A Little Snow Fairy Sugar: Episode 12 Commentary
Goodbye, Mr. Bear
Before watching this episode, I decided to watch the “Rothenburg Location Hunting” extra on the same DVD as this episode. Much of Rothenburg, Germany went into the design of Saga’s hometown of Muhlenburg, and it’s nice to see all the photos taken there, some compared against the animation. I expect to start paying more attention to the background as I watch episodes now.
The “Character Profiles” lists Turmeric’s instrument as a cello. As I’ve said before, I know nothing about musical instruments, so I’m glad they included this information. That gives Sugar a piccolo, Salt a trumpet (right?), Pepper a harp (any special kind of harp?), Ginger a violin (correct?), and Turmeric a cello.
Saga may not approve of Vincent’s piano rough playing to save the play performance, but maybe she can understand him a little better. This episode’s given Saga her first performance playing for a large audience, which may come into play in a later episode. She may be faced with performing directly in front of an audience next time, rather than in the background, off stage. Maybe she’ll play her mother’s music at the time. The next step might be for Saga to become comfortable playing other music, music she’s unfamiliar with. And if she makes a mistake playing in front of a large crowd, whether playing unfamiliar music or familiar, what will she do? How will she react? If there’s one thing to learn about performing (be it playing music, acting on a stage, speaking before a crowd), it’s to go with the flow. If you make a mistake, don’t react to having made a mistake, just keep going. If you stop when you make a mistake, your audience will know. If you apologize for making a mistake, you’re putting emphasis on a mistake which would have gone unnoticed by most, and would have been forgotten soon after had you continued like normal.
It’s good to see Norma’s quickly enough gotten over the heartbreak of Cheryl not being a guy. She seems to move from one thing to another simply enough.
In not for Sugar, Saga would never have made it through the play, and the event might have ended in disaster, excepting that Vincent would have found a way to cover for it. Saga and Sugar are getting closer and closer, but Sugar’s Magic Flower is almost ready to blossom. What about Pepper’s flower? And Salt’s? While they are hanging around Saga, which the Elder fairy said as being key to finding Twinkles, it’s Sugar who’s getting all the good lines. Salt did have his episode helping Phil, so maybe Pepper will have her chance to shine soon.
Fairy societies must be different than human ones when it comes to age and responsibility. Sugar and her friends are about nine human years ago, although it’s unknown how many Earth years this is. That doesn’t matter so much when you consider they’re still nine-year olds who’ve travelled to the human world, and are living on their own (for the most part).
Sugar’s glorious moment was her snowfall performance for Saga. I’ll put aside the thought that Sugar’s music could have thrown Saga’s playing off. Saga’s reaction to Sugar’s snow was exactly as it should be by now. She’s that much closer friends with Sugar, and is happy for Sugar’s advancements in training to one day be a full-fledged Snow Fairy.
Best of all, Phil gets his moment. It’s really unfortunate that he never saw a performance of The Bear Pianist. The series is only halfway through, so there’s still time for the Hammond Troupe to return. Jan and Alan’s lack of assistance is troublesome, but with the troupe leaving, they may find more time to help their friend. And if the troupe returns, will Vincent have more scenes suggesting maybe he can see the fairies?
More technology is shown, although I don’t know anything about trains, so I can’t place it on a timeline. I imagine this series to take place sometime in the 1900’s, perhaps as recent as the 80’s. With the exception of a dub mention of television, it really does seem like a time before television and even movies (although the designs of the truck and train suggest it’s not early 1900’s).
One of these days Saga may actually learn how to properly handle relocating a fairy. The trio sat expectantly on the piano, Sugar’s eyes glimmering, only for the three of them to be smushed together in a close grip, and moved out of the way of the sheet music. What goes around comes around, though, as Sugar inadvertently tickled Saga when asking for another waffle. Neither knows how to handle the other.
Cute scene of the episode: the little fairies trying to hypnotize Saga into wanting to play the piano. The English dub didn’t do it proper justice, though.
In the screenshot collage this time around, Sugar has very little appearance as I chose the screenshot of Pepper and Salt over one with the three of time, and the snow screenshot is representative of Sugar. Based on the next episode preview, I’m sure she’ll show up a lot more in the next collage screenshots.
