Arakawa Bridge^2 8 – delicate flower

The second half of this episode took place during a glorious sunset.

Episode 8 of Arakawa under the Bridge^2 sees the arrival of a new student in Ric’s class. A delicate flower who has the hots for teacher, she manages to steal Ric’s affections, leading to an epic battle with Nino.

I know what you are thinking, and P-ko obviously agrees. "How can Ric be unfaithful to Nino?"

By the way, of all the reaction shots (and this show has a LOT of them), this shot of P-ko is the most extreme. Poor little P-ko. You can actually see her eyes bulging out of their sockets.

 

The Amazoness asks Ric out, but he tells her they can't be together, because he is in love with Nino.

But the Tengu hypnotize Ric into falling for the Amazoness.

P-ko struggles valiantly to protect Nino's relationship with Ric, but to no avail.

I just love the colors in the second half!

Ric announces to Nino that this will be more than something on the side.

Nino is displeased. She tells the Amazoness that she won't turn Ric over.

A great battle ensues.

In the end, Nino wins, and Ric comes to his senses. All is well under the bridge.

This turned out to be a very entertaining episode. Like Caraniel, I was very surprised to see the Amazoness acting as a love-rival for Nino. Her Tengu assistants powers of hypnotism were definitely impressive. Of course, in the end it had to be Nino that Ric truly loved. For a while Nino was acting very passively, so her final emotional declaration of love for Ric was quite a relief.

Have we seen the last of this ice cream wielding trouble maker?

The Amazoness is actually an interesting “type”. Setting aside the historical source material and the comic book extrapolation of Amazonians, the tall, busty blonde woman frequently appears in other shows as a trouble-making outsider. Another example of this character is Kaere Kimura from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (who was voiced by the same actress, Yu Kobayashi).