Binbou Shimai Monogatari - 9: A Day of Emotions, Uneasiness, and Cell Phones

Title:Binbou Shimai Monogatari
Episode:9: A Day of Emotions, Uneasiness, and Cell Phones
Synopsis
Kyou has to cover an additional disctrict in her newspaper job as the carrier for that disctrict before has retired. So she is permanently tired (and even forgets to praise Asu for her delicious breakfast everyday) and can hardly focus on what she's doing, giving Asu some concern that Kyou might get into an accident.
In the shopping district, Asu wins the 3rd price in a lottery for customers: A set of cell phones with prepaid cards for three months (worth 3000 yen)! When Asu shows her price to Kyou, onee-san can hardly believe they're real. Fascinaty by the new technology, they try calling each other in their room - only to hang up immediately as not to waste the previous deposit on their prepaid cards. So they decide to use it only for important matters.
At school, the blonde Ginko is curious about Asu's new cellphone - not even she has her own one so far. But Asu has to rely on Ginko when it comes to switching the device off at school - Ginko's big sister has one, so Ginko knows a lot about these things.
After one week, neither one of the sisters has used their cellphone even once, as to save the precious minutes. Now they decide to be more liberal about it, as it would be even more wasteful not to use their cellphones for the whole three months. After school, Kyou is asked for help by her teacher - and right before Asu can call her to ask which dinner she should make tonight. Asu gives Ginko her number so that she can call her if she wants to, but as she can't connect to Kyou she becomes worried. Ginko asks her for the cellphone as to call her own sister and check the device is working correctly - and soon she's in a long conversation with Kinko while Asu sees her precious minutes fly away... about that time Kyou returns to her classroom and notices that someone has called her cellphone. She now tries to call Asu, only to find out that her sister's device is busy...
Finally Ginko is finished with her call to Kinko. She returns the cellphone to Asu - who sees the call from Kyou that didn't reach her. Asu calls Kyou - but after saying her name the connection is aborted: Asu's device has run out of battery. Ginko tries to hide her conscience-stricken face - she knows whose fault this was. Kyou immediately calls back to Asu, only to learn that "this number isn't available now"... and she's very worried now: Something must have happened to her little sister!
Asu is worried as well: Kyou looked so very tired today. What if she really had an accident? Simultaneously both sisters quit their daily routine and start looking for each other, knowing where the other should usually be at this time. Asu doesn't find Kyou at the newspaper office, and by bad luck she misses the information that Kyou actually was there before. Kyou also doesn't find Asu in the shopping district, and she begins to fear her sister has been kidnapped. Desperately the two sisters are searching for each other...
Comments
[Devil Doll, 2006-09-23:]
That's the kind of story that makes you laugh and cry at the same time, which is what I love about this series. It's true they're making mountains out of mole hills every time, but that's the way a child looks at things. The last minutes of this episode provide a number of relieving surprises and good laughs (and some surprising character development!), which I intentionally left out in my synopsis.

Community Anime Reviews

anime mikomi org