Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 06
The calm and collected facade that Mari held was dropped for a while this episode, prompting some frantic phone calls and a seriously different Mari to the thoughtful one we’ve seen so far. She’s obviously quite a strong-willed person, having believed that both her mother and daughter would be fine without her. Though I don’t quite understand the logic that shaking landmass and falling buildings are no worries, while fires are the end of the world. It’s certainly something Mari’s worried about anyway. Hint at some past events? Perhaps some more shoehorning of essential earthquake knowledge. Or just a tool used to badly shift gears on Mari’s character to give her some more depth.
The number of close calls in this series is quite astonishing. On this weeks near miss, Mari is nearly hit full force by a fluorescent tube light, and the building next to out protagonists falls on its side. Is there any way all of these things could happen without anyone getting seriously hurt in the process?
Mari’s flashback of her (presumable) meeting her husband/partner is, well… it’s nice, but it’s a bit haphazardly stuck in here, isn’t it? It doesn’t really add anything to the story, apart from fill in a little back story that may have been niggling at the curious watchers out there. For me, it didn’t really tell me any more about Mari than the rest of the episode had.
Aya’s pretty cool. It’s too bad we probably won’t every hear about her again, at least until she appears to save the day later on.
Wow. Reading back, I don’t really have anything good to say about this episode. It certainly hasn’t been the strongest one. Let’s hope it picks up a bit.
I liked the bit about Mari’s backstory. It helped to make her a multifaceted human with her own history and issues as opposed to the cliche, always strong, savior/parental figure.
As for being scared about fires versus earthquakes: the fires that break out after earthquakes are far more dangerous than the actual quakes. In the 1906 SF Earthquake, most of the city was leveled and thousands of people died not in the actual earthquake, but the firestorms that spread throughout the city afterwards. If you’re in an average suburban house built within the last 20 or so years, chances are not even an 8.0 is going to bring it down, and even then, if you find your way into a door-frame, you’ll probably be safe. But escaping from a burning house is a different story.