Bottle Fairy: Episode 4 Commentary
July
The imagination of the four little fairies never ceases to entertain me. I wasn’t too certain of this series after the first two episodes, but by now I’m enjoying the imaginations of the bottle fairies, and the stories it takes them on. This episode really was in the spirit of animations such as Muppet Babies.
While it was Chiriri who knew about securing a spot for flower viewing, Sararin’s the one with knowledge about the star festival.
Not only Kururu, but especially Chiriri is excited at the thought of an adventure (at least until it takes them from a jungle to a mountain blizzard. As oblivious as Hororo tends to be, it’s almost believable for her to become an evil scientist out to take over the world. It may be expected for Hororo to become evil, so I’m not worried about her. The worry goes for Kururu, whose first thought at not seeing Hororo is to determine she’s been kidnapped.
Even on an adventure, various bits of culture are revealed. Indiana Jones is culture, right? Pop culture? Even in Japan? Elsewise, the first piece of culture begins early on, and then contines after the adventure, with the aforementioned star festival.
The beaver part I didn’t get until I looked up “bivouac”. Is it alright to laugh at a joke as being funny only after it’s essentially been explained? A bivouac is a a temporary camp in an unsheltered area, which is exactly what the bottle fairies set up.
Hororo’s English laugh fits her Japanese laugh perfectly.
I understand Hororo’s donut being small fits for her frame it’s included in, but the frame is just a tiny bit out of place with that small donut comparing against the sizes of the magnifying glass and the soccer ball.
The dub mostly kept use of names such as “Chiriririn” and “Horororin”. What I don’t understand is changing “Horororin has been kidnapped” to “Hororo has been kidnapped”. At this time, the animation shows Senseisan’s house, so there’s no need to sync words to mouth movement. I like to believe there is a reason for this, but without translator’s notes, the world may never know.
