Review of Umizaru Ep 2

Ep 2: Sensuishi Uagasezu (The diver who doesn't float to the surface)
O.A. 12 July 05
Ratings: 13.9%

Due to the failure of the rescue mission, the captain of Asian Trip, Uchida dies before the divers get to him again. Senzaki is unable to comprehend why Ikezawa decided to save the young crew first instead of the much older Uchida and feels that they should have saved the weaker Uchida first.

As a result of this incident, the HQ wonders if ths has to do with Senzaki but the captain, Katsuta gives an ambiguous answer saying that no newbie doesn't commit mistakes and doesn't commit as to whether the failure was due to Senzaki. The investigation officer goes to Shimokawa who tells him that if he wants to have a 100% successful rescue operation, he might as well use robots since human beings are prone to mistakes.

Shimokawa returns to Nagare and tells Ikezawa to be less aloof towards Senzaki since he is Ikezawa's new buddy. He retorts that Shimokawa should give him a more capable buddy instead of asking him to take charge of a newbie. Shimokawa sees through the reason why Ikezawa decided not to save the captain, Uchida first and Ikezawa had then deliberately gave Uchida ambiguous words to keep his motivation high. In fact, Ikezawa knew that Senzaki was inexperienced and did not want to risk saving Uchida first as this would be dangerous for a newbie to do so. As such, due to the higher chance of saving the younger crew member, Ikezawa made his decision accordingly. This conversation is accidentally overheard by Senzaki who realises how naive he had been when he questioned Ikezawa's decision.

During lunch, Senzaki goes to Ikezawa and reveals that he made some promises to Uchida which made the latter lose his determination to hang on. Ikezawa gets angry and almost thrashes Senzaki but leaves in a huff after being stopped by the others.

Chika calls Kanna and tells her that she has 2 tickets to a musical. Kanna agrees to go and Chika misunderstands that she's going to ask Senzaki to accompany her. However, Kanna does not intend to tell Senzaki and Chika reminds her to be frank with him soon as he is still under the impression that they are dating. Kanna asks her superior, Fuyushiba to go for the musical but he rejects her, saying that he is playing soccer with his friends.

Senzaki calls Kanna and intends to confide his problems to her but she's not too enthusiastic about speaking to him. He asks her out on Sunday but Kanna lies that she is busy with work.

That night, Senzaki and his colleagues go to Ocean to have dinner and bump into Kanna there. There is an uncomfortable silence between the two. Just then, Chika returns to the restaurant and misunderstands that Kanna has decided to ask Senzaki out for the musical after all. He realises that Kanna does not intend to go with him and returns the ticket to her before leaving Ocean.

There is a new mission for Nagare where they are to save a crew from a China-registered ship which is sinking due to cracks at the bottom. Senzaki is tense because of what happened previously. Shimokawa reassures him that he might have saved the captain first instead of what Ikezawa did and reminds Senzaki not to forget that he's not inferior to Ikezawa and is his buddy on equal standing.

After saving the crew members from the Chinese ship, Lai Feng, Senzaki senses that the crew seem to be uneasy about something which is also noticed by Ikezawa. As such, they decide to return to the sinking ship to search and Shimokawa gives them 3 mins to do so.

Senzaki and Ikezawa finds that there are 2 people being trapped in a compartment and they are illegal immigrants from China. However, as the door is locked, the two take a long time to break the lock while water is gushing into the ship. When they finally get to the illegal immigrants, Ikezawa tells Senzaki to bring one of them back to the surface and gets the other guy. However, the guy attacks Ikezawa in a state of panic and the latter almost loses consciousness but Senzaki returns with another diver to save them.

At the same time, Kanna feels bad about what happen in Ocean and calls Senzaki. She leaves a voice message for him, saying that they should meet up once to talk things over...
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To me, the highlight of this episode is the rescue scene where they were rushing against time to save those illegal immigrants while the ship was sinking. Looking at how realistic the rescue scenes looked for these past 2 episodes, I simply wonder how much money they have spent on this drama so far. And we are not even at the halfway mark of the season. However, I like the action scenes very much so I'm not really complaining.

On the relationship-side, I guess things between Senzaki and Ikezawa are going to improve now that he has saved Ikezawa once even though Ikezawa said before that there will be no chance of Senzaki having to save him. Maybe this episode will make him treat Senzaki with a better attitude.

As for Senzaki's relationship with Kanna, he finally realises that things are not what he has assumed all along since she lied to him that she was busy with work and yet could go to a musical on the same day. Maybe after talking things out next week, we might get an idea of where this is going...