Sakura Quest Episode 18 Review – “Minerva’s Saké Saucer”

(Spoilers in this review) 

1. Maki gets drunk. It’s about time.
2. Yoshino admits that this has nothing to do with the restoration of Manoyama – she just wanted to help these elderly folk (by being their hostage who has a surprising amount of free rein).
3. The Warayiba village has turned into the Republic of Warayiba. The old professor tells Sanae that this whole hostage and secession is just to garner attention on a larger scale and that they’ll be calling off the entire business later.
4. Yoshino tries to confront Takamizawa (the bus driver) and asks him if they could change things. He reveals that he feels miserable seeing the town he grew up in crumble, but he can do nothing. However, he turns to Sanae for help after Yoshino leaves feeling dejected.
5. Sanae and the others end up setting this on-demand bus service which is actually better than the huge bus that no one really rides. Think of it as a bus that functions as a taxi. If you live in North America, imagine Uber or Lyft drivers with vans or something.
6. The Republic of Warayiba rejoins the Kingdom of Chupakabura. Someone sends the girls a message about the location of one of the festival treasures.
7. The professor abruptly dies. A funeral is held, the treasure is retrieved, and it’s theorized that he was the one who tipped them off (after keeping them in the dark for a few days, maybe even a few weeks). The girls use the on-demand bus to return back to Manoyama with the treasure in tow (well, the girls were travelling to and from the village this entire, but now they have some archaic and elaborate staff).

Wow. Didn’t expect someone to actually kick the bucket in Sakura Quest. I guess his role in the story is done since he told them about the one treasure he had in his posession, he gave some lectures to Sanae (he seemed rather attached to her. Perhaps it was because they both came from the city. Hopefully Sanae can figure out her feelings towards Manoyama like he did), and he was able to help his friends. Still, that caught me off guard. I know I said I didn’t like him in the last episode review, but he grew on me really quickly and I didn’t want him to just die like that!

Also was surprising to learn that Takamizawa has a wife and kid! That makes his little argument with Erika (in the previous episode) more amusing. I wonder if he’s a good father and if he gets into verbal spats with his kid like that. I think he’s a bit too paranoid about self-driving cars, to be honest, but that would put him out of business if those sort of things ever do get developed, huh?

This on-demand bus thing was proclaimed the solution, but I’m wondering if it’s really feasible. Drivers for Uber don’t make much money and since this on-demand bus thing is basically Uber with a van, I doubt the company can actually earn money. And who’s driving the traditional bus now that Takamizawa is driving the on-demand bus? Was the bus scrapped altogether?

All in all, this episode just served to be the conclusion to this small Warayiba arc (and everything is solved with a solution that is a bit too neat for my tastes), but the search for the remaining festival treasures continue (one down and two more to go, yay). As such, the episode was a bit silly since they’re making a huge fuss over a minor event, but it was still charming to see people come together for a goal of sorts. Kind of. At least Sanae seems to have grown quite a bit through her repeated interactions with the professor.