As expected, I didn’t expect a Chiyu redemption arc. Still, does she really deserve it after acting like a righteous Karen for so long? Or is it Kukuru that caused it from the beginning?
It seems that Takeshita after a year after giving birth to her new son is finally back on the job. Now, she is working at Tingaara as the aquarium’s vet. Of course, Chiyu acts cold towards her when Takeshita thought she met her before. You might think it’s because Chiyu is stuck up. Not too surprising, but it’s obvious that Chiyu is hiding something. More on that later.
Apparently, Takeshita and Fuuka checks on a penguin egg. It’s about to hatch, thus the penguin team need to stay overnight. Fuuka eventually shares the news about it to Fuuka. That is besides Takeshita showing photos of her newborn son. Of course, Chiyu who is usually self-righteous told her manager that she can’t stay overnight. The manager takes her off the schedule, which is apparently not what Chiyu wanted.
As expected, Kukuru eventually chastise Chiyu, which causes more conflict with her. Of course, she brushes it off until Kukuru mentions that some people can’t breed, even if they wanted to. Chiyu paused a bit here, which makes you wonder if she is hiding the fact that she has a child.
After work, it seems that Chiyu is late to go somewhere. When Takeshita picked up her child, she sees Chiyu running into the building. Yep, I can see why she met her before. We find out that Chiyu has a young son. However, he came down with an illness and Chiyu calls in sick. This of course causes a big understanding with Kukuru thinking that Chiyu is a self-righteous Karen. She decides to take Chiyu’s position and helping out Fuuka and Marina, after she finishes her regular work.
As expected, Chiyu reacts negatively to Kukuru “taking her position” when she found out. What do you expect when you treat Kukuru like crap? Your coworkers aren’t going to treat you well. Of course, when Kukuru finds out Chiyu’s situation, she kinds of felt guilty, especially how she treated Chiyu in the past. As expected, Chiyu causes a lot of drama as she doesn’t want Kukuru to help her. Chiyu also believes that thinks Kukuru is taking her job. Of course, people treat it as another fight between Chiyu and Kukuru until Takeshita brings it up to Chiyu.
With that, I can see why Kukuru feels bad about all the bad things she said to Chiyu after finding out the truth. It’s not too surprising since Kukuru wasn’t mature back then and treated her terribly. It’s obvious that Kukuru was very resentful in training her competitor when she wanted to save Gama Gama.
From this, it’s obvious that Kukuru burnt that bridge without realizing that Chiyu might be her coworker. Of course, Chiyu was stuck up when they first met. If Kukuru treated her with respect and find common interests such as love for sea creatures, maybe their relationship wouldn’t be this bad,
After finding out the truth, it’s obvious that Kukuru wants to help mend the relationship with Chiyu. Instead of talking to her, Kukuru does what she does best. She decides to babysit Takeshita’s baby son. Yes, it was a disaster as Kukuru couldn’t stop him from crying.
Meanwhile, Fuuka talked to Chiyu and wanted to know more about her. She was reluctant, but she eventually told her that she became an aquarium attendant after graduating high school. She seen got married and had a child before having an established career.
We all know that taking care a child is hard and takes a lot of financial resources. Thanks to the lack of family leave and her husband being lazy, Chiyu’s former employer fired her when she took too many day offs. Of course, her husband left her. This leaves Chiyu struggling as a single mother as she lost her dream job. After finding another job listing for another aquarium, Chiyu felt that she had another chance. she worked hard to get into that position. To prevent herself from losing her job again, she hid the fact that she had a child.
I know that being a single mother is hard. This is especially so when the woman wants to focus on her career, but unable to. This is thanks to lack of things like paid family leave, childcare, and the like to raise a child without hindering one’s career. If only we had those things.
Then again, maybe Chiyu is in this situation since she is not mature enough to balance parenting and having a career at the same time. Most humans don’t mature until about 25 years old as the brain is still developing. Still, I have a feeling that Chiyu’s former employer and her ex-husband are a-holes. I feel that this is becoming a reoccurring theme with some people treating others like crap. Either way, she delt a bad hand.
Of course, Chiyu admits that she hates Kukuru since she believes that Kukuru doesn’t take the job seriously. However, she doesn’t know that Kukuru tried to save an aquarium that is in decline or working hard protecting all the animals during a typhoon. Sure, Kukuru’s animosity against Chiyu caused her to become resentful. However, Chiyu acting stuck up probably didn’t help either.
Either way, Chiyu eventually reveals the truth to everyone and brings her son to work. She eventually shows him around the aquarium. This of course reminds Kukuru her experiences with her parents. Eventually they apologize for their misunderstandings as they start to mend their relationship.
Even so, I don’t think Chiyu haven’t earn my respect yet by how she acted. Then again, it shows that we aren’t perfect, and people can redeem themselves if they admit that they are wrong. After all, if Kukuru didn’t treat Chiyu like crap when they first met, maybe she wouldn’t act the way she did. As for Kukuru’s boss, I don’t think he will ever be redeemable, ever, no matter what.
Chiyu’s still a pain despite having a very relatable struggle. Doesn’t excuse her from looking down on the Gama Gama peeps all this time, especially Kukuru. They had the nerve to make Kukuru bad at first for trying to get a promotion despite not knowing what’s going on at the time.
Still a pretty good episode with a strong theme.
The dilemma is that sure, she is dealt with a bad hand, some with poor decision, but her snobby and Karen personality just ruins it. Then again, Kukuru was mean to her initially probably didn’t help matters. Still, it will be interesting to see if Chiyu changes or go back to acting her usual way.