Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Review of Umizaru Ep 8

Ep 8: Ikezawa Shisu (Ikezawa Dies)
O.A. 23 Aug 05
Ratings: 12.1%

Following the incident of the unidentified intruding ship, the Coast Guard decides to enforce a 2 week marine patrol where Nagare also has to take part in this mission. Senzaki finds time to have a meal with Kanna before he leaves. Kanna is worried about Naoko as it is nearing her delivery date and Ikezawa has to leave her at this time. However, she promises to take care of Naoko in the meantime so that Ikezawa can rest easy. Meanwhile, Naoko reminds Ikezawa to think of their child's name but he keeps saying that it is troublesome even though he is happy about this "task".

Shimokawa meets Yui and his ex-wife reveals that she might be remarrying soon and would probably have to stop Yui from meeting Shimokawa in future.

Nagare begins their 2-week patrol and things get rather boring since there's nothing happening. Senzaki goes to Ikezawa's room and sees him agonising over the perfect name for his child. As the gynae did not tell him the sex of the baby, Ikezawa is more troubled over finding a good name and Senzaki offers him some advice.

Meanwhile, Kanna rejects Fuyushiba and says that she has decided to stay with Senzaki. At the same time, she goes out strolling with Naoko and they serve as support for each other while their men are out at sea.

Ikezawa receives a phonecall from Naoko that she is having contractions and will go to the hospital with Kanna. Ikezawa gets flustered but still reminds Naoko to take the delivery safety amulet from th drawer. Naoko is touched by this act of concern even though Ikezawa rarely expresses his feelings to her.

Just at this time, reports of a floating man at sea come in and Nagare goes to save that man. It turns out that he's the crew of a Russian ship, Tristana who has been thrown overboard by some pirates who have taken over the ship. As such, Nagare goes to look for the ship concerned and all crew members have to wear bullet vests since the pirates are armed. Senzaki moans at having to deal with such a situation again just after the intruding ship incident.

Nagare finally finds the Tristana but the ship shows no signs of stopping. The captain of the ship jumps overboard so that he can escape from the pirates. Senzaki and Ikezawa go to save the captain and are relieved at achieving their goal. In the meantime, Naoko has given birth to a healthy girl.

However, disaster strucks at this time when the pirates fire shots at the rescue boat and Ikezawa is struck on his neck. He is bleeding profusely and slowly losing consciousness. Senzaki gets very worried and keeps encouraging Ikezawa not to give up. Meanwhile, a fire breaks out on the Tristana and the pirates pretend that they are part of the crew and jump overboard to ask for help. Shimokawa tells Senzaki to participate in the rescue but he refuses to do so since the pirates shot Ikezawa. Shimokawa knows that it is of no use trying to persuade Senzaki and leaves him with Ikezawa who is losing consciousness as time goes by...

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This is so sad... Why do they have to make Ikezawa die when he has jsut become a father? To increase the tragedy effect? It's probably going to affect my mood and motivation level to continue watching as watching Nakamura Tooru is one of the biggest draw factors for me. I just don't understand why they have to kill off the character in Ep 8.

Next episode is probably to be worse when the funeral scene repeats itself. Do they really have to make someone die in each instalment of the Umizaru series? In addition, Senzaki goes through his "loss of confidence" stage again...This is making the story turn out to be predictable and I hope that they can quickly make some changes before the season ends.

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