Real Drive - Episode 6

I'm beginning to wonder whether I was a little hasty to label the last episode of Real Drive as 'filler' now, as we seem to have been granted another diving and Metal-free sixth instalment of the series.


In essence, the main story of this episode is the kind of interesting topic which I could expound upon at great length, but seeing as my own opinions on the matter aren't particularly relevant to the episode itself I'll try to resist. The main flow of the story revolves around Minamo's lack of a cyberbrain requiring her to read good old-fashioned paper books for her school work, compared to the digitised copies used and available on-line for everybody else. While others find the concept of physical books rather an oddity, Minamo relishes in it - The feel, the texture, those little signs of the lives of those who have read the book before you, and so on.

Moving on from that interesting paper versus 'virtual' book debate, Minamo begins reading a book called 'Love Letter' - A book which was never digitised as it leaves its final page blank for the reader to write a letter of their own, the kind of trick you can't pull off so suavely in a digital world. Thus the story ebbs and flows, until the book and its concept finds itself entwined with a part of Haru's past. It's sentimental stuff and a little emotional, which at least lends the episode some credence beyond simply opening up that aforementioned debate.

It's hard for me to know what to make of these episodes, as I really wasn't expecting anything of the sort from Real Drive - It's certainly a far cry from the highbrow techno-babble of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (whose stand-alone episodes stayed on the same basic track of the show), and even the earlier episodes of this very series. While this perhaps adds a more human element to the show, and I can't say that I disliked this episode by any stretch of the imagination, I must confess I'm keen to get back to the real meat of the show, although given these past couple of episodes I'm wondering when that might actually happen.

So, to close, I suppose I can just take a leaf out of 'Love Letter', and leave a blank space so that you can write your own thoughts on the episode. Oh wait, I have that already - It's called the 'Post a Comment' button....