Generally I wouldn’t do an episode recap. I feel I’ve found my niche with my current blogging tactic of ‘take random scene from the episode and blab about it’. However I felt that for this episode of Letter Bee an episode recap would be a fine way of tackling this episodic review. So without further ado, let’s get rolling.
Cry cry cry
Sob sob sob
Cry cry cry
Sob sob sob
Bawl bawl bawl…I think you get the picture
It’s not like there hadn’t been bucketloads of tears so far in Letter Bee but it was only in this episode did it really start to drag the show down. The whole second meeting between Lag and Sylvette could have been done in 5 minutes and left the crying to be implied. You know, like show Lag leaving the house with red eyes. Showing characters crying is an incredibly cheap and dull way of showing characters react to hardships. At the end of the day, what was the purpose of the episode? Lag makes deal with Sylvette, gets gun, becomes Letter Bee and vows to become Head Bee. That could be done in about 5 minutes, maybe 10 but not an entire episode. What did the flashback of Gauche produce anyway? That the gun must be given to Lag and that there’s some mysterious organisation called Reverse. Whoop-dee-doop, did you really need to take that long to give us that much information? I’m sorry, all I’ve done it bitch and I know it’s insanely boring to read a negative review of an episode but if I don’t call out a poor episode when it happens it would devalue anytime I say a different episode was excellent. Don’t hate the player, hate the game!
blindability
Brian
Poro
jGLZA
Loba
TeamZer0
thaivuN
Bokutachi no BLOG 
As the series goes on, it seems to be moving slower and slower, almost like they haven’t quite figured out the ending yet so they’re stalling for time(?). It was nice to see Gauche again, even if only in flashback, but you’re right: they could have summed all of the action up more quickly in this episode. Here’s hoping they pick up the pace in ep 10. 😉
@Jan Suzukawa
While I do hope they pick up the pace I’m actually a bit pessimistic here. It would be classic Studio Pierrot to slooooowwww down even more.
Well, the story should pick up soon now since they got past this part and you won’t be seeing Lag crying that much until Gauche starts to appear.
@Silver
It’s not so much the crying that bugs me as the uber-slow pace it’s starting to go at. That’s more the fault of the director than the manga
I dropped this series since episode 7 but I’ve been keeping an eye on people’s reactions to the newer episodes. So far, nothing indicates that I should go back to the series. I think I’ve made the right decision.
“Showing characters crying is an incredibly cheap and dull way of showing characters react to hardships.”
I agree with this statement. I usually enjoy shows with drama (fair ending) but I don’t like it when they start crying for just about everything. Crying seemed forced to me, like, I’m supposed to feel something for a character I barely know, you know. I don’t see it. That’s why I labeled Letter Bee as a show ‘having too many tears’. I stopped watching after ep 1. I can’t say how good it got after that but my decision might not have been wrong after all. I’ll have to wait for the final verdict of this show when is over to find out if I missed out or not.
@Canne
No don’t stop watching! That will mean one less person reading my posts!
@keikakudoori
I know a lot of people dropped Letter Bee because of the tears but that didn’t really bother me at the start. While Lag descended into tears way too often, there were obvious signs that he was manning up. Again though, it’s been the slow pace that means any manning up he’s been doing is taking too long to happen.
I hope it does pick up though. Mainly because I’d really hate to drop a series I’m blogging…
I know it’s completely unrelated, but I fixed your blog link. You should see what is says haha.
@ Canne
Sadly that means you will miss out the good stuff later on. But I guess most people can’t handle the crying and I surely don’t understand why. Some of them tells lags to grow a pair so it initially leaves me thinking that the social construct what a man is the reason why so many guys stopped watching it as Lag is not really a “man.” Personally that’s just wrong.
Lag always go forward strongly and never whines or complains. That’s a man isn’t it? Same thing for Sylvette. Although bother her and Lag are huge crybabies, you will see how tough she mentally and physically (lol) is later on. It’s funny though how: (SPOILER AHEAD)
Admin edit: No spoilers for the manga please, even if you do mark them. I know from personal experience that even a giant warning can sometimes not stop your eyes from straying downwards
Cmon, how many indecisive stupid male leads do you see? Do they cry? Never! So I guess they are all manly men? Of course not! The definition of what is supposedly a man really needs to be look at it again.
@ Scamp
Well, it’s definitely true that they are slowing down and I don’t even know the reason why. The manga was so consistent with the pacing too but at least they overall still did a pretty good job.
The purpose of this episode is clearly to generate sympathy for Connor, because he doesn’t get to eat any pizza. He probably paid $8 each for those slices! If only Letter Bee were sponsored by Pizza Hut, then he would be able to grab a pizza whenever he wants.
@Silver
I think they could and should cut parts of the manga out. What works pace wise in book form doesn’t nessesarily (I’ve got to learn how to spell that word correctly one day) work in anime form. I know everyone wants faithful adaptations but it doesn’t always work well that way.
@Shinmaru
Ah but you see I bet Connor stole those pizza slices. They’re trying to trick us by making us feel sorry for Connor and then surprise us all when he turns out to be the baddy. They aint fooling me! I’m on the side of Niche is this little battle.
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