English Dub Review: Hina Logic from Luck & Logic “Success Comes from Dreaming”

That’s right, their class is practically exploding with… explosions.

Overview (Spoilers)

Now that the girls are back from their summer break, they have to present their research projects. While Yayoi obviously did not make her sculpture of a Disfia foreigner, Mahiro obviously did build that cardboard machine. If you know anything about her, that should terrify you. The teachers’ duck for cover as the student council saves everyone with an announcement revealing the theme for the school festival: our relationship with the foreigners. Inspired by the song sung by Liones a couple episodes back, Mahiro suggests they put on a musical featuring that song. After all, it comes from a foreigner. She is surprised when Yayoi not only loves the idea but decides that Mahiro should lead the project. Now her problem is… writer’s block. In the meantime, a bit more sparring reveals a major issue with Liones. She’s too empathic. This means that no matter who she trances with, it effectively becomes a traceback, with the foreigner in complete control. She needs more training, now in strengthening her heart and her sense of self. Mahiro finally comes up with her story for the musical. A girl from Monolium and a girl from Tetra-Heaven meet, but can’t understand each other. So, they learn to communicate through song.

Well, here we are in episode eight. What was that I sniffed? Was that plot? Are we actually going somewhere? I hope so. The entire series, they’ve been poking at the concept that something isn’t right with the relationship between Liones and Rosa. Now, they’ve finally said what it was. Honestly, I was expecting something dark with Rosa, and we still might get that. We still know next to nothing about the foreigner characters we’ve seen in this show, unlike in Luck & Logic, where the foreigners were vital parts of the story and had personalities of their own.

Most of the girls also reveal their new covenants. Yayoi uses the grace and agility of Nagi, a foreigner that seems to be inspired by a tengu. Her opponent, Mahiro, uses another mechanical union called Dread. The mock battle between Liones and Nina was rather exciting, with them swapping between their covenants as necessary to get the upper hand in the fight. Liones’ new covenant is with Waffle, a childish foreigner from Monolium that uses a pair of blades and incredible speed. Nina can keep up with her because of Amor’s flight and Michael’s defensive abilities. Liones seems to have gotten very close to Waffle in a very short time, though, as she now Trances with him… her… it reflexively when in danger.

Our Take

This episode was delightfully written. They made sure not to linger on any one subject too long and hit on all the different aspects an episode needs to. Character development, plot development, action, and humor. Granted, the show’s naturally saccharine nature keeps things from getting to deal with the feels, but the characters are growing. Just slowly. Problem is, we only have three episodes left. Slow character growth is going to run out of time soon. They’re going to need to drop some real development and plot soon, and stop beating around the bush. What would be interesting is to either get the hidden past between Rosa and Liones, or to have Liones get fully tracejacked and become the unwilling big bad. I doubt they are going to go with the latter, and a bit of me is worried we aren’t going to see the former either, but these would be fun stories to watch.

The action sequence was well animated and full of impact with the Liones/Waffle union. Her natural energy blended with Waffles makes for an entertaining and intense fighter in personality. The animation also reveals something that, while I noticed earlier, I never put together. The show has been hinting at Liones’ little problem since the first episode. When trancing with Rosa or Waffle, Liones visually acts different, and her eyes are wildly different. With Rosa, her eyes droop a bit, giving her a sultry look. She moves slowly, almost languidly, letting her plants do the work for her. Waffle makes her eyes huge and shiny, and she’s much more active, bouncing everywhere. The show has been telling us that Liones is giving too much of herself away to the foreigners since day one, and I thought it was just a design choice.

And that’s also the point where voice acting comes into the discussion. Brittany Lauda did an excellent job using her voice to further portray the difference between Liones’ different states. She makes he voice lower and (again) more sultry when portraying the Rosa fusion, and higher and perkier with Waffle. The difference was subtle with Waffle at first, as she just sounded slightly more excited. Switching to Rosa highlighted the differences between Waffle Liones and normal Liones. I think this was great voice acting on Lauda’s part, and only made the differences in the characters’ animations more obvious and poignant. Also, since it seems to be something I’ve been keeping track of lately, Mikaela Krantz (Yayoi) did not annoy me today. Yay! Toning down the stuck-up airs makes her voice much more tolerable to hear, and I rather liked the character in this episode. Yayoi sounded less like a spoiled and egotistical rich girl with an obnoxious attitude, and more like a confident leader who is trying to make herself out to be more than she thinks she is. It’s a fine line in sound, and perhaps a bit academic, but it at least avoids the high pitches that hurt my ears.

With some good animation and considerate writing, this episode was well put-together. The voice acting is really what put it higher in my opinion, as it really brought out more in the characters. As I’ve been saying for a few shows lately, I want them to start going somewhere pretty fast, or the show will fall flat. Until then, this episode gets eight new transformations out of ten.