Posted on by TracyC

Report to the Principal’s Office

School Daze

Report to the Principal’s Office by Jerry Spinelli, 1991.

This is the first book in a series about a group of unlikely friends in middle school.

The start of the new school year is a disaster for Sunny Wyler. Her best friend, Hillary, lives directly across the street from her house, and they’ve been close for their entire lives, always attending the same school. However, because of the construction of a new middle school in their town and changing school zone lines, which happen to be drawn directly down the middle of their street, Sunny and Hillary will now be sent to different schools for middle school. (During my childhood, parents could sometimes ask for a boundary exception for kids from the local school district so they could attend a different school with their friends, but that doesn’t appear to be an option here.) Hillary tries to be optimistic, pointing out that the new middle school that Sunny will be attending is much nicer than the old middle school that she will have to attend, but Sunny doesn’t care about that. She just wants to go to school with her best friend.

Sunny thinks that she’s come up with a plan to reunite with Hillary. She’s decided to make herself so obnoxious at her new school that they will kick her out, and her parents will have no choice but to send her to Hillary’s school. She’s decided to wear an old t-shirt that says “Death to Mushrooms” every day, never washing it, so she’ll smell bad. She’ll refuse to wash her hair, so it will be dirty and greasy. Above all, she’ll have the worst attitude, never smile, and never talk, never even answering if her teacher asks her questions in class.

Eddie Mott first encounters Sunny Wyler on the bus to school. She sits next to him, and he can tell right away that she has problems and a bad attitude, and that’s the last thing he wants for the beginning of his new school year. Eddie is trying to adopt a more grown-up image in his middle school years, and he desperately wants to fit in with the other kids. He’s trying to wear the right clothes, be friendly with other kids, and above all, avoid problems. None of that has prepared him for Sunny.

There is one person, though, who has done his best to prepare for all the kids who will be coming to the new middle school, the school’s principal, Mr. Brimlow. Over the summer, he studied the details of the incoming students, and he can recognize them on sight as soon as they arrive. When the school bus driver tells him that there’s a kid on the bus who refuses to get off, he recognizes the kid immediately as Eddie. Between dealing with Sunny’s aggressive unfriendliness and being roughed up by older kids on the bus, Eddie can’t bring himself to come to the school. The bus driver, impatient to get to his other job, actually drives off with the principal, Eddie, and Salem, a girl with literary ambitions who wanted to study the situation for story fodder, still on board.

Things are generally going wrong all over Plumstead Middle School as everyone, including the teachers, try to figure out their way around, but Mr. Brimlow is calm and good-natured, and getting back to school with Eddie and Salem after their bus adventure breaks the ice between them. When Mr. Brimlow gets back to his office, he finds Dennis “Pickles” Johnson waiting for him. Dennis, who gained his nickname from the time he decorated his family’s Christmas tree with actual pickles and the incident made the local paper, is an amateur inventor who made his own oversized skateboard that looks like a pickle. The reason why he was sent to the principal’s office is that his skateboard won’t fit in his locker, and he can’t have it in class. When Pickles asks the principal what could happen if he were allowed to ride his skateboard around the school, the principal asks to try the skateboard himself. He’s unable to stop himself and ends up rolling into a nearby classroom and crashing into the geography teacher’s desk, proving to Pickles (and everybody else) what could happen if Pickles is allowed to use his skateboard in the school hallways. Mr. Brimlow forbids Pickles to bring the skateboard to school again but also thanks him for the fun ride and invites him to lunch.

Far from being upset by the strange beginning to the school year, Mr. Brimlow is actually grateful for the eccentric students and their shenanigans because he really likes to get to know his students, and he particularly learns a lot about Eddie, Salem, Pickles, and Sunny on their first day. It hasn’t escaped his notice that Sunny is being purposely sour to other people, and it isn’t really a surprise when one of her teachers sends her to the principal’s office after she deliberately answers all of her math problems wrong, misspells everything in a writing assignment, writes all of her assignments in extra tiny writing to make them difficult to read, and then pretends to flick boogers at Eddie.

When she’s sent to the principal’s office, Sunny thinks that her plan of being obnoxious has already worked and that she’ll soon be sent home or to Hillary’s school, but the principal ends up inviting her to lunch along with Pickles, Eddie, and Salem. The principal actually enjoys the experience, and rather than punishing any of the students for their various shenanigans from the morning, he decides to give each of them special jobs to help them settle into life at their new school. Since Eddie was a flag raiser at his old school, Mr. Brimlow gives him that job at Plumstead Middle School, assigning Pickles to help him. He puts Sunny in charge of taking care of an escaped hamster that the kids found, and noting Salem’s interest in people’s personalities and organizational skills, puts Salem in charge of all of the other students as they are given the collective job of coming up with a mascot for the school.

Through these activities, the four kids become friends with each other and also start to become a real part of their new school. Instead of being kicked out, Sunny is the one who comes up with the winning idea for the school’s new mascot, the Hamsters, becoming attached to the hamster that she has to care for and upset during a time when she thinks that he’s dead. (Fortunately, the hamster is fine in the end.) Eddie thinks of himself as a wimp for being pushed around by the older kids, but Pickles becomes his friend and sticks up for him, and Salem writes a story about him to show him why he’s actually a hero in his own small way.

It’s a good story about a group of unlikely friends with likable, eccentric characters. In the end, the principal’s tactic of helping the students to adjust to middle school by getting them more involved works well, and even Sunny realizes that she can be happy in her new school with her new friends while still being friends with Hillary from across the street.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Father’s Arcane Daughter

Father’s Arcane Daughter by E.L. Konigsburg, 1976.

Winston Carmichael lives a very sheltered life during the 1950s. His family is wealthy. They live in Pittsburgh, and he attends a good school, but much of his free time is also taken up trying to entertain his sister, Hilary, called Heidi. He particularly has to look after Heidi every week on Thursday, while his mother leaves to get her hair done. Heidi has some developmental disabilities and is hard of hearing, so Winston’s overprotective family is especially overprotective of her. Because of that and because of her frustrations with her own limitations, Heidi is spoiled and frequently acts out when she doesn’t get her way, making her a pain for Winston to help care for. Even servants have often quit over Heidi’s behavior. However, Heidi’s disabilities are only part of the reason why the children’s parents are overprotective. The other reason is the mysterious disappearance of Caroline, Winston and Heidi’s much-older half sister, from their father’s first marriage. Winston is aware that Caroline was kidnapped years before he was born and is now presumed dead, a traumatic incident in their family. Then, one day, a woman claiming to be Caroline comes to the house to see their father.

The story is actually told in the form of flashbacks as Winston recounts it to a woman, who is at first unnamed. Winston explains how he knew about Caroline’s disappearance and how he wanted to know more about this mysterious woman claiming to be Caroline, partly in the hopes of reducing the shadow that Caroline’s disappearance has cast on all of their lives. The children’s father tells them the story of how Caroline was kidnapped 17 years earlier on her way home from the exclusive college that she was attending in Philadelphia. The kidnappers demanded a large ransom in cash, and it took longer than they thought for Mr. Carmichael to assemble that amount of cash because rich people don’t have all of their money in cash and getting large amounts of cash attracts attention from the authorities. Then, the ransom drop went badly and turned into a shootout between the police and the kidnappers at the house where the kidnappers were hiding. At some point, the house caught fire (no one is quite sure what started the fire), and everyone inside the house was killed. At the time, they assumed that Caroline was one of the people who was killed in the fire, but Mr. Carmichael was never sure because the kidnappers had said something earlier about moving Caroline. He always hoped that maybe Caroline wasn’t in the house and somehow survived, but having heard nothing from her for years, it has seemed likely that she died. After Caroline’s presumed death, her despondent mother died of alcohol-related causes. Mr. Carmichael remarried, and he and his new wife had Winston and Heidi. Still, Mr. Carmichael always hoped that maybe Caroline was alive and he would find her one day.

Caroline’s sudden reappearance, although happy for her father, is strange, and Mrs. Carmichael is suspicious that this woman’s real purpose is to claim the inheritance that Caroline was supposed to inherit from her mother’s family. The deadline for claiming the inheritance is approaching, so the woman claiming to be Caroline could be an imposter who is just after the money. Winston studies his mother’s scrapbook, containing all the known details of Caroline’s life, and he comes to understand his father and his family a little better. Caroline becomes more of a real person in his mind, not just a shadowy figure from the past, but he’s still not sure if the woman claiming to be Caroline is the real Caroline.

“Caroline’s” story is that she was rescued from her kidnapping situation by one of the kidnappers, who apparently had a change of heart, but that she had a kind of identity crisis and a sudden realization that she didn’t know who she wanted to be or what she really wanted out of life. She changed her name to Martha Sedgewick, using information given to her about a dead woman by the kidnapper who released her, and went to Ethiopia. There, she taught English for a time and then worked as a nurse. She says that she found it a very liberating experience. Winston, who feels trapped in his stifling, sheltered life understands that feeling. Caroline said that she fell in love for a time but never married the man she loved because there was a war and he died.

Caroline says that when she finally returned to the United States, she found a job as a nurse at the nursing home where her Grandmother Adkins was living. Caroline says that, at first, she wanted to see her grandmother again and get her opinion about whether or not to reveal herself to the rest of the family. However, Grandmother Adkins was senile when she finally saw her, and Caroline merely acted at her caregiver. Mrs. Carmichael thinks this is suspicious and continually quizzes “Caroline” about old acquaintances, trying to catch her slipping up and revealing herself as an imposter. Surprisingly, “Caroline” never seems to slip, and Winston finds himself becoming fond of her. Caroline has had a wide experience of life and is very well read, and she is a very interesting person to talk to. Winston blossoms intellectually under her influence.

I particularly liked the part where Winston realizes that many of his relatives have given him books to read as presents that they have never read themselves. They like to give him books that have a reputation for being “good” books, and it seems like the proper thing to do and something that will enhance their own reputations, but they never actually read the books themselves and can’t talk about them. Caroline hasn’t read all the books that have been deemed “good”, the kind that people read in order to become educated or have a reputation for being educated. However, Winston can tell by talking to Caroline that she has done a great deal of general reading just because she has a curiosity and a desire to know things. She has become a much more knowledgeable person than the people who collect all the “right” sort of books just to have them and never even open them. Many people in the Carmichael family are largely about appearance, but Caroline has substance.

However, Caroline’s presence in the house makes things uncomfortable for the family, not only because of their doubts about her true identity, but because she challenges the life the family is living and the habits they take for granted. Even though some of those habits have been making life uncomfortable for them, the changes that Caroline subtly begins to make also make them uncomfortable by bringing them out of their shells and forcing them to confront things that they have been trying not to confront. For example, Heidi is never scolded for bad habits like snatching things from others’ plates at dinner because she is young and has disabilities. Caroline doesn’t make those allowances, freely telling the family that she doesn’t like it.

Eventually, Caroline’s father is satisfied that she is his daughter and grants her the Adkins’ inheritance, although at his wife’s insistence, there is a proviso that the fortune will revert to the Carmichaels if any evidence surfaces in the future that Caroline isn’t the real Caroline. Caroline accepts those terms, but a battle of of personalities and wills still continues between her and Mrs. Carmichael over the children. Caroline insists that Winston be allowed more freedom, pointing out that Mrs. Carmichael has been using him as an unpaid babysitter while she goes to get her hair done every week. Caroline recognizes that Winston is young and needs to have some freedom and fun, and Mrs. Carmichael is pained that Caroline has caught on to the fact that her hair appointments are also a convenient excuse to get some freedom for herself.

At Christmas, Winston feels sorry for Heidi, watching other people at the family’s Christmas party, but not being able to understand what is being said around her, and knowing that she can’t understand them. On impulse, he gives her the book of poetry that he had intended to give Caroline. To his surprise, she really likes it. He knows that she can read, but he never thought of her as having the mental capacity to understand anything really complex because of her babyish behavior and fits when she doesn’t get her way on something. However, Heidi really does understand the poems and is able to read them to Caroline and tell her what they mean. At first, Winston refuses to believe it, jealous of the attention and coddling that Heidi has always received and not wanting to share Caroline and the intellectual discussions they have with Heidi.

Heidi continues to listen to their discussions and follow them as best she can. Gradually, in their company, Winston notices that her behavior begins to normalize and more of her true intelligence shows, although she reverts to her old habits around their mother. Hilary/Heidi has always been underestimated by her family because of her disabilities as well as being overprotected. Under Caroline’s influence, she learns that she is capable of more than anyone, including herself, believed possible.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Carmichael still distrusts Caroline, and in her determination to protect Heidi from her influence, will not allow her to spend time with her anymore. Caroline tells Winston that she is tired of all the Carmichaels’ pretenses, the way they try to ignore the real issues with Heidi, and she gives him an envelope, which she says will provide Winston with all the evidence he needs to decide whether she’s the real Caroline or not. Winston has to decide which is more important to him, learning whether the Caroline he knows (or thinks he does) is a pretense or accepting the realities of his family’s problems and the help Caroline can offer in learning to deal with them.

There is also a movie version of the book called Caroline? I saw the movie before I read the book, but I’ll explain the difference between the two below because it involves some spoilers.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.

Themes, Spoilers, and My Opinions

The everyone in the story, even the children, speak in a very educated and deep-thinking way, which I found interesting. At first, I thought that the children, especially Winston, should speak a little more colloquially, but then, I decided that it’s really right for him to speak in a more erudite way because of the school he attends and because much of the story emphasizes that he has been very sheltered and largely cut off from forming the sort of childhood friendships that children his age have, so he would probably use much less slang than most kids his age.

During the story, Winston is in the habit of thinking of Heidi by insulting terms, like “troglodyte”, because she is strange and awkward and her weird habits and temperamental fits cause problems for him, like preventing him from bringing friends to the house. At a couple of points, he thinks of her as a “golliwog”, which is an insulting racial term, based on a style of old dolls that look like black-faced minstrels, and later, even Heidi describes herself that way. (The term was actually coined in an old children’s book, where one of these dolls comes to life with some other toys. The doll character was actually a nice character, but since the dolls are considered ugly, its meaning has become an insult.) Winston doesn’t mean that in the racial sense here. He’s trying to convey that Heidi has an awkward, abnormal appearance.

As Winston opens up to Caroline, he finally admits to her that he knows that Heidi is “damaged”, not “special.” In other words, he understands that Heidi has disabilities and that she has been deliberately spoiled by their mother who wants to protect her from having to deal with them. Their mother herself has trouble facing the realities of Heidi’s disabilities and is actually ashamed of her daughter for not being normal, so she tries to ignore them, covering them up with cuteness, pretty dresses, presents, and indulgence. Heidi’s babyish behavior early in the story is not because her mind is infantile, but because of the coddling and overprotection she has received and poor socialization, and also because her family is afraid to face the difficulties that lie ahead for her because of her condition and underrates her capacity to do what other children can do and learn what they learn. It’s true that Heidi has some physical disabilities from birth, and she needs a hearing aid to help her hear (she reads lips up until the point that Caroline insists on her getting a hearing aid) and braces to help correct the way she walks, but her mind is excellent. Through Caroline’s attempts to help her, Heidi herself comes to realize how limited her life has been and the potential she has to expand it if she gets the help she really needs to learn how, and she eventually stands up to insist on what she wants for herself, asking her brother to kidnap her and take her to Caroline to get the help she needs and wants. Caroline acknowledges to Heidi, without being ashamed of her or trying to hide the truth, that she is not “normal” and never will be completely normal, but tells her that if she’s willing to work at it, she can realize her true potential in life, and ultimately, that’s what Heidi wants.

The movie followed the themes of the book very well, showing the effect that Caroline has on the lives of the Carmichaels, helping Hilary/Heidi to realize her true potential, helping her parents to realize what she is capable of and what she needs to make the best use of her real talents, and helping Winston to find his own sense of independence. There are some differences. In the movie, for example, Caroline wasn’t kidnapped. Supposedly, she was killed in a plane crash, although her body was never positively identified, and there was some doubt in her family about whether or not she got on the plane. In the movie, Caroline gives a similar story about feeling the need to go out and find herself, but I think she says that she became a nurse in India, not Ethiopia. (It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie.)

One thing I am grateful for is that both the book and the movie do give a definite answer to the question of whether “Caroline” is the real Caroline or not. I’m often frustrated with movies and stories that leave loose ends like that, like Disney’s Candleshoe, where they never completely establish whether Casey/Margaret is really Margaret.

When Hilary/Heidi decides that she wants the help of Caroline and a friend of hers, who is a doctor, she asks Winston not to open the envelope. Winston keeps it sealed for years, but Hilary (who long since dropped her childhood nickname) is the women he’s talking to when he’s telling the story from his perspective, and at the end, they decide to open the envelope together and find out the truth.

Do you want to know the truth about Caroline?

The Real Spoilers

So, is Caroline actually Caroline, the same Caroline who was kidnapped and evidently killed years before? No, actually she’s not. She really is Martha Sedgewick, the identity that she supposedly took when she said that she was going off to find herself in Ethiopia. However, she is not posing as Caroline for the sake of the inheritance; she’s doing it for the sake of the family and the children. Grandmother Adkins put her up to it.

Martha really was a nurse in the nursing home where Grandmother Adkins lived before her death. She had lived in Ethiopia with her parents, who had died, and so had the man she loved, as she had said before. She had returned to the United States, alone, lonely, and depressed, before getting a job at the nursing home. Grandmother Adkins noticed her striking resemblance to Caroline, and in her confused stated of mind, sometimes thought that she was Caroline. She talked to Martha about the family all the time, which is how she knew all the right details for playing the part of Caroline. Grandmother Adkins knew that if Caroline never returned to claim her inheritance from her mother, that money would pass to Mr. Carmichael, and by extension to his new wife, whom Grandmother Adkins detested. Toward the end of her life, Grandmother Adkins urges Martha to go claim the Adkins inheritance as Caroline – revealing that, in spite of her supposed senility, she has been deliberately coaching Martha to be Caroline for that purpose. Martha decides to go through with the pretense, not because it was Grandmother Adkins’ dying wish or because she really wanted the money, but because she saw Mr. Carmichael at the funeral and was touched by how sad and lonely he looked. Martha didn’t have a family, so she decided to give Mr. Carmichael his daughter back.

In the end, she actually developed romantic feelings for Mr. Carmichael, but she could never admit to them because of their established relationship as father and daughter. Mr. Carmichael might have felt the same way, but he also couldn’t admit to those feelings without destroying the pretense that Martha was his daughter and admitting that Caroline was really dead. Martha came to love the children, and since she realized that they would never be her stepchildren, she did her best to be their big sister.

Miss Trollope, Caroline’s old headmistress, figures out the truth, and “Caroline” openly discusses the situation with her, including her desire to return to college and learn to educate children with disabilities, like Hilary. The real Caroline’s grades were never good enough to attend a university, but Miss Trollope approves of what “Caroline” wants to do and the good she is doing for the Carmichael children, so she does nothing to reveal the pretense or hinder Caroline’s education. However, Miss Trollope later admitted the truth to Hilary when she pressed her for answers.

The reason why Hilary and Winston are discussing this situation and telling the story in the book is that “Caroline” has just died. Hilary is now a business executive, and Winston is a writer. Hilary is a decisive person as well as intelligent, and she decides to put the papers proving Martha/Caroline’s true identity in her coffin, under her head, to be buried with her. Winston says that Hilary is mysterious and arcane, providing the title of the book. Caroline’s life was hidden and arcane, but Hilary’s true depths are also hidden and arcane because of the person she is.

Posted on by TracyC

Aria Volume 6

Aria Volume 6 by Kozue Amano, 2005, English Translation 2011.

This is the sixth volume of the second part of a fascinating manga series that combines sci-fi, fantasy, and slice of life. The series takes place about 300 years in the future, when Mars has been terraformed and renamed Aqua (because of all the water on its surface). The human colonies on Aqua are designed to resemble old-fashioned cities on Earth (called Manhome here). The people of Aqua prefer a much slower pace of life than people on Manhome, and aspects of life on Aqua more closely resemble Earth’s past.

The series is divided into two parts. The first two books are the Aqua volumes and introduce Akari Mizunashi, the main character, a young girl who came to Aqua to learn to become a gondolier in the city of Neo Venezia (which resembles Venice). Female gondoliers, called Undines, give tours of the city, giving Akari plenty of time to admire the beauty of her new home and meet interesting people. The two Aqua books are the prequel to the main series, Aria. Aqua covers Akari’s arrival on the planet, her introduction to life on Aqua, and the beginning of her training. The main Aria series show Akari’s continuing training, her progression to becoming a full Undine, her evolving relationships with her friends, and as always, her delight in learning more about her new home and admiring its beauty.

The series has received some criticism for being slow and lacking danger and adventure, but that is not really the point of the series. The main purpose is to show people how to appreciate the small pleasures of life. The sci-fi and fantasy elements (the spaceships, advanced environmental controls, intelligent Martian cats, and even the occasional appearances of the legendary Cait Sith) are mainly background to the stories about the magic of friendship and simple pleasures. Each volume contains a few short stories about Akari and her friends and the little adventures they have on a daily basis and the life lessons they learn. It’s a great series for relaxing when you’re stressed out.

Unfortunately, although this book is only about halfway through the series, this is the last book of the series that I actually own because the others haven’t been printed in English yet, although I think that additional volumes will be published in English.

The stories included in this volume are:

Orange Days

Athena comes to visit Alicia at Aria Company, and the trainees’ mentors reminisce about how they first met when they were trainees.

Akira was just as prickly and competitive when she was young as she is as an adult. Although trainee Akira said that she was just observing the “losers” at Aria Company, she kept coming around and became friends with Alicia. When she heard about a new trainee at Orange Company with an amazing singing voice, Akira wanted to seek her out, worried about the competition.

While she was telling Alicia about it, the two of them accidentally had a collision with young Athena’s gondola, which is the first time either of them had seen her. Athena was knocked over by the collision, so the other two girls treated her to lunch, partly to make it up to her and partly because Akira wanted to pump her for information about the new trainee at Orange Company, not knowing that Athena herself was the new trainee.

However, Athena didn’t answer their questions about the new trainee. Even back then, she was a person of few words, and she just made a drinking straw crawly snake to amuse President Aria. Still, Athena became friends with Alicia and Akira, joining them in their practice sessions, like Akari, Aika, and Alice share their practices together. Alicia and Akira only discovered that Athena was the trainee with the amazing voice when they decided to practice singing canzones one day.

The mentors end their reminiscences by saying that it seems hard to believe that, now that their training is over, they are so busy that they hardly have time to see each other. When they were trainees, it felt like they would always practice together every day, but now, their lives are different. These comments make the present trainees uncomfortable because they realize that the same thing is likely to happen to them when their training is complete. Alice, Aika, and Akari have come to value each other’s friendship and companionship, and they find it difficult to imagine being without each other.

However, Alicia and Athena tell the girls to not worry too much about it. Time is always moving forward, and it’s true that things will change for them, but that’s not entirely a bad thing. Even though they sometimes miss their training days when they spent so much of their time together, they are also happy with their current lives. They enjoy their careers, and they like helping to train new Undines. In fact, helping to train the next generation of Undines helps them to connect to their own pasts because the young Undines remind them of their own training days. Alicia’s advice is to enjoy where you are and what’s currently happening around you as much as you can. Life will eventually move on, and things will change, so you might as well make the most of where you are now and enjoy it to the fullest, so you will be ready to move on to the next stage of your life and enjoy that as well. Athena says, “Fun times really aren’t meant to be compared. Just enjoyed.”

The young trainees are still affected by the story of their mentors’ friendships and the changes in their lives. Aika points out to Akari that their lives aren’t changing just yet, but the girls have come to a greater realization that their lives will eventually change.

It’s just like how, when people are young and in school, surrounded by the same other students every day, it can be hard to imagine that there will come a day after you graduate when you won’t all be working at the same place and you won’t all be eating lunch together every day. As you get busy building careers and families, it will be harder to see each other and keep in touch. However, that’s not entirely a bad thing. As some people like to say, “You can’t begin the next chapter of your life if you keep rereading the last one.” There are many things in life to enjoy and accomplishments to be made, and like Alicia and Athena explain, you might as well enjoy where you are right now and make the most of it so you won’t look back with regret when it’s time to move on.

Venetian Glass

Akatsuki’s elder brother comes to Aria Company to hire Akari to transport some delicate Venetian glass. Akari is excited because this is the first time that anyone has specifically hired her, although, because she isn’t a full Undine yet, Alicia will have to accompany her on her errand.

When they go to pick up the glass, Akari sees glass-blowing and Venetian glass for the first time.

One of the workers from the glass factory seems kind of surly, but he accompanies them while they transport the glass and explains the history of Venetian glass and what makes it so special.

The reason why the glass worker is so surly is that he feels like a lot of people don’t appreciate his craft. He and his master put their heart and soul into their work, but people say that their “Venentian glass” is fake because it’s made in Neo-Venezia, not in the real Venice, which sank beneath the ocean years ago. The worker laments that the craftsmen who left the sinking city were scattered across Earth before making their way to Neo-Venezia and that details of their craft have been lost over time. Neo-Venezian glass will never be quite the same as the original Venetian glass, and people will never look at it the same way, which the worker finds depressing.

However, one of Akari’s great strengths is finding the beauty in everything and bringing it out for other people to see. She tells the worker that the glass is kind of like Neo-Venezia itself. It’s true, it’s not the original Venice, only re-created in its image. Some aspects of it are the same, but it’s also a different place, on another planet. To some people, that might make it seem like a fake city, just an imitation of the original, but Akari doesn’t think that the real vs. fake concept matters because she loves the city for the beautiful treasure it is. Similarly, Akari thinks that Neo-Venezian glass is a treasure by itself and likes it for what it is, regardless of what the original was or what others say about it.

The worker finds Akari’s viewpoint inspirational and is enchanted by Akari herself, remarking that she’s also a unique treasure. Akatsuki’s brother jokes that Akatsuki might have a rival now for his affection for Akari. Akari knows that Akatsuki has had an unrequited crush on Alicia, so she doesn’t think too much about it. Although it’s true that Akatsuki has a crush on Alicia, Akatsuki’s brother is also correct that Akari inspires greater feelings in others than she realizes and Akatsuki values Akari more than he lets on, maybe more than even he realizes himself. Akari is unique because of her unusual way of looking at things, and her optimistic point of view influences others.

Snow White

One day, while they’re practicing together, Akari asks Aika what kind of adult she wanted to be when she was a kid. Aika, who has admired and even hero-worshipped Alicia ever since Alicia was kind to her when she was a young child, says that she’s always wanted to be an elegant woman like Alicia. Akari says that she wants to be like Alicia, too, but Aika criticizes her for wanting to copy her ambition and says that it’s not likely that Akari would ever be as elegant as Alicia because she still does kid-like things, like collecting stuffed animals.

Their discussion causes Akari to wonder what sort of adult Alicia wanted to be when she was a little kid, and she asks Alicia about it while they’re out walking one day. Instead of answering her directly at first, Alicia demonstrates by starting to build a snowman and pointing out how the people around them react to it.

Each time Alicia and Akari start to make a large snowball for the base of the snowman, different adults stop and help them to make it a bit bigger.

Alicia says that she noticed people like this when she was a child. There are always adults who, when seeing a young girl making a snowman, feel compelled to help her because she can make a much bigger snowball with their help. That’s the type of adult Alicia always wanted to be.

Alicia genuinely enjoys not only her career as an Undine but her role as a teacher and mentor in Akari’s life and in the lives of her friends, helping them to develop in their trade and to become better Undines because of her influence.

Stray Cat

Alice finds a tiny stray Martian cat one day while waiting for Akari and Aika to meet her for practice. The cat’s mother doesn’t seem to be around, and Alice doesn’t know whether the little cat is lost, orphaned, or abandoned. When Aika arrives for practice, she finds both Alice and Akari lying on the ground next to the cat because it looks so happy lying in the sun that Alice thinks they should also try it.

Although Aika warns Alice that she won’t be able to keep the cat because she lives in a dorm at Orange Company and isn’t allowed to keep pets, Alice becomes attached to the cat, names it Maa, and hides it in her room.

At first, she is afraid that her mentor, Athena, will be angry with her, and Aika scares her by saying that Athena will probably kill the cat because she doesn’t like cats. However, Alice loves Maa because she misses the previous president cat of Orange Company, who recently passed away, and Maa reminds her a little of him.

When the secret gets out, and Alice is confronted by Athena about the cat, Alice is scared because Athena is holding a knife for slicing fruit and runs away to leave the tiny Maa where she found him, thinking that it might be the only way to save his life. However, she finds herself unable to abandon Maa and returns to get him, only to find him missing from the box where she left him. In a panic, she spends all night searching the city with her friends to try to find Maa.

However, when they finally give up the search, they discover that Athena has Maa. When she had tried to talk to Alice before, she wasn’t angry. She followed Alice to the place where she left Maa and retrieved him and has been waiting for Alice to return to Orange Company. In Alice’s absence, Athena has persuaded Orange Company to keep Maa as their new company president. Like the other cats used as the presidents/mascots of gondola companies, Maa also has blue eyes.

A Night on the Galactic Railroad

When Akari hears the sound of a train at night, she imagines that it’s a magical train like one she read about in a book, A Night on the Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa.

Aika has a more practical explanation for what it is, that the sounds of freight trains are more noticeable at night, when everything is quiet, but Akari discovers the truth when President Aria gives her a special train ticket.

It turns out that the mysterious train is a train of cats. (Guess who the conductor is?) Akari could use the ticket from President Aria to ride the train, but instead, she gives it to a sad little kitten who lost his ticket.

Because Akari doesn’t board the train, she never finds out where the train was going. The next morning, it all seems like a strange dream, except both Akari and President Aria have the stamps on their foreheads that Cait Sith gave them.

A Parallel World

President Aria accidentally finds a parallel world in which all the people he knows who are girls are boys and vice versa. Frightening!

President Aria has always wanted to find a gateway to another world, but everything seems so strange that all he wants to do is get back to his world.

He ends up returning to the world he knows when someone tosses him too high in the air while playing with him. Did any of it really happen, or was he just dazed from when he fell?

This one isn’t one of my favorite stories in this series because I think that the premise is kind of goofy. The characters don’t really look all that different when their genders are switched. Most of the difference is in hair styles, and the uniforms of the Undines have pants when they’re normally just long dresses.

Posted on by TracyC

Aria Volume 5

Aria Volume 5 by Kozue Amano, 2004, English Translation 2009.

This is the fifth volume of the second part of a fascinating manga series that combines sci-fi, fantasy, and slice of life. The series takes place about 300 years in the future, when Mars has been terraformed and renamed Aqua (because of all the water on its surface). The human colonies on Aqua are designed to resemble old-fashioned cities on Earth (called Manhome here). The people of Aqua prefer a much slower pace of life than people on Manhome, and aspects of life on Aqua more closely resemble Earth’s past.

The series is divided into two parts. The first two books are the Aqua volumes and introduce Akari Mizunashi, the main character, a young girl who came to Aqua to learn to become a gondolier in the city of Neo Venezia (which resembles Venice). Female gondoliers, called Undines, give tours of the city, giving Akari plenty of time to admire the beauty of her new home and meet interesting people. The two Aqua books are the prequel to the main series, Aria. Aqua covers Akari’s arrival on the planet, her introduction to life on Aqua, and the beginning of her training. The main Aria series show Akari’s continuing training, her progression to becoming a full Undine, her evolving relationships with her friends, and as always, her delight in learning more about her new home and admiring its beauty.

The series has received some criticism for being slow and lacking danger and adventure, but that is not really the point of the series. The main purpose is to show people how to appreciate the small pleasures of life. The sci-fi and fantasy elements (the spaceships, advanced environmental controls, intelligent Martian cats, and even the occasional appearances of the legendary Cait Sith) are mainly background to the stories about the magic of friendship and simple pleasures. Each volume contains a few short stories about Akari and her friends and the little adventures they have on a daily basis and the life lessons they learn. It’s a great series for relaxing when you’re stressed out.

The stories included in this volume are:

Mailman-San

When Akari’s mailman friend has a hole in his gondola, he tries to hire Alicia to help him deliver the mail. However, Alicia is busy, so she allows Akari to help him instead, even though she’s only a trainee.

Akari gets to visit the post office and spends the day helping the mailman deliver the mail. During the course of the day, Akari thinks about the number of letters that people in Neo Venezia send and wonders why they send physical letters instead of e-mail. The mailman explains to her that physical letters feel different from e-mail, and Akari understands.

People in Neo Venezia like the feel of doing things the old-fashioned way, often because the old-fashioned ways have more of a personal touch. The mailman tells Akari that she has really become a part of Neo Venezia.

Canzone

Alice’s mentor, Athena, is also one of the three greatest Undines on Aqua, the Three Water Fairies, like Akari’s and Aika’s mentors. However, Alice has little patience for her because she is clumsy outside of a gondola. Alice hates clumsiness and weakness, even punishing her own left hand for not being as strong as her right.

Akari is concerned about Alice when she sees what she’s doing to her left hand, and she has a sleepover with Alice to learn more about what’s happening with her. That’s when she meets Athena for the first time, although she had earlier seen her in her gondola, singing an enchanting canzone. Athena’s singing ability is one of the reasons why she is so famous as an Undine.

Akari observes the little things that Athena does for Alice, like singing to her at night, and points out to Alice that her left hand helps her more than she realizes.

Alice doesn’t believe it at first, but the next day, she begins to notice that Akari is right. While Alice eats with her right hand, her left hand holds her bowl. When she writes with her right hand, her left hand is holding the page. Her left hand isn’t inactive or useless; it’s been providing support that allows the right hand to do its job.

This revelation also causes Alice to see her mentor in a different light. Like her left hand, clumsy Athena has also been giving Alice quiet support that Alice often fails to notice. Alice reflects on how Athena’s singing comforted her when she first arrived at Orange Company and was homesick. Alice asks Athena why she sings to her, and Athena tells her that she’s just singing as she pleases, that she doesn’t need a reason to sing, that songs don’t really need to be noticed or thanked, and that she should just let the song do its work. However, Alice gains a new sense of gratitude toward her mentor and begins to treat her much better.

The Night of the Meteor Shower

Akari and her friends find out that there is going to be a meteor shower, and Aika suggests that they invite Al the Gnome to watch it with them.

Of all the boys the girls know, Aika likes Al the best. Al isn’t temperamental like Akatsuki or spacey like Woody. Aika is kind of fascinated by how he looks younger than they are even though he’s older and also talks like an old man or an old-fashioned gentleman.

Plus, after living in the underground city, Al has really good night vision, which is helpful as the girls search for a good place to view the meteor shower, away from the lights and crowds of the public square.

Aika finally suggests that they go up on the roof of one of the Himeya Company buildings, which has an excellent view.

Akari explores the rooftops a little on her own, leaving Aika and Al alone together. When Al, whose work as a Gnome is managing the gravity of Aqua, talks to Aika about gravity and attraction and how the gravity of Aqua pulls, the meteors in, she understands a little more about the attraction she feels for Al.

Margherita

Aika’s mentor, Akira, is tough, but she genuinely cares about her students. After a day of training in which many things go wrong, she finds a way to show the trainees how much she appreciates their hard work.

Akira has Aika, Akari, and Alice show her how they would handle a real customer, from helping them into the gondola to giving them a pleasant tour with interesting information. However, she is critical of the way they do things and particularly, some of the safety regulations they forget, like speed limits, not warning other approaching boats of their presence, and allowing themselves to be stuck when high tide comes and makes it impossible for them to pass beneath certain bridges.

Akira says that the reason why she’s being tough is that, when the girls become full Undines, they will be completely on their own in their boats with their customers, with no one else to help them. When there’s a problem or when they make a mistake, it will be their job to fix the situation themselves with their own skill and ingenuity.

When they become stuck on a section of canal because of the rising tide, Akira challenges them to find a way to solve the problem themselves. They find a side waterway that’s been closed off, and take the gondola through that way.

Akira rewards the trainees by taking them to a pizza parlor for a Margherita pizza. (Named for a queen, it’s topped with tomatoes, basil, and olive oil.) The trainees ask her why she didn’t punish them for making a serious mistake in their practice, and she tells them that there would be no point in punishing them because they realized what they did wrong and made an effort to improve, learning from their experience.

I quibble a bit with the teaching method just telling the students to find a way to fix the problem themselves without guidance. It kind of works here because Aika and Akari are now journeyman Undines and have had basic training and experience of the waterways of Neo Venezia to call on, but you can’t do this sort of thing with real beginners who haven’t had that grounding. I’ve had teachers who have tried, and I know the frustration of having them expecting me to call on a grounding I hadn’t received. When I was a kid, I felt terrible about those situations, like I was an idiot, but as an adult, who has since had gaps in my early education filled, I’ve come to realize that the fault wasn’t with me but with the teachers who had not taught me what to do but still expected me to somehow already know. I couldn’t figure out what to do because I didn’t know enough about what I could do yet. You can’t progress well in your education or training for anything without having someone explain the basics to give you the right grounding to build on. You can’t do algebra without knowing your basic operations. You can’t understand how to cook from memory or improvise a dish without first learning how to follow basic recipes. Akira’s approach to letting the students figure out the solution to a problem themselves calls attention to what the girls already know and encourages them to use it, but when that doesn’t work in real life, when you just don’t know what to do at all, it’s time to take a step back and reacquaint yourselves with the basics. You can figure out what to do if you know what’s possible to do, but I’d like to point out that if you don’t know what’s possible, you need some help and guidance to learn.

Shadow Chasing

Akari never minds waiting for people because there are always interesting things and people to watch. One day, when Alicia has to attend a Gondola Association meeting at a famous cafe, Akari says that she and President Aria will just wait for her instead of heading home.

Akari drinks lattes and watches the people going by, just enjoying the ambiance of the square.

There is a man there who seems familiar to Akari, and the two of them begin talking to each other about people watching in the square. The man introduces Akari to the custom of “shadow chasing”, where the restaurant employees move the cafe’s tables into the shade as the shadows move.

Akari reflects on the history of the cafe, Caffe Florian, which she says is actually the same cafe that once stood in the original Venice (which, in Akari’s time, is now submerged beneath the ocean), having been dismantled and moved years ago.

It turns out that her new friend is actually the manager of the cafe.

Posted on by TracyC

Aria Volume 4

Aria Volume 4 by Kozue Amano, 2004, English Translation 2008.

This is the fourth volume of the second part of a fascinating manga series that combines sci-fi, fantasy, and slice of life. The series takes place about 300 years in the future, when Mars has been terraformed and renamed Aqua (because of all the water on its surface). The human colonies on Aqua are designed to resemble old-fashioned cities on Earth (called Manhome here). The people of Aqua prefer a much slower pace of life than people on Manhome, and aspects of life on Aqua more closely resemble Earth’s past.

The series is divided into two parts. The first two books are the Aqua volumes and introduce Akari Mizunashi, the main character, a young girl who came to Aqua to learn to become a gondolier in the city of Neo Venezia (which resembles Venice). Female gondoliers, called Undines, give tours of the city, giving Akari plenty of time to admire the beauty of her new home and meet interesting people. The two Aqua books are the prequel to the main series, Aria. Aqua covers Akari’s arrival on the planet, her introduction to life on Aqua, and the beginning of her training. The main Aria series show Akari’s continuing training, her progression to becoming a full Undine, her evolving relationships with her friends, and as always, her delight in learning more about her new home and admiring its beauty.

The series has received some criticism for being slow and lacking danger and adventure, but that is not really the point of the series. The main purpose is to show people how to appreciate the small pleasures of life. The sci-fi and fantasy elements (the spaceships, advanced environmental controls, intelligent Martian cats, and even the occasional appearances of the legendary Cait Sith) are mainly background to the stories about the magic of friendship and simple pleasures. Each volume contains a few short stories about Akari and her friends and the little adventures they have on a daily basis and the life lessons they learn. It’s a great series for relaxing when you’re stressed out.

The stories included in this volume are:

Neverland

Alicia and Akira arrange a special, surprise trip to the beach for the trainees, a happy day that reminds Akari of Neverland. It starts out with an invitation for each of the trainees that supposedly comes from Peter Pan, inviting them to Neverland, but it turns out to be a fun day at a beach that President Aria found.

Akira wanted the day to be a day of training, but Alicia convinced her that a day of rest and relaxation would benefit the trainees more. The girls put on their swimsuits and enjoy a day of swimming.

Akari thinks that the beach and their day there really is like Neverland, and Alicia realizes that it is because of the way that Akari looks at things. Akari’s strength is the ability to enjoy the simple pleasures in life for what they are, finding the magic in daily life.

This story emphasizes the theme of the series, which is that the most important thing is to choose to be happy.

Traveling Water

Summer on Aqua is very hot, and Akari experiences her first mirages. People on Aqua sometimes call them “traveling water” because they can look like water that you can never reach. (I grew up in Arizona, and I grew up seeing that. On a straight road, the heat waves will look like distant water, waving and reflecting the scenery, but they appear to dry up or move further away as you go toward them.)

On a very hot day, Akari sets out to buy a night light chime and, oddly, seems to find herself all alone, except for President Aria. She follows President Aria, hoping that he will lead her to a place where she can cool off.

Akari finds herself at a mysterious cafe, which is nice and cool. The server gives her and President Aria ice cold milk, and Akari feels better, but the cafe is no ordinary cafe.

It turns out that the cafe is a secret hangout for cats and their king, Cait Sith. Humans do not ordinarily find their way there. They give Akari a special night light chime and urge her to go on her way …

Unless it was all just another mirage.

I love this story for its “was it all a dream” theme and for the cat-shaped chime that helps confirm that it all really happened. I also like the idea/warning that the server offers to Akari, that maybe it’s a good thing not to completely catch up to a mirage. Akari is sometimes a special guest of the magical characters that inhabit their world, going to places and seeing things that others don’t, but she can’t stay among them because her life is in the human world, and she has to let the fantasy elements slip away to return to her ordinary life that is a little less ordinary for the experiences she’s had.

Flying Fish in the Sky

Akari notices that some of the professions on Aqua relate to the four elements: water, fire, earth, and air. The Undines represent water because they spend their time rowing their gondolas, the Salamanders represent fire because they control the heat levels in the atmosphere to control the weather, and the Gnomes represent earth because they work underground to control gravity. The fourth element-based profession is Sylph, which represents air. They are flying deliverymen.

Akari helps a sylph called Woody, a flying deliveryman with a poor sense of direction, after he falls off his flying bike and loses the map he depends on in order to make his deliveries. It’s kind of a scary ride, but it’s also exciting, and Akari gets a bird’s-eye view of her city.

Woody also appears in later stories.

The Legendary Major Fairy

The trainees go to meet the founder of Aria Company, who is considered the Legendary Major Fairy, the grandmother of the younger Undines. She now lives in the countryside, and as the girls help her with some chores and enjoy other activities, Aika keeps looking for hidden tests of their skills or lessons slipped into the activities.

When hidden tests and lessons don’t seem to be in these activities, and the activities just are what they appear to be, Aika gets impatient and worries that maybe the older woman thinks that they’re hopeless and not worth teaching. She asks the Legendary Fairy, who asks them to call her “Grandma”, directly for some advice about being a great Undine, and what she tells them is both simple and yet something that is easy for people to forget.

Grandma’s advice is another repetition of the themes of the entire Aria series, but it’s worth repeating. She tells the girls to enjoy themselves in everything they do (the activities she gave them earlier were for them to enjoy, nothing more), remember that the world and life itself is full of things to enjoy, give yourself credit for your hard work, and when you encounter pain and sadness, try to turn it into something better.

The Redentore

The Undines celebrate Rendentore, a special festival of thanksgiving, with a party on a boat for all of their friends, organized by the trainees. In keeping with the tradition, the trainees invite special guests and use the opportunity to improve their hostess and entertaining skills, designing invitations and planning the meal and entertainment.

The party is a success, and one of the best parts is that the girls have brought together a group of people who otherwise would not have spent time together, except they are tied together by their roles in the lives of the girls.

Posted on by TracyC

Aria Volume 3

Aria Volume 3 by Kozue Amano, 2003, English Translation 2004.

This is the third volume of the second part of a fascinating manga series that combines sci-fi, fantasy, and slice of life. The series takes place about 300 years in the future, when Mars has been terraformed and renamed Aqua (because of all the water on its surface). The human colonies on Aqua are designed to resemble old-fashioned cities on Earth (called Manhome here). The people of Aqua prefer a much slower pace of life than people on Manhome, and aspects of life on Aqua more closely resemble Earth’s past.

The series is divided into two parts. The first two books are the Aqua volumes and introduce Akari Mizunashi, the main character, a young girl who came to Aqua to learn to become a gondolier in the city of Neo Venezia (which resembles Venice). Female gondoliers, called Undines, give tours of the city, giving Akari plenty of time to admire the beauty of her new home and meet interesting people. The two Aqua books are the prequel to the main series, Aria. Aqua covers Akari’s arrival on the planet, her introduction to life on Aqua, and the beginning of her training. The main Aria series show Akari’s continuing training, her progression to becoming a full Undine, her evolving relationships with her friends, and as always, her delight in learning more about her new home and admiring its beauty.

The series has received some criticism for being slow and lacking danger and adventure, but that is not really the point of the series. The main purpose is to show people how to appreciate the small pleasures of life. The sci-fi and fantasy elements (the spaceships, advanced environmental controls, intelligent Martian cats, and even the occasional appearances of the legendary Cait Sith) are mainly background to the stories about the magic of friendship and simple pleasures. Each volume contains a few short stories about Akari and her friends and the little adventures they have on a daily basis and the life lessons they learn. It’s a great series for relaxing when you’re stressed out.

The stories included in this volume are:

First Gale of Spring

It’s been a full year (full Martian year, which is equal to two Earth years) since Akari moved to Aqua and began her Undine training, and she’s happy that it’s spring again! While Akari and Aika are practicing their rowing one day, they meet another trainee Undine, Alice.

Alice is a young prodigy, only 14. Even though she is rather young and still in school, she’s really good at handling a gondola. However, Aika takes an instant dislike to her, partly because she belongs to Orange Company, a rival of Aika’s gondola company, Himeya. Akari tries to be friendly to Alice and tries to invite her to join them for lunch, but Alice is rude and unfriendly to them.

Aika thinks that Alice has an uppity attitude and is disrespectful to them even though they’re higher level trainees than she is. (There is some mild swearing in this part of the story. Most of the Aria series doesn’t have any swearing at all.) To prove her point and put Alice in her place, Aika decides to challenge Alice to a race.

Part of the reason why Alice is so prickly and unfriendly is that she thinks that people look down on her for being young and because they’re jealous of her skills , but she doesn’t realize how her abrasive attitude affects the people around her and their perceptions of her.

Aika has Akari row their gondola in the race, partly so she can use her secret ability to row a gondola backwards really fast, but Akari has her own ideas of how the race will end. Akari is still thinking of the beauty of spring, and even though she makes sure that her gondola will come in second by stopping to pick flowers (the fact that they had time to pick an entire boatload of flowers indicates just how much of a lead they had), she uses them to remind the other girls

Alice actually appeared in one of the prequel books to the Aria series, Aqua Volume 2, as the friend who went with Akari to visit Aika when Aika had a cold. It was the only Aqua story she was in, and this story in the third volume of the Aria series is the true introduction to her character.

Under the Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom

Alicia and Akari decide to go on a picnic to enjoy the beauty of nature in spring. Alicia has a special place in mind for a picnic, but the two of them get lost on the way. Although Alicia remembers that getting to her special spot involves following some old train tracks, when they split off in different directions, she can’t remember which way to go.

Akari picks a random direction. It turns out that the direction she picks doesn’t take them to Alicia’s special place, but they find something else interesting: an abandoned train car underneath a cherry tree in full bloom.

The girls explore the train car and find that part of the roof is missing. They lie in the train car and enjoy the cherry blossoms raining down on them. Akari apologizes to Alicia for not finding her special place, but Alicia says that’s fine because this place is nice, too. She says that sometimes, you have to get a little lost to find something new.

Town Treasure

Akari, Aika, and Alice find a message in an old gondola that they borrow from the gondola repairman while Aria Company’s gondolas are being service. The message is in a small box in a hidden compartment of the gondola, and it turns out to be the first clue in a treasure hunt with a special surprise at the end.

Curious to find the treasure, the girls follow the clues through Neo Venezia, and their search leads them to take a second look at places they pass by all the time with little notice and takes them to lesser-known parts of the city that even Aika and Alice, who were born there, haven’t seen.

The treasure hunt finally ends on an often over-looked stairway that actually provides an excellent view of Neo Venezia, and the treasure they find there is the one that made Akari enjoy the treasure hunt from the very beginning.

The girls decide to put all the clues back where they found them, and to their surprise, they notice that there are marks that indicate that many other people have done the same.

Three Water Fairies

Akari and Aika are training under two of the Three Water Fairies, the best-known Undines on Aqua. However, Aika’s mentor, Akira, is much more strict than Alicia. One day, Aika gets fed up with Akira’s strictness and decides to run away and train under Alicia.

When Akira shows up to reclaim her wayward trainee, Akari learns more about Alicia, Akira, and especially about Aika. Akira was seen briefly in Aqua Volume 2, when Aika snuck out of her room to go buy some pudding, and she was the person Aika was trying to avoid because she was the one making her rest from her cold. However, Akira wasn’t actually introduced until this book, like Alice. This story reveals that Alicia and Akira were friends as trainees, like Akari and Aika, and have had a bit of a rivalry, being considered among the three best Undines, but they haven’t seen each other much in recent years.

Aika had reveals that the reason why she admires Alicia so much is that Alicia was nice to her when she was a child. One day, when she was upset about something, Alicia found her and gave her a ride in her gondola and cheered her up by trying different hairstyles with her hair. This experience is what made Aika want so badly to become an Undine herself. However, Aika could not train under Alicia at Aria Company because her parents actually own Himeya Company, something that Aika has never told Akari before. Aika’s family expects her to work her way up through the ranks as an Undine and eventually take over Himeya Company.

To settle the matter of Aika’s future training, Akira proposes a contest, a race between Aika and Akari, to determine whether Aika will become Alicia’s student or return to Himeya Company with Akira. As Alicia guesses, the “race” between their trainees gives Aika an opportunity to return to Himeya without sacrificing her dignity. It also gives both Akira and Aika an opportunity to consider how they really feel about each other and how much they appreciate each other.

While Akira and Alicia talk about Aika and how she’s both similar to and different from her mentor, Akari and Aika aren’t really having a race. Instead, they talk about how Aika feels about Akira.

Aika says that her position as the future heir of Himeya Company doesn’t matter much to her because she just wants to be an Undine, like Alicia, but she admits that people at Himeya treat her differently from the other trainees because they know who she is. They are extra nice to her and try to avoid getting on her bad side because they want to be friends with the boss’s daughter, who will be their future boss someday. Aika admits that, strict as Akira is, she’s also the one who’s the most honest with her, correcting her when she needs it and not worrying about making her angry. Aika realizes that she needs that honesty in her life and that Akira’s training is helping her. At Aika’s insistance, the girls end their “race” and go buy some walnut pastries for Akira, which Aika offers to her as an apology before returning to Himeya with her. Akari realizes the the bond between Aika and Akira is stronger than either of them wants to admit, and she hopes that, someday, she’ll have a bond that strong with Alicia.

This story is important for explaining more of the backstory of the characters and how they relate to each other. There is a running theme in these stories of having characters whose names begin with the letter ‘A’. In most cases, I don’t mind because the names are usually different enough that it doesn’t matter, but Akira and Akari are rather close.

Festa del Boccolo

Festa del Boccolo is the time when men give red roses to the women they love. Akatsuki has had a crush on Alicia for a long time, and he enlists Akari’s help to give her a boatful of roses to impress her. He needs her help because the town is flooded during high tide again, as it is every year during late spring.

Unfortunately, his elaborate gesture doesn’t go as planned because Alicia has already received many other roses from other people, and she assumes that Akatsuki has bought all of his roses for Akari.

Akatsuki accidentally spills the roses in the water, while trying to get Alicia’s attention. He thinks that he’s completely screwed everything up, but Akari points out that his gesture wasn’t futile because, like the roses floating on the water, his love for Alicia spreads out around him and touches everyone, and one day, Alicia is bound to notice. Akatsuki gives Akari a single rose to thank her for her help, and the two of them enjoy a walk together through the flooded city.

Posted on by TracyC

Aria Volume 2

Aria Volume 2 by Kozue Amano, 2003, English Translation 2008.

The is the second volume of the second part of a fascinating manga series that combines sci-fi, fantasy, and slice of life. The series takes place about 300 years in the future, when Mars has been terraformed and renamed Aqua (because of all the water on its surface). The human colonies on Aqua are designed to resemble old-fashioned cities on Earth (called Manhome here). The people of Aqua prefer a much slower pace of life than people on Manhome, and aspects of life on Aqua more closely resemble Earth’s past.

The series is divided into two parts. The first two books are the Aqua volumes and introduce Akari Mizunashi, the main character, a young girl who came to Aqua to learn to become a gondolier in the city of Neo Venezia (which resembles Venice). Female gondoliers, called Undines, give tours of the city, giving Akari plenty of time to admire the beauty of her new home and meet interesting people. The two Aqua books are the prequel to the main series, Aria. Aqua covers Akari’s arrival on the planet, her introduction to life on Aqua, and the beginning of her training. The main Aria series show Akari’s continuing training, her progression to becoming a full Undine, her evolving relationships with her friends, and as always, her delight in learning more about her new home and admiring its beauty.

In the second volume of the Aria series, winter comes to Neo Venezia, and Akari experiences the delights of the changing season and the celebration of a New Year as well as continuing to learn more about her new home.

The series has received some criticism for being slow and lacking danger and adventure, but that is not really the point of the series. The main purpose is to show people how to appreciate the small pleasures of life. The sci-fi and fantasy elements (the spaceships, advanced environmental controls, intelligent Martian cats, and even the occasional appearances of the legendary Cait Sith) are mainly background to the stories about the magic of friendship and simple pleasures. Each volume contains a few short stories about Akari and her friends and the little adventures they have on a daily basis and the life lessons they learn. It’s a great series for relaxing when you’re stressed out.

The stories included in this volume are:

Snow Bug

Snow Bugs (a kind of fluffy aphid) appear on Aqua at the onset of winter. They are larger than Earth aphids, and they look like cute little puff balls with eyes.

Akari makes friends with one of them when she and Alicia go out to gather some firewood, and she brings her Snow Bug friend home with her for awhile.

However, the Snow Bugs appear at this time of year because they are migrating to their winter home, and as snow comes to Neo Venezia, Akari has to accept that her little friend must move on with the other Snow Bugs as it gets colder. Fortunately, Snow Bugs have long life spans, so Akari can count on seeing her little friend again next winter.

Utopia

Akari has trouble adjusting to the winter in Neo Venezia because it’s much colder than the winters she is accustomed to on Earth. Aika suggests visiting a hot spring, which Akari has never done before because people on Earth are more technological and not so much into the beauties of nature. Alicia takes Akari and Aika to visit a very special hot spring where the baths are built into a magnificent old mansion.

The mansion has been there for years, and parts of it are now crumbling with disuse, but the hot water from the spring beneath it is now allowed to flow through the lower floors of the old mansion, giving it a mysterious atmosphere, yet it’s still a very relaxing hot bath.

The girls indulge themselves in the baths and have dinner on one of the upper floors with a grand view of the ocean. (Alicia is older than the other girls and a legal adult, so she drinks alcohol. She lets the teenage trainees try a small amount to see what it’s like, but mostly, the younger girls have iced coffee milk.)

After the younger girls have a nap, they go back in the baths, and Alicia shows them a special part of the hot springs. Akari feels a little guilty for taking the day off and indulging themselves, but Alicia says that a break now and then is good.

This is one of my favorite stories in the Aria books because I just like the idea of a mansion being turned into a giant hot spring bath, with water flowing through it. The crumbling bits look a little dangerous to me, but it’s fun to imagine what the rest of the house might be like.

A Day in the Life of the President

President Aria may be an intelligent Martian cat, but he is still a cute kitty. He does cute kitty things, like climbing into bags and boxes, worrying about Akari’s hair dryer, and fighting with a hair brush. It even says that he doesn’t like baths, although he didn’t mind going to the hot spring in the previous story.

Martian cats are supposed to be as intelligent as humans, and it’s established in the series that President Aria and other cats have their own community with Cait Sith, the king of the cats, sneaking off sometimes to meet with each other, but President Aria also does things that people would expect from ordinary pet cats, and it’s not clear why. Then again, it might not matter. The Aria stories are mostly atmospheric and about emotions, so not everything has to be completely explained.

Voices of the Stars

Akari learns about the Gnomes, a group of people who control the gravity on Aqua. Alicia tells her about the gnomes one day when she explains why the gravity on Aqua seems to be the same as on Earth even though its natural gravity would be much less strong. The Gnomes live in their own community underground and only come up to the surface from time to time to go shopping.

One day, Akari and Aika see a group of Gnomes shopping. They help one of them, who is having trouble loading his supplies into his boat. Akari offers to take him home in her gondola, and he accepts, taking her and Aika to see where the Gnomes live underground.

The Gnome, Al, is a trainee Gnome, just a few years older than Akari and Aika, although he is short and looks younger and, oddly, speaks like an older, old-fashioned man. He explains to the girls how the Gnomes control the gravity on Aqua by conducting special high-mass gravitational rocks through a network of pipes surrounding Aqua’s core. As always, the science and technology on Aqua are borderline magical.

Al shows them where he works, and the machinery that controls the sending of rocks through the pipes is like a large pipe organ, making beautiful musical sounds as it works. Al becomes a recurring character in the Aria stories.

Auguri Di Buon Anno

Akari celebrates New Year’s Eve with her friends. It’s interesting how they compare Japanese New Year’s traditions with ones from Venice, from the types of food eaten during the holiday to the way that Japanese people traditionally consider New Year’s Eve a family holiday, while Akari’s friends consider it a holiday to spend with friends in public. Alicia explains to Akari that one of the traditions of Neo Venezia is similar to a traditional Italian custom of throwing out old things on New Year’s Eve as a way of throwing off bad memories from the previous year.

Akari and Alicia join their other friends in the public square on New Year’s Eve, and Akari reflects on how much her life has changed during the last year, since she came to Aqua. During that time, she’s had many new experiences and made many new friends, and she’s grateful for everything that’s happened and all of the good memories she’s had.

Akari and her friends stay out all night and see the sun rise on the first day of the new year.

Carnival

Akari is introduced to the traditions and wonders of a Venice Carnival! Alicia explains the origins of the tradition to her.

However, Akari becomes intrigued by mysterious figure dressed as Casanova. Rumor has it that the same person has played the role of Casanova for 100 years, but no one knows who it is.

Aika and Akari try to follow a member of Casanova’s entourage to see if they can find out who Casanova really is. The two girls get separated, but Akari meets up with Casanova, and he invites her to join his entourage to parade through the crowd.

In the end, Akari does get a look at Casanova without his mask, and it’s a magical end to Carnival!

Posted on by TracyC

Aria Volume 1

Aria Volume 1 by Kozue Amano, 2002, English Translation 2004.

The is the first volume of the second part of a fascinating manga series that combines sci-fi, fantasy, and slice of life. The series takes place about 300 years in the future, when Mars has been terraformed and renamed Aqua (because of all the water on its surface). The human colonies on Aqua are designed to resemble old-fashioned cities on Earth (called Manhome here). The people of Aqua prefer a much slower pace of life than people on Manhome, and aspects of life on Aqua more closely resemble Earth’s past.

The series is divided into two parts. The first two books are the Aqua volumes and introduce Akari Mizunashi, the main character, a young girl who came to Aqua to learn to become a gondolier in the city of Neo Venezia (which resembles Venice). Female gondoliers, called Undines, give tours of the city, giving Akari plenty of time to admire the beauty of her new home and meet interesting people. The two Aqua books are the prequel to the main series, Aria. Aqua covers Akari’s arrival on the planet, her introduction to life on Aqua, and the beginning of her training. The main Aria series show Akari’s continuing training, her progression to becoming a full Undine, her evolving relationships with her friends, and as always, her delight in learning more about her new home and admiring its beauty.

The series has received some criticism for being slow and lacking danger and adventure, but that is not really the point of the series. The main purpose is to show people how to appreciate the small pleasures of life. The sci-fi and fantasy elements (the spaceships, advanced environmental controls, intelligent Martian cats, and even the occasional appearances of the legendary Cait Sith) are mainly background to the stories about the magic of friendship and simple pleasures. Each volume contains a few short stories about Akari and her friends and the little adventures they have on a daily basis and the life lessons they learn. It’s a great series for relaxing when you’re stressed out.

The stories included in this volume are:

Neo-Venezia

As autumn comes to Neo Venezia, Akari encounters a grumpy old man, a visitor from Earth, who has gotten separated from his daughter and lost in the city. He is frustrated with the confusing and inconvenient nature of Neo Venezia.

Akari says that she can help him find his daughter and gives him a tour of the city, showing him the beauty of the city and changes his mood with the help of some baked potatoes and green tea. A slower pace of life and appreciation for the little pleasures has benefits.

Drydocking

It’s time for the gondolas to be cleaned, so they are moved onto dry land. Akari and her friend, Aika are in charge of the cleaning, but it is Akari who makes it fun.

The Bridge of Sighs

Like the original Venice, Neo-Venezia also has a “Bridge of Sighs.” Akari goes there one day to meet Aika and finds her friend, Akatsuki, waiting for someone. Akatsuki is impatient while he is waiting, so he convinces Akari to give him a short tour to pass the time. Akari tells him about the original Bridge of Sighs and how she thinks the name is still appropriate but for a different reason.

The original Bridge of Sighs, as Akari explains, was between an old courthouse and a prison, and the prisoners were said to sigh as they crossed the bridge because they were being led away to be incarcerated. However, Akari sighs because she likes living in the beautiful city of Neo-Venezia and feels like she’s lucky to be there. Her sigh is a sigh of contentment.

When the person Akatsuki is waiting for shows up, it turns out to be his older brother, who also appears in later stories.

Sun Shower

Although Akari lives in Neo-Venezia, which is designed to look like Venice, there are other parts of Aqua designed to look like different parts of Earth. Alicia takes Akari to an area much like Japan to see the changing autumn leaves and get some inarizushi.

They see a shrine on the island, and the woman at the sushi shop tells them a Japanese legend about the fox’s wedding, giving them a warning that the Inari fox might spirit them away to another world.

While admiring the red autumn leaves, Akari finds herself separated from Alicia, and she witnesses a strange wedding procession. When she seems to be invited to join it, she thinks quickly and gives the procession her inarizushi instead.

The story explains that a Japanese term for a sun shower (when it rains while the sun is still shining) is “the fox’s wedding.” Sun showers happen quite often when it rains where I live in Arizona, and I now think of this when I see one. I also know where to get some inarizushi. The Aria stories are good for making me want different types of food, whether it’s inarizushi or baked potatoes and green tea or pudding (from a previous book).

Vogare Longa

This story is based on a real gondola race that takes place in Venice.

Akari and Aika are told about the Vogare Longa gondola race, which all of the gondoliers, including the trainees, will participate in. Aika is determined to make a good showing in the race because there’s a rumor that it is used to judge trainees, but Akari gets caught up in the beauty of the day.

In the end, Akari admits to herself that she never forgot what Aika said about the race being used to judge trainees, but she just didn’t want to hurry because she was enjoying herself, and that’s the way she feels about her training in general. Akari wants to become a full Undine, but she wants to do it at her own pace and enjoy herself along the way.

It turns out to be just as well because the rumor about the race being used to judge trainees was only a rumor.

Posted on by TracyC

Aqua Volume 2

Aqua Volume 2 by Kozue Amano, 2003, English Translation 2008.

The is the second volume a fascinating manga series that combines sci-fi, fantasy, and slice of life. The series takes place about 300 years in the future, when Mars has been terraformed and renamed Aqua (because of all the water on its surface). The human colonies on Aqua are designed to resemble old-fashioned cities on Earth (called Manhome here). The people of Aqua prefer a much slower pace of life than people on Manhome, and aspects of life on Aqua more closely resemble Earth’s past.

In the previous volume, a young girl, Akari Mizunashi, came to Aqua to learn to become a gondolier in the city of Neo Venezia (which resembles Venice). Female gondoliers, called Undines, give tours of the city, giving Akari plenty of time to admire the beauty of her new home and meet interesting people.

The two Aqua books are the prequel to the main series, Aria. Aqua covers Akari’s arrival on the planet, her introduction to life on Aqua, and the beginning of her training. The series has received some criticism for being slow and lacking danger and adventure, but that is not really the point of the series. The main purpose is to show people how to appreciate the small pleasures of life. The sci-fi and fantasy elements (the spaceships, advanced environmental controls, intelligent Martian cats, and even the occasional appearances of the legendary Cait Sith) are mainly background to the stories about the magic of friendship and simple pleasures. Each volume contains a few short stories about Akari and her friends and the little adventures they have on a daily basis and the life lessons they learn. It’s a great series for relaxing when you’re stressed out.

The stories included in this volume are:

My First Customer

Akari gives her first customer a ride in her gondola. Although she makes mistakes, it is still a memorable experience, and she makes a new friend. Her ability to row a boat very fast backward even comes in handy!

It’s good to read the books and stories in this series in order because characters reappear. Akari’s first customer is Akatsuki, who is a trainee “Salamander” who lives on the floating island of Ukijima above Neo Venezia, which is reached by cable cars. Because Akatsuki spends most of his time on Ukijima, he tends to get lost when he comes into town. He becomes an important character who makes regular appearances through the books. There’s a story later in this book that explains more about his job.

It’s Hard Being President

President Aria feels useless because he can’t help with the spring cleaning. He decides that he isn’t a good president to Aria Company and tries to run away from home but learns that there is nowhere else where he is happy and that his friends still love him.


Night-light Bells

In the summer, people in Neo Venezia buy special night-light bells, chimes that glow in the dark.

These bells do not last forever because the glowing center eventually falls out, but sometimes they leave something special behind besides happy summer memories, a tiny crystal.

Akari goes to a night light bell festival and gets a night light bell of her own. The night light bells are a cheery part of summer, and when it’s time for them to expire, the people of Neo Venezia have a special ritual to return the glowing centers to the water when they fall out. However, Akari is lucky and gets one of the bells that has a tiny crystal when the center falls out.

I like this story because I think that the idea of having glow-in-the-dark wind chimes is really charming.

Enter the Hero!

President Aria dreams of being a super hero, like the hero of his favorite television show.

His attempts to be an ally of justice aren’t very successful until he discovers that even doing something small can make a big difference, returning a lost toy to a grateful child.


Fireworks

Akari and her friends visit the floating island of Ukijima where her friend, Akatsuki, is learning to be a Salamander. Salamanders help control Aqua’s climate. Because Ukijima is anchored above Neo Venezia, they have to use a cable car to get there, and Akari thinks that the view is amazing, like she’s flying when she’s there.

Akari and her friends have dinner wtih Akatsuki, and he shows them around and explains more about how Ukijima works and what his job as a Salamander involves. Neo Venezia experiences different seasons and different types of weather, but the Salamanders help to regulate it and keep it safe for the residents by controlling the amount of heat released into the atmosphere. The processes behind some of the technology on Aqua sound almost magical.

There are many amazing things on Ukijima, but Akari is most entranced by her first fireworks show. Even though Akari has never seen fireworks before, she finds herself connecting with the nostalgia surrounding them, which she realizes is a feeling that surrounds everything on Aqua and in Neo Venezia because the style of living is more old-fashioned than on Earth/Manhome.


Colds and Pudding

Akari and another friend, Alice (who you don’t really get to meet until the Aria series begins – she’s another trainee Undine), go to visit Aika, who is sick with a cold. They find her upset and learn how a simple trip to get some pudding led to a disturbing epiphany for her.

Aika was bored, hungry, and tired of staying in her room, so she decided to sneak out to get some pudding.

While she was walking through the streets, enjoying her freedom without anyone knowing she that she was gone, she caught sight of Akari and Alice practicing their rowing. At first, Aika is amused that she can spy on them without them noticing her, but then, she gets a strange feeling, realizing that, under normal circumstances, she would be practicing with them, but she can’t be with them now.

It feels eerie to her to see people going on with their day without her, as if she didn’t exist or that her absence doesn’t matter. Aika gets so spooked by the feeling that she runs home and goes back to bed, crying.

However, Aika’s friends do miss her and are thinking about her while she’s sick, and they know exactly what she needs. Trust your friends to help you feel better (and bring you pudding) when you need it!

This is the story that convinced me to learn how to make pudding from scratch one day when I was sick at home. You don’t have to go out and get creepy feelings when you know how to make pudding yourself! Pudding is an easy dessert to make; it just takes awhile to thicken on the stove.

Posted on by TracyC

Aqua Volume 1

Aqua Volume 1 by Kozue Amano, 2003, English Edition 2007.

I debated at first about whether or not I wanted to include any Japanese manga or light novels in this blog. When I was in high school and college, I knew a lot of people who were really into anime and manga, and I know that there are teens who still are, and my overview of children’s literature in different decades wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t mention that. However, the variety is pretty extensive, some of the series run very long, and it’s impossible to just skip around in some series because the story-telling is very linear, and I didn’t want them to take over the blog. Also, I tend to like the less popular ones, so I’d be bound to get some grumbling from manga fans about why I chose these when there are so many others that are more exciting or more iconic. Notice that I didn’t say “better.” “Better” is subjective, and I like what I like. I decided to go ahead and make an exception in this case because this is one of my favorite manga series and because I think this is something that people could really use right now. The stories are very calming, and they’re good to read during stressful times.

This book is the first volume of a series. I don’t have them all because they haven’t all been published in English yet, but know how it ends, and it’s a really good series with a happy ending. If you’re not familiar with manga, they’re basically graphic novels from Japan. I can’t read Japanese, so I rely on the English translations. However, manga like this typically follow the Japanese format of reading from right to left instead of left to right, like in English, so the books open and the pages flow in the opposite direction. When you look at the panels on a page, remember to look at them in right to left order.

The Aqua and Aria series is unusual because it combines elements of science fiction and fantasy, but most of the stories themselves aren’t really either science fiction or fantasy. That’s just the setting for the stories. The stories themselves are more slice-of-life, about daily events or small adventures in the lives of the characters and sometimes lessons they learn from them. There is a lot of emphasis on slowing down and enjoying the simple pleasures in life.

The series takes place in the future, when Mars has been terraformed and renamed Aqua (because of all the water on its surface). The human colonies on Aqua are designed to resemble cities on Earth (called Manhome here). The people of Aqua prefer a much slower pace of life than people on Manhome, and aspects of life on Aqua more closely resemble Earth’s past.

A young girl, Akari Mizunashi, comes to Aqua to learn to become a gondolier in the city of Neo Venezia, which resembles Venice. Female gondoliers, called Undines, give tours of the city, giving Akari plenty of time to admire the beauty of her new home and meet interesting people.

There are two parts to this series, called Aqua and Aria. The two Aqua books are the prequel to the main series, Aria. Aqua is only two volumes long, and it covers Akari’s arrival on the planet, her introduction to life on Aqua, and the people who will be her friends. In the Aria books, Akari progresses in her training as an Undine. All of the books in both series contain several short stories.

This book, the first one in the Aqua series, focuses on Akari’s arrival on Aqua and her friendship with Aika, the first fellow Undine trainee she meets.

The stories included in this first volume are:

The Water Planet

The series begins with Akari Mizunashi on the shuttle carrying her from Manhome to Aqua. She is typing a message to someone on her computer, but there is nothing to indicate who she is writing to. This is a running theme throughout the series, but the identity of Akari’s pen pal isn’t revealed until the very end of the series, and it wouldn’t make sense if I told you who it is right now. Akari explains a little about the history of Mars/Aqua, and how the melting of Mars’s polar ice caps during the terraforming of Mars 150 years earlier has turned it into a water planet, earning it the name Aqua. Currently, the year is 2301.

One of the nice things about the Aqua/Aria series is the imagery. As Akari’s shuttle arrives at Mars/Aqua, the walls of the shuttle turn transparent, so the travelers can feel like they’re flying in with the seagulls.

On Earth/Manhome, Akari lived in Tokyo, Japan. The modern cities of Manhome are very tidy and convenient, with people able to work and shop from home. Still, Akari has felt like something is missing from her life in all the convenience and tidiness. In Neo Venezia on Aqua, people rely on boats constantly to help them get around town, which is inconvenient, but Akari finds it calming and peaceful, which is why she wants to become an Undine, one of the female gondoliers who act as tour guides and help travelers to navigate Neo Venezia. Overall, life on Aqua and in Neo Venezia has a much slower pace than that on Manhome.

Akari arrives on Aqua and meets a friendly mailman and the only two employees of the gondola company she will work for: her mentor, Alicia, and the company’s president, a Martian cat named Aria. All gondola companies on Aqua have a Martian cat as their mascot/president. Alicia explains that Martian cats are as intelligent as humans, even though they can’t talk, but in many ways, President Aria still acts like a very large kitty.

The Guide on the Water

Akari wakes up on her first morning at the gondola company Aria, and she meets Aika, who is a trainee at Himeya, another gondola company. She catches sight of Aika hanging around, watching Alicia, and Aika witnesses Akari’s first time practicing in a gondola under Alicia’s watch.

Akari is embarrassed to learn that when she practiced rowing on Manhome, she was doing it backwards, standing in the front of the boat, which would block the view of her passengers. Because Akari practiced the wrong way on Manhome, she can row very fast the wrong way, but is clumsier when she tries to row the correct way.

However, Aika tells Akari that Alicia is the best of the Undines, and Akari is reassured that under Alicia’s guidance, she will do better. Aika hero-worships Alicia (for reasons that are explained further in later books), and she agrees to become Akari’s friend partly so that she can see more of Alicia. Aika and Akari become best friends through the course of the books, sharing their training and adventures.

The City Submerged

Akari wakes up one morning and is shocked to find that the lower floor of Aria company has flooded, but Alicia explains to her that this is a natural phenomenon in Neo Venezia in Spring.

Much of the city is flooded during this high tide, causing many of the businesses in town to close temporarily and making it unsafe to go out in gondolas. However, when President Aria needs more of his favorite food, Akari decides to venture into the city on foot.

On the way home, Akari and Aria are stranded when it starts to rain and travel become more dangerous, but Aika sees them and invites them to spend the night at Himeya Company with her. Himeya Company is a much larger gondola company than Aria Company, with many more employees living there.

Aika and Akari have a sleepover in Aika’s room, and Aika asks Akari who she’s always writing to, but Akari tells her that it’s a secret. When the rain stops, Akari admires the view of the water by moonlight. (There are two moons in the sky because this is Mars.)

The Kingdom of Cats

President Aria sometimes ventures off alone, and Alicia tells Akari the story of Cait Sith and the mythical kingdom of cats.

When Akari and Aika practice their rowing together, Akari convinces Aika to help her follow President Aira to see if there’s any truth to Alicia’s story perhaps get a look at the kitty kingdom ruled by the legendary king of the cats, Cait Sith.

However, the trip is stranger than they bargained for. The girls find themselves on a strange waterway through apparently abandoned buildings, going around in circles until President Aria points the way out. Akari only gets a glimpse of the cats before they leave.

The Hill of Hope

Aika shows up at Aria company one morning to brag about how she has been promoted to single (the next step up in gondola training, as shown by the gloves that the girls wear – as the trainee Undines learn the techniques to row their boats more skillfully, they get fewer callouses and need their gloves less, removing them one at a time as they are promoted to new levels).

Akari tries to ask Aika what the promotion test is like, but Aika refuses to tell her. The Undines traditionally keep the test a secret from their trainees until they pass the test. When Alicia hears about Aika’s promotion, she decides to take Akari on a special picnic, giving her the opportunity to prove her skills and introducing her to the concept of aquatic elevators, or canal locks. There is a special surprise for Akari at the end of the journey.