Arakawa Under the Bridge 2

In the little community living under the bridge beside the River Arakawa, even an ordinary game of baseball can turn into something distinctly out of the ordinary. When Kou Ichinomiya, the fine, upstanding hero of the series, ventures further down the river bank than ever before to search for a lost ball, the last thing he expects is to be ambushed by an impressively tall blonde Amazon and her three tengu companions (role and gender confusion abound here). Extricating himself from her clutches this time around doesn’t mean that Kou won’t see her again, especially as she seems to have taken rather a shine to him!

Once back at the bridge, Kou has troubles of his own with Nino, the mysterious fish-catching love of his life, when he ‘mistakenly’ hears part of a cassette tape that she has concealed, along with a box with a curious image on the front (suspiciously similar to the image sent into space from Earth on the Pioneer plaque) showing a couple and a little girl. Is the tape a secret message from Nina’s parents to their ‘little Venusian princess’? Discovered by Nino before he has heard any more, Kou is horrified at Nino’s extreme reaction to his innocent snooping. Everyone else on the riverbank takes Nino’s side (as usual) so Kou is forced to do some humiliating apologizing. But, it turns out, when Nino has calmed down, that she has to return home. To Venus. And she wants everyone to go along too – only the rocket may not be big enough to take everyone, so some serious weight loss exercising ensues!

In the meantime, random stuff happens: a mangaka infiltrates the riverside community; the girls hold a sleepover; P-ko chan gets everyone to help her make a film ‘The Flower of Paris’ (celebrating her crush on the Village Chief in romantic 70s shoujo-style) which doesn’t turn out quite the way she envisaged it – and the madness continues amiably enough until suddenly all thirteen episodes have come to an end.

More colourful (eccentric) characters get to feature prominently in this second season notably the katana-wielding Last Samurai (the riverbank hairdresser) and the inseparable lovers Bee Queen Jacqueline and her white cockatoo yakuza boyfriend Billy.

Arakawa is a Marmite show; if you loved Season 1, you’ll love Season 2 just as much. If you couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about and you don’t find the show in the least bit funny, then walk away, because it’s more of the same. I loved it – but I recognize that other viewers may find the humour baffling and the repetitious nature of some of the skits tedious. But it’s hard not to appreciate the constant battling between onetime rock singer Hoshi and Kou for the oblivious Nino’s affections and voice actors Tomokazu Sugita and Hiroshi Kamiya portray their frustrations amusingly.

Art Director Kohji Azuma and his team deliver some striking images of the bridge itself and the riverside and merrily mix styles, as required, from classic samurai and yakuza dramas, through Captain Harlock (check out the snooping mangaka) to more recent favourite anime cliches: the local summer festival and the swimsuit episode. In fact, constant references and nudges to other TV shows and manga abound in Arakawa, far too many for this reviewer to recognize them all.  

Much of Masaru Yokoyama’s score will be familiar from Season 1, but the new Opening Song, “COSMOS vs ALIEN” by Etsuko Yakushimaru, is delivered in a breathy, little girly voice to an imaginatively bizarre piece of animation (much as in Season 1.) The new Ending Theme “Akai Coat” is a genuinely catchy guitar ballad from Suneohair; in the first episodes we see the actor playing Hoshi in the live action version performing the song, but later episodes feature another imaginative faux-naif animation, based around Nino and her hair.

Extras include promo spots, and entertaining end card galleries (where other artists have drawn scenes from the show).

In Summary
Arakawa Under the Bridge x Bridge makes a pleasant – and sometimes even laugh-out-loud – way to pass the time. If you’ve come to appreciate the quirky cast of characters, you’ll have fun revisiting them. Just don’t expect anything much in the way of plot development…