode her Vespa to the same spot next to Amanchu (still haven't got an explanation on that name) and talked to Hikari's Grandma again. Except this time, Grandma didn't think she needed to give Futaba any advice this time. I think she trusted she was different now that she had friends.

The Diving Club got Futaba a gift, but they were supposed to be casual about it. But not that casual about it, Pikari!

The gift was a digital photo album! With lots more space and slots for cards than Futaba's phone had. Futaba didn't need to move files to external card and forget about her precious memories anymore. She could look at them everyday like she did on her phone.

I just liked how similar Futaba's friends in junior high are to her new batch. Both groups just kind of grabbed her.

I'm glad we got some comic relief as Futaba came to an internal understanding about her memories and mementos. It was a big deal for her to say "thank you" for something where the phrase didn't have the connotation of "goodbye."

But first, Hikari dropped a nice nugget of wisdom when she thanked Futaba for giving her the opportunity to give her a present. She said it's meaningful for the giver because she has to go through the journey of thinking of the recipient as she picks out the best one. The recipient, at the moment she receives it, can just say thank you and move on. But the giver had to spend time and feelings to get to that moment.

I think there's a bit of give and take (figuratively too) in the act of gifting. The recipient's journey, if it's a good gift where all the feelings can be appreciated, starts at that moment and can continue much longer than the giver's.

Either way, it made Futaba realize that she could appreciate a wonderful parting gift as just a wonderful gift, and not keep a nice phone strap boxed up because it would mean she accepted that parting. There were all the wonderful feelings of her friends imparted to the gift, like Hikari said, that she could appreciate too. She can say "thank you" without saying "goodbye."

It was a nice cathartic moment that everyone appreciated.

Some wanted to join in too!

Futaba found another friend who just reached out and pulled her into another richer world.

The music score shined again as they used a piano arrangement of the opening credits song to capture Futaba beginning to reconcile her past life with her current one.

She began using her Tokyo friends' phone strap and she even tied her hair into her usual twin tail. She's still Futaba. There was never a need to start over with a new look.

Even better, as her old classmate called her on the phone, she asked her to tell her all about the school she had never seen and she could tell Akane all about the school her friend had never seen too. Friendships, feelings and people aren't frozen in time like they are in pictures. But you can take new pictures to capture a fleeting instant of the flow of these important things.

Now that episode is how you do Healing Anime.