Aria The Natural Episode 4

A letter is often the heart of someone in the form of a written piece, to send over feelings of love and embody the feeling that is inside it. No one would ever hate letters. Everyone loves them because it is something different. It takes effort in order to send one and it has the power to go through time and space to send a message of your heart to someone across the sea. That is why a postman exists, in order to send those feelings to each waiting heart in the distance.

That is what episode 4 has been trying to say. A rather touching episode, I found myself being overjoyed even though I am currently sick and cannot watch too much anime (sigh, bedridden and unable to do stuff sucks T_T).

Onwards, sending through!

Spring was coming as Akari felt drowsy from the warmness of the afternoon. She was then woken up by Aria, only to see that the mailman was actually there as a customer. His gondola had broken down and he had requested for a gondola in order to send his letters tomorrow. Akari then got Alicia to drive him around but it seemed that Alicia had been fully booked. Akari wanted to help the mailman but Alicia reminded her that she was only an apprentice and could not accept anyone without an instructor. However, Alicia, being the nice senior she was, said that it would be good if the mailman was her instructor for the day, hence fixing the problem immediately.

The next day, Akari went over to the post office and looked for the mailman, only to realise that she actually did not know the name of the mailman. However, the person she asked kinda knew who she was and brought her to the old-timer mailman. Akari had found the postman and he smiled ,thanking her for the help and waking up so early. It was then whistles started and it was in fact morning excerises to warm their body up before they went on a duty. It was embarrassing but it was probably like a ritual to them and asked Akari to join in.

With that, they went out of the post office, starting to collect letters for processing. Akari was amazed at how the mailman was able to use the pole arm to effectively get the mailbag from the mailbox so swiftly. The mailman then asked Akari whether she was interested to try it once and she did as they sailed over to yet another mailbox. Akari was slightly nervous but she managed to get the mailbag but she did not have enough strength to hold it down onto the Gondola and she nearly dropped the whole bag into the river. Luckily, it eventually succeeded with some luck and the postman grabbing the mailbag.

They then took a break from this as they ate bento for lunch. It was then that they found that Aria was missing and looked for it. Aria was in fact playing with a boy that had a letter on his hands. He was Sora and he had a letter for his ex-teacher, wanting to say congralutions and sorry for the teacher that was having a wedding ceremon today. Before the teacher retired, Sora had made her very disappinted by not going for a chorus performance during the leaving ceremony and stayed in some class to hide, giving her a lot of trouble. He also said hurtful words that “I’ll be glad that you are gone”, so much that he made her teacher cry.

The mailman initally said that the time for processing was over but he made a concession as he accepted the letter, asking Sora to join him to the church. Akari then tried to rush by oarring backwards, which we know she would be much faster. As we transisted to the church, we see Aika and Akira waiting with the wedding Gondola, where the teacher was about to board the Gondola. The mailman was just in time to send the letter as the teacher was touched that Sora had said sorry for all the troubles that he had created and that he thanked and hoped that she was happy. It was clear that it was a very touching time as she probably had thought she had not been a good teacher.

They then left off the Gondola and Akari prodded Sora to follow her, as Sora chased up to Akira’s gondola and said those words personally. With that, they had finished that task and Sora was very happy as he waved goodbye. They then went on to continue delivering the other letters to their homes and finished the job proper. The next day, Akari woke up to see a letter of thanks from the old mailman, thanking her for the efforts yesterday.

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Episode thoughts

I dont know about this episode seriously. It was just a very simple tale but it touched me a lot as I guessed the content about letters was something that I held on very closely. In the episode, they mentioned that “If we rush too hard, our heart had no time to rest.” A letter was the perfect foil for this. It is slow but it allows us to relax as we read the letter that was filled with the feelings of someone that was faraway.

Neo-Venezia is like a town that often gives back way more than it had, like a letter. The whole town is so beautiful, according to Akari, and through her eyes, she see how the town had sent her a letter of love in the many ways that she had enjoyed the scenery and things around her.

I found the scene where the teacher and student finally realised their feelings to each other to be a really moving scene. It might seem simple but i guess with my many troubles in real life with teachers, I could fully understand how the student feels since I did something like that previously. All in all, it’s a very personal episode to me, and it is one of my favorite for now.