Arakawa Under the Bridge EP02

Who is in it?

We'll we got two new characters to add.

Tomokazu Sugita plays Hoshi our lovable angry star face guy. Now, if you do not know who Tomokazu Sugita is, he is Ragna from BlazBlue, Gin from Gintama, Kyon from Suzumiya Haruhi and, for an oldie, he is Motosuwa Hideki from Chobits. Sugita is probably my favorite male voice actor. One thing about Sugita is when his personality fits a character he fits the role well and I believe Hoshi fits him well.
Koyasu Takehito plays Sister our overly burly religious man. Takehito has been in so much anime it is pretty ridiculous. He tends to play the character who has years of experience; examples would be Fool from Kaleido Star, Kuroyanagi Ryou from Yakitate Japan!! and Haruhi's father from Ouran Host Club. Takehito just has a very domineering voice and very much makes it sound like he is in charge at all time.

So what happened?

The episode starts off with Kou hanging out at his new home that is underneath the bridge. Kou is visited by Nino and she makes herself at home. Kou finally realizes that Nimo is his  lover/girlfriend but has no idea how to really approach her. Nino is a self declared Venutian and Kou understands she isn't entirely normal and tries to find a way to approach her. So what does Kou do? Nothing he takes the hit to the pride and goes outside. What is he rewarded with!?

He is rewarded with Sakamoto Maaya making incredibly silly sounds and getting his hair washed by Nino. Kou feels he will have to owe her. However, Nino, in the end, thanks Kou for letting her wash his hair. Kou takes a pretty big emotional hit from it as if he had no idea how to calculate what she said. 

Turns out the people living on the riverbed decided to through a party for Kou. Kou initially thought he could get a long with everyone but, almost as quickly as he thought his first thought he refutes himself because of how drastically different they were from him. The Kappa tells Kou to introduce himself and Kou tries to use this moment to make himself more superior by explaining his wealth and prestige but, a quick line from Nino, "Tell us who you are, not what you have." brings him to the reality he now lives in. 

The next thing Kou discovers is that there is a church. In the church he discovers the ultimately religious figure... the sister.  The sister in actuality is a very muscular man. Kou, originally expecting to be their for a standard church mass, discovers this church is quite different. The sister simply asks if anyone has been bad while he twirled his guns around and unsurprisingly no one says anything. Sister welcomes Kou and explains to him if he has any questions he can seek guidance with him and, shockingly, the sister tells him he has had a lot of visitors come by whom want to inflict harm onto Kou because Nino picked Kou to be her lover (some religious figure!).

Themes?

I think this episode had a theme of letting go of your materialistic self. Easily the most obvious form of proof of this is when Nino says, "Tell us who you are, not what you have." When Kou tries to use his first name the Kappa quickly makes him recognize he isn't Kou here but, rather Recruit. Kou is constantly reminded to understand the people instead of judging people for the way they do things. A simple message but a nice reminder for those who sometimes forget that appearances isn't everything.

Final Remarks:

Episode 02 was enjoyable. It did throw in a lot of characters to keep tabs on and I'm curious to see how they will influence the story. Sugita is playing Hoshi and I can't see his role being too low because it is freaking Sugita and he is the man.

Kou seems to be definitely more aware of the kindness of people and I'm enjoying being Under the Bridge.