Umi Ryuuzaki Quotes

Umi is easy to file as the trio's complainer, and Anime News Network's Blu-ray review does exactly that, calling her the "tantrum-prone complainer" before allowing that she mellows. This rant is the usual exhibit, and it is sharper than that reading allows. Earlier in the same episode Umi borrows the orb Ferio gave Fuu, wishes to get back to Tokyo and win her fencing tournament, and argues that because Cephiro is the land of the will, time at home will slow down if she simply wills it. Then the world rewards Fuu for something Umi calls reckless. Her complaint is a rules question: she has just bet everything on wanting hard enough, and Cephiro appears to be paying out for nerve instead. The joke about drivers is Umi noticing that will and recklessness look identical from outside. She is objecting to the system, not to Fuu.

Selece's answer is what makes this line work: "In this world, Cephiro, the heart that believes becomes power." That is the series' rule stated outright, and the finale's title, "The Tomorrow that the Believing Heart Opens," repeats it. For Umi to be the one who earns it, the show first had to build her opposite. In the first season she wishes on an orb for Tokyo and a fencing trophy and protests when Cephiro's rules seem to favor someone else. Here she volunteers to face Tarta and Tatra alone because she trusts them to fight fair, nine episodes after she was complaining that the same two princesses had taken all her clothes, armor included, and dressed her in Chizeta's costume. Once the fight is over, Umi and Tarta are yelling "Whaddaya think!?" at each other while Tatra predicts they will be the best of friends. The belief Selece rewards turns out to be belief in other people, which is a stranger rule than the one about willpower.