My heart pounds fast just thinking about it. It’s my desperate wish to experience a real life treasure hunt, something that’s exquisite. I’m not talking about real buried golden treasures, it’s all about the puzzle and solving it such as simple letterboxing^[1] events. This is probably the reason why I enjoy Shounen Tantei-dan episodes of Detective Conan, which very few viewers find to be amusing. I do concur that those brats are damn annoying at times but puzzles are just tickling to my senses. Oh no, I’m starting to sound here like an adult deprived of playing games during his childhood. But then again, I would have been more glad if I was able to experience it during my younger days.

Of course, memories would always mean a lot for people. I, for one, would be delighted if I’d be able to enjoy it together with my friends. Treasure hunts offer not only fun memories of that certain experience, it also allows us to explore places we are not even aware that exists. Narrow alleys, secret passages, and even tunnels that lead somewhere, these are just few of your possible discoveries during the quest. Sometimes, we overlook and take many things for granted. I do not think of treasure hunts as an activity just to exercise your psyche, but more of an activity to appreciate things you fail to notice — by allowing time itself to do its job.

My favorite treasure hunt so far would be Aria’s^[2] because I really felt drawn unto that chapter. I had mixed feelings while reading it. I was even tempted to take a stroll around our subdivision, although it saddened me a bit since I highly doubt that some mysterious box containing such poetic clues for your next destination exists in real life. When I think of it, even I doesn’t know the convoluted routes of my very own city.

Maybe I was somewhat carried away by this chapter. Anyway, it’s also not just a matter of experiencing the thing itself because reaching the goal has its own spurring effect once you feel you’ve achieved something.

Treasure Hunting, directs you where you must go to reach the goal, it gives out clues to your destination, unlike real life. I guess liking it has also some sort of manifestation in escaping the adversity of the real deal. Then again, who cares about that, I mean, I actually believe that doing deductive thinking (which is necessary in deducting your clues in puzzles) improves your capability of solving the real ones. After all, what if the real path actually coincides with what you are presently doing? No one can really say. So in the end, it’s just a matter of belief, huh?

Well yes, probably. If you believe that you’ll find something of worth at the end of the tunnel, then why not try it? Do I really have to say that? I really think majority of the people would grab a drab of old map just because it might lead to some buried treasure. But then, there are people who rejects this idea of finding something valuable at the end. Does that really matter? What about your discoveries along the way? Will you disregard them as invaluable learning experiences?

This doesn’t actually just apply to the treasure hunt only but to all things. The moment you think you won’t gain anything out of it, then that would really be the result because you didn’t even put any effort on doing so. Even at this point in time, we are currently participating on each of our own treasure hunt to find what we desire for our lives. (cheesy eh?)

Based on this certain chapter of Aria, I believe Akari really is a very fetching character because she doesn’t seem to have an end on her mind whenever she does things but you’ll just be surprised by how she handle things, even during unexpected events. Meanwhile, Alice-chan is profound as always. And, yep I’m kind of envy that she could still manage her hobby of just walking past the streets and alleys despite the time constraint of her training to be a full-fledged Undine. Aika, is stubborn as always, but she is also a kid at heart, even though she often tries to look tough at times, which is probably why I feel most empathetic towards her character.
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[2]- Volume 3, Navigation 13

Actually, I decided to read the manga prior to watching the last 3rd season of the anime because the translation of the manga isn’t done yet, but I might reconsider re-watching all three seasons once more. The anime really has an astounding track to listen to and it makes me imagine as if I’m on an Italian café. Meanwhile, the manga is a little bit more concise when it comes to details. The plot is the same for both although the anime has few nice fillers.

Also, Akari’s e-mail penpal wasn’t really specified who but the anime did referred it though as Ai-chan. It was somewhat fishy though since Ai-chan was introduced right off the bat in the anime and wasn’t in the manga but both had a similar ending.

I was easily captivated by this anime, and it’s probably because of its somehow trivial yet heart-warming anecdotes. This series never failed to show me a new side for new things and encounters. And probably, because of its utopian setting as well, which I would like to experience myself. Yeah, I’m definitely guilty of thinking maybe the world is better off to be similar to Aqua. Oh well, too bad, it might take not just a millennium before Mars is terraformed.

I’ve never been so attached to an anime, as if I never like it to end, and I think I’ve experienced it for the first time on Aria. ara ara~ XD.

Alicia-san is probably seen as an onee-sama figure of everyone. I do like her a lot not because of her funny antics but because of her mature character in the show. Alicia-san always seemed to everyone as if she is always composed but we’ve seen an unknown side of her when she admittedly told that her selfishness was partly the reason why Akari’s prima qualification exam was the latest to took place.

a clear representation of my expression during the retirement ceremony of Alicia-san...

We all know at the back of our minds that everything has to end, including all those happy moments we’ve spent with our dearest ones. This was probably the theme of the story that touched me the most, besides the “appreciation of even simple things”. I’m probably one of those people that would rather stop being attached to a person or a thing so I won’t be hurt once the time we spend finally cease to an end. Yep, I know that it’s so coward of me not to face it head on but, I’m the type of person that isn’t really convinced that every goodbye entails a start of a new beginning.

And so, I was really sad during the episode 13 of the Origination because I get this feeling that once this retirement ceremony is done, those moments from the previous chapters and episodes won’t happen again. They’ll all be a memory of the past. My sadness was further reinforced when Akari began seeing all those events that happened in the Aria Company during Alicia-san’s stay there. It is just so sad, the fact that all of their paths finally diverged from each other after all those fun get together. But then again, I’m happy as well since even though Akari is somewhat melancholic, she was still able to cope up with the situation she is in. A thing many of us should learn from her.

Aria really teaches that important concept of appreciating all the things happening around us, might it be simple or not, because the time will come, it will be a memory of the past, and it will be too late already to regret at what happened during the past. Even though things has to end at that specific time, we must at least believe that it will open up possibilities for us. Possibilities we might have not explored yet, that will define our future.

Even though we don’t know what the future holds for us, we should still continue on looking forward. Let’s just go with what Alicia-san said on how she views it — “Getting stuck on the happy things of the past and losing sight of the happy things now is such a waste. It’s not ‘it was so fun that time’ but ‘that time was fun, too’.” — which quite holds for everything.