It’s a bit of a shame that Porfy stays so long at the same places. I was hoping that he’d continue to travel as soon as the issue between Iralia and Rebecca was solved, but instead it seems that the creators have bigger plans for this arc. Considering the nature of this series, I have absolutely no idea what to expect. Especially considering Les Miserables’ strange behaviour at this point: episode 26 was the only filler in the entire series, and after fooling me like that the tension suddenly sky-rocketed in the episodes afterwards. Will this be the same for Porfy no Nagai Tabi, or will this arc be more heart-warming in nature?

Porfy’s attempts to convince Iralia to go and see Rebecca fail, and she runs away. Maximilian and Porfy then try to enter Rebecca’s house, but she refuses to respond. The next afternoon, Iralia goes shopping again, and takes Porfy along with her. They stop by a local cafe to buy a drink, and Iralia buys some chocolate cake for Porfy as thanks of all the hard work he’s done.

Iralia then apologizes for the thing she did, and how it’s not so easy to just see Rebecca. Porfy can’t understand why people would try to be so difficult on this matter, and he then offers to make Rebecca want to meet her. Obviously, directly asking her is pointless, so he takes away her small glass statue, with the note that if she wants to have it back, that she should come to the cafe.

Unfortunately, Porfy didn’t realize that there were more cafe’s in the same town, so he and Iralia end up waiting at the wrong cafe. Hoping that they aren’t too late, they rush to the right one (which was supposed to be Rebecca’s favourite cafe). Iralia and Rebecca make settle their differences surprisingly fast, and they’re on good terms again once Maximilian arrives to check up on them.

Another surprise guest then shows up: Daisy. Apparently, she too went shopping with her father. Her father then suggests putting up a poster about Mina in the local city hall. A lot of people get there, and a friend of Daisy’s father once found his cat back through this method. They go back to Maximilian’s house to gather some paper and make said poster (including a very bad drawing of Mina by Porfy). Porfy and Maximilian then go to the city hall to put up this poster.

A problem arises, though, when Porfy needs to go to the toilet and he ends up fighting with the local mayor over the only available urinal. The episode ends as said mayor looks at the poster, with a rather angry face.

The most notable thing about this episode is the ease at which Iralia and Rebecca just made up like that. Usually, I would be face-palming at the ease at which such grudges are settled, and it’s true that lazy anime often use this technique in order to get “it over with”. But here it got me thinking, and it does make sense in a way. The biggest reason why Iralia and Rebecca refused to talk to each other was not their love dispute between Maximilian, but instead it was the fact that they refused to talk to each other. Because of this, fear took over and they started forming melodramatic theories of why the other wouldn’t want to see her, and through the years, this just escalated without the two of them ever getting a chance to make up.

An episode about Kushima. Again, this episode is about the things people leave behind in their past, and at the same time it’s a great chance to get some more insight into his character. As it turns out, he used to be an excellent violinist when he was young, though he quit at a certain time.

I first thought that he quit due to the wound he received when he tried to stop Haru from plunging into the glowing red sea, but instead his decision to quit was a bit more complex. My lack of Japanese didn’t understand his exact reason, even with a dictionary, but it’s basically that he saw no reason to continue to improve his skills anymore. He already was at the top, and there was no practical use for his talents anymore. He lost his passion, so he quit.

Since this is probably the only anime apart from Milennium Actress with characters that age for more than fifty years and explores more than just “suffering”, it can really show us some interesting stuff. I have no idea when exactly Kushima quit playing the violin, but it’s likely to be around forty years ago. Not only is he still carrying around the things he did, but the people around him who admired his work also still carry those memories. In this episode, we meet a violinist who became great due to his urges to be accepted by the far superior Kushima, who already was very businesslike back then. Am I also right that he once was a girl, and then changed genders?

I’m looking forward to the next episode, as it seems to be going back to the supernatural roots of this series. That girl has me intrigued for some reason.