Seven of Seven: Episode 14 Commentary
Overseas Study Program! Chaos in San Francisco?
Another package arrives for Nana, and this time a Billy fish keyring appears to be the sent item. This is the second item of this fish sent from America, so it must be an American character which Nana’s mother thinks Nana will like. With a name like “Billy”, and the Billy store seen this episode, it’s a good bet that he’s an American character. I’m not sure if Billy is the name of all the fish, or just the blue-faced ones, or just Nanakko’s single one, though. (My money’s on Billy being the blue-faced one.)
When “Nana” appears at her mother’s door, she has the blue brooch. The Nanas must all be wearing a blue brooch so they can switch around without being noticed by a change in brooch color.
What a view for the passengers of the plane whose wing Blue Seven designs to hitch a ride on. It looked like most of the people looking out the window were not Japanese, so they probably never saw the “Seven Rangers” television show before (although there is the later mention of the American dub).
Once the Nanas climb into the window at their mother’s place, they have their own colored brooches, but it’s is back to blue when their mother opens the door. Should I even try to understand? Perhaps they’re not showing how Nanacchi actually looks, but rather how she appears to her mother: she simply looks like Nana, plain and simple.
After giving spending money to Nanacchi, her mother heads out for the day. When their mother looks back in for a moment, Nanacchi has her yellow brooch again. All right, I give up on trying to understand the switching brooches, other than that when the brooch is blue, the girl’s face also matches the original Nana’s.
At Melody’s place, Nana gets changed. This means one of two things: Melody keeps spare clothes around the house, or Nana has a secret compartment in her helmet to store an outfit. The outfit looks “American”, but all the Nanas end up wearing the same style outfit.
In conversation between Nana and Melody, Melody refers to the guy as “Yuichi”, rather than “Kamichika”. Being an American, this makes sense. Likewise, Nana refers to Melody by her family name, “Honey”.
Introducing Nana to Mary Lou, Melody does so in English, following in Japanese with “Nana means Seven in English.” Either Mary Lou understood the Japanese, or she grabbed on to “seven” as the only word she understood from the sentence. I think an improvement would have been to go straight English when talking to Mary Lou, with Japanese subtitles on the screen for the viewer.
When Mary Lou asks, “Are you ready,” to Nana this sounds like she’s asking, “Are you lady.” This is why Nana answers, “Yes, I am girl.” Kamichika seems to be having a tiny bit of trouble sticking with English, with his line, “Ah, cho-cho-chotto, wait!”
I have to take a moment to say, Mary Lou’s English sounds really, really strange (in how it’s spoken) to a native American. I continue to wonder when Japanese companies will contract these parts to American (or Canadian) voice actors, especially for single-episode characters (assuming Mary Lou will not appear in another episode).
I also noticed, there are no cicadas in the background. Yup, Toto, we’re definitely not in Japan anymore. When in America, near the ocean, you don’t get cicadas, you get gulls. (Were there any making noise in the background? I don’t recall any.)
When Nana, Kamichika, and Mary Lou are on the trolley, there are scenes of San Francisco which look mightily familiar, including a ubiquitous man in a white shirt and shades on Lombard Street. Does Nana really see all these things from the trolley or walking around?
After the boat ride, there’s a scene where Mary Lou hides. Here, she says now she can be alone with Yuichi–only she says it in Japanese. How long has she known Japanese? I’m under the impression Honey picked up the basics from watching Japanese comedy routines on video, and learned enough vocabulary to get by in Japan. For Mary Lou to also learn Japanese in that time, and to speak it fluently and without Melody’s strange Osakan accent… I’ll assume she’s really speaking in English, but her dialogue is in Japanese for the audience. Nanapon finds Mary Lou and asks if she’s lost too, but realizes that Mary Lou wouldn’t know Japanese. Or does she?
Even though Kamichika’s a bit “out of it” worried over his studies, it’s sad to see he doesn’t even notice Nanapon being knocked off the trolley as it’s stopped. He definitely sees her only as a fellow student, and nothing more. After all, who wants to help out a fellow student after seeing her knocked off a trolley?
The meeting with Nana’s mother and Kamichika goes nicely with both speaking in English at first. After Nana arrives, when Mary Lou tries to protect Kamichika from her, Kamichika and Mary Lou both talk in Japanese here, so maybe Mary Lou does speak and understand Japanese fluently. Go figure.
I wonder how accurate the Pretty Ranger dub is, or if it’s an American version, same as Power Rangers. Because Mary Lou calls it a dub, I’ll take it it’s using the Japanese animation. Or was Seven Rangers a live action show?
Suprisingly, Kamichika caught on (at least for a moment) to the Nana/Blue Seven connection. He probably didn’t notice that Blue Seven speaks in Nana’s voice, though. The whole scene with the Seven Rangers could have really could have used an American kid pointing and saying, “Look, it’s Pretty Ranger!”
The dialogue near the episode’s end has Kamichika, while looking at the setting sun, saying in a low voice “I really like to go to the same high school as you.” While my first thought here is the sketchbook girl, the dub prepends the phrase with “You know what, Nana?” This implies it’s Nana whom he’d like to go to the same high school with.
