Arakawa under the Bridge 6 – suffer the children
May 12, 2010
The bullet-head twins suffer for our amusement.
Arakawa under the Bridge episode 6 features Recruit’s attempt to redeem himself, and counter his image as a “leech”. Unexpectedly, the result is more screen time for the bullet-head twins than ever before. Somehow Ric seems to learn something about the meaning of work in the process. This review intends to look at episode 6 through the lens of the ani-blogging community.
Oh, Starman, you're songs suck. La la LAH!
The episode started off with the musical showdown with Hoshi. This section of the show didn’t seem to impress many people. As Kanon on the AnimeSuki forum commented:
A bit disappointed by Ric and Hoshi’s match in episode 6. I expected something more epic, especially with those two seiyuus.
Sorry, Aroduc, he's not talking about killing them.
As stated above, much of the episode was occupied by the bullet-head twins. This seemed to really irk Aroduc:
Furthermore, and rather unfortunately, ten minutes of the Metalhead siblings is also about nine and a half minutes too much.
Ric and Nino share a tender moment.
Through it all, Recruit seemed to learn something about himself, and the folks under the bridge expressed sincere thanks for a job well done. Andy (Hanners) picked up on this:
Kou’s behaviour continues to swing from disdain for his fellow residents through to rather enjoying their company, while Nino seems ever more in awe of Ric’s abilities by the episode – Something which he doesn’t seem to have grasped entirely despite his efforts to impress her.
Would you buy snake oil from this kappa?
Meanwhile lvlin made community the theme of his write up of this episode. He starts by commenting on the opening segment, and later remarks:
Riku made the most progress so far in his assimilation to the society under the bridge. His special commodity, the intelligence that got him to be such a great businessman, can be used instead to teach the citizens of under the bridge.
lvlin also includes a link to a post by a Japanese blogger who took pictures of the actual bridge over the Arakawa that served as the reference for the artwork in this show.
Finally, here are some bonus pictures of Nino that are too nice not to share.
Abandoned Factory Anime Review 
May 12, 2010 at 4:45 am
Tomokazu Sugita is a great voice actor but an awful singer. Have you ever listened to Kyon’s image songs? Let’s just say that they’re more hilarious than good…
May 12, 2010 at 5:23 am
Definitely that was the worst episode so far for me, Full Metal Heads are annoying and the face-off wasn’t all that fun.
But meh, even if it’s ‘worst’ among ‘best’ that still makes it atleast ‘good’.
May 12, 2010 at 10:53 am
@Son: Ah, that explains some things.
@Velore: Not enough Sister! Oh well, there’s still a next week.
May 12, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Don’t want to sound like a whiner, but the first letter is a lower case L, not an I.
I’m a bit surprised by some of the negative reactions to this episode. I thought the metal headed brothers were hilarious. At least in that middle segment. The part with the chief, I didn’t find so funny, though I liked it for its story progression.
May 12, 2010 at 7:33 pm
Sorry! No disrespect intended, I just couldn’t tell the difference between the two letters. I’ll fix it in the post.
Personally, I wasn’t blown away by this episode, but I enjoyed the fact that Recruit showed some forward motion in terms of finding a way to enjoy life (and even work), as well as being recognized by his neighbors for something he is good at. I’m hoping that this show ends up being more than just the kooky things that happen under the bridge, so seeing development for Recruit is a positive as far as I’m concerned.