Letter Bee episode 8

Grab the sandbags, move to higher ground, women and children first. The tearducts have opened and, judging by the next episode preview, they’re not going to be stopping for quite a while. Yes, my loyal yet slightly confused readers, this is the episode where not just Lag but a load of other characters in Letter Bee lets their emotions get the better or them, whether it’s through flashbacks or whatever, and let the tears flow.

Lag does cry a lot doesn’t he? We know that, the character in the show know that and even Lag himself knows that. It can still get really grating though. But every time he does cry there’s generally a pretty valid reason behind it. Being delivered as a letter because his mum had been captured? Fair enough, cry away little 6-year-old kid. The one guy he puts his trust in, Gauche declares that he doesn’t ever want to get emotionally attached to him and rejects him (episode 2 I believe) sounds like pretty valid ground for crying too. Leaving his hometown to start on his pokemon adventure journey to become a letter bee is a pretty life-changing choice and obviously emotions are running high. Then in this episode, the man he looked up to turned out to have abandoned his sister for whatever reason sounds like a big hit for someone so young to take. You can’t say his tears have felt unnatural. But it does get a bit much at times.

“Oh shit, did I make him cry again?” *facepalm*

The big question this episode leaves us with is ‘where on earth Amberground is Gauche?’. He’s not dead. I can personally guarantee you that. This is an anime you have to remember. There is a saying in anime that ‘people die when they’re killed’ (I’m told that screenshot makes sense in context. Still funny though). Using my editorial freedom powers, I’m going to translate this as nobody is dead in an anime until you see the body. Hence, Gauche is not dead. The only theory I have that’s actually grounded in actual common sense is that he’s somehow involved in the case with Lag’s mum. In the last episode, Aria refered to Lag being a Albisian, the same as Gauche. Maybe Gauche has gotten himself caught up in some racial struggle involving the Albisianians? Sorry, I know that’s really far-fetched but it’s the best I could come up with. My theories not rooted in common sense are a bit more nonsensical and usually involve giant robots, forbidden lesbian romances and those fooking prawns from District 9.

We finally got to meet Sylvette all grown up. For a 12-year-old she sure does have REALLY LARGE BOOBS…sorry, you didn’t laugh there either? The thing about boob jokes is that you hear them so often that it takes an extraordinarily good boob joke to make me laugh anymore. Niche’s epic milk drink was not enough to make me laugh or even crack a grin. So Sylvette is…there. And she’s given up on Gauche. There’s really not much more to say. Very little happens in an episode of Letter Bee and this episode especially so. I swear I can write more about an episode of Hetalia and they’re only 5 minutes long. It hasn’t really been a fault of the anime though, at least until this episode. It suited the feel of Letter Bee and there was never any blatantly obvious time-consuming panning shots of the characters faces. But it does mean I have very little to latch onto from which to write about.

So lets finish this episodic up with Gauche and crying. If I remember correctly, the one time we’ve ever seen Gauche cry was when he saw the Lag’s memory of his mum. When that tear fell it came as a bit of a shock to Gauche, like when I watch a particularly emotional anime episode and get surprised when my eyes to water. That’s the big difference between Lag and Gauche. Nobody was better at controlling their emotions than Gauche was, Lag lets his get the better of him and clouds his judgements. If Lag really wants to live up to his hero he needs to control his emotions at all times. And stop fucking crying.