Man, someone (this director) needs to take some lessons in pacing. There are limits to how much plot you can fit into 3 minutes without leaving the audience lying on the floor.

Before this there have been a couple of girls, one dressed like a miko and one like a school girl, who have shown up briefly a few times and don't seem to be friendly. In ep 10 we find out who they are. The miko is Goura, and the schoolgirl is Ashinoko. And they are also hot springs spirits.

In ep 11 we find out who they are. Originally there were 7 hot springs in that area, and each one had a spirit. But later there was a lot more development and now there are 20 hot springs resorts, and 20 spirits. Since it's all gotten divided, the old time spirits (like Hakone and Miya) have been weakened, and they all ended up unconscious. Hakone and Miya are the only ones to have wakened.

Hakone thinks they can get help at the shrine where all the hot springs spirits are born. Which, it turns out, is in Ashinoko, which is the schoolgirl spirit's domain.

So in ep 12 we ride on the Tekkousen, a tour boat which looks like a European galleon. And they get attacked by Goura and Ashinoko, who want to steal the magic boxes which contain a lot of Hakone and Miya's power. So we get a fight in the rigging. And it is a stalemate, but it lasts long enough to reach the other side. End of the episode has Hakone and Miya running towards the shrine.

So ep 13 wraps of the series. In three minutes we get all of the following: Hakone and Miya reach the shrine and regain their power (and grow to adult size), Hakone lectures Goura and Ashinoko about the fact that a hot spring heals not just the body but also the soul, and you cannot heal a soul with stolen power, Goura tries to convince Ashinoko to give up, Ashinoko blasts Goura, Ashinoko and Hakone have another battle, Ashinoko's powers go out of control, Hakone sacrifices herself to bring Ashinoko back, Hakone goes flying and lands in the lake and they don't see her again, months pass, Miya and Goura and Ashinoko are all working back at Dreamgirl's resort, Our Hero is cleaning Hakone's shrine, he accidentally drops a steamed bun in the water, just like he did in the first episode, Hakone appears again, and we get a happy ending.

Man, it was like watching a normal story at 4x speed (if not even faster). You kind of have to breath hard at the end. They apparently felt that they needed to have some sort of story, but it was a distraction from the travelogue and they didn't want to waste any more time on it than absolutely necessary.

So, was it worth watching? Ordinarily I'd say "no" but watching the entire series only takes three quarters of an hour, and it is fun. It really is. But it has zero rewatch potential. The only reason I went through it twice was so I could plunder it the second time.

Goura, Ashinoko, Dreamgirl's father, Miya, Our Hero, Hakone, Dreamgirl, Dreamgirl's sister, Dreamgirl's mother.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:25 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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