Aria the Animation #6: That Which You Want to Protect…

The letters between Akari and Ai provide a deeper reflection of the story. What does Ai’s cooking have to do with the relationship between Alice and Athena?

Mistakes are rarely a good thing, but they aren’t necessarily disasters; it depends on how you respond to them. Akari’s boundless optimism helps her overcome her inexperience, but her clumsiness doesn’t compare to Athena. Whether this bothered her in the past we don’t know, but now she accepts her mistakes, deals with them, then carries on. To someone with a strong sense of decorum, like Alice, this looks like carelessness. Athena, however, has more trust that other people will be forgiving of her.

It would be sad if Alice weren’t able to trust others. She doesn’t seem to have many friends at Orange Planet, even though the other girls are kind enough. It’s true that her age separates her from the rest of her class, but it isn’t like the intimidation felt towards the princess Aika at Himeya. Despite being at the largest company, she still ended up practicing with two older girls from Aria and Himeya. Even then, she finds it difficult to open up to Akari as she admits she’d rather ask advice from Aika. Never mind letting Athena know how she’s feeling. Because she doesn’t think they’ll have an answer that she’d be happy with. That desire to know the answer to a question ahead of time stops her from ever asking in the first place. So she struggles to deal with problems by herself. And when she makes a mistake, it embarrasses her and makes her want to hide it even more. It’s her own imperfection that she’s afraid of. The trust she’s lacking isn’t the belief in the goodness of others, but that they won’t see the goodness in her. Being able to let yourself be seen at your worst is the lesson she has the most difficulty with. And there’s no one more qualified to teach it than Athena.

Relying on other people isn’t about how much you believe in them. It’s how much you believe in yourself and accepting your imperfections. Then you won’t be afraid of making mistakes, because you’ll have the confidence to act knowing that your friends will help you out. And what you thought was a failure, such as burnt potatoes, may not be so bad after all.

Okay, next up will be Aria the Origination #2: That Smiling Customer…