English Dub Review: Masamune-kun’s Revenge “Clear and Present Danger”

Narratives are usually two steps forwards, one step back. This… Is a waltz.

Spoilers BelowAfter his date with Aki, Masamune feels a step closer to his goal of trouncing the ice queen’s reign. He goes back to his trusty shoujo manga to help him get to the next step. Well, constantly staring at a girl and telling her you only have eyes for her might be a romantic gesture in fiction, but in reality… it’s just creepy. These are the things that fathers need to tell their sons early in life. I’m looking at you, Dad. Masamune plays up all of the romance manga tropes and does it all with false charisma to the nines. He even gives her his umbrella, braving the rains in the process. This helps not his cause.

Yoshino takes him aside and explains that he’s overplaying it, but a shot in the opposite direction might help fix things. Give her the cold shoulder. So, he gives her a taste of what he had gotten from her in episode one. Every time she tries to return his umbrella, he acts as if she isn’t even there. Time and again, he walks right past her, spending his time with others, where he would be flirting with her. The effect is palpable, actually shaking her to her core. If all goes according to plan, she would meet him in a secluded place and confess her feelings to get to understand his… and then, he wins.

Instead, she confronts him in the hall. Angrily. That is not a “just as planned” moment, Masamune. He tries to dodge around her, and almost manages to escape, but she gets a hold of his necktie and pulls. Down on the ground, with her screaming at him and strangling the life out of him, he’s left to wonder where he went wrong as he blacks out. When all hope is lost, and it feels for sure that he’s going to wake up in the nurse’s office, her voice rings out to him again. “Why have you been ignoring me?” It isn’t angry or even frustrated. Just… hurt. That’s when he sees the truth. This is how she handles these feelings of insecurity. She’s hurt, and lashes out at him. But now that she’s gotten it out of her system, she’s left with the honest truth of her feelings. Her shy vulnerability brings out her inner mom, and he has to fight himself to keep from falling for her. In this sincere, heartfelt moment, she confronts him with a question that is vital to everyone who has ever been hurt, insecure, and feeling unlovable. What do you like about me?

Aaaaaaaand he blows it. This could have sealed the deal, but every reason for him to like her also had a flip side of why he shouldn’t. Unable to answer the question properly, he tucks tail and runs. Yoshino calls him out on it afterwards, and he begs for her not to give up, but the situation is dire. He tries to write a love letter to Aki, hoping to let the written word convey (false) feelings. She won’t even look at it. She crumples it into the trash and runs, skipping class to go to a playground for solace. Unfortunately for her, she is now alone with her confused, mangled, upside-down thoughts, and none of them are happy she cut class. Yoshino arrives to help her sort through things, but that is little aid. You see, Aki had seen yesterday’s little meeting between her maid and Masamune. She couldn’t hear everything, so she couldn’t have context, but it was enough to convince her that Yoshino was secretly stealing away the boy that had tied her heartstrings into knots. The only thing that rang through to her is “He only has eyes for you, you know”. Her heart and thoughts jumbling even worse, Aki stumbles around town. Not paying attention, she wanders into traffic as a sports car speeds through the intersection. And that’s the end of the series.

I kid. Masamune arrives in the nick of time to pull her out of harm’s way, admitting that he wouldn’t know what to do if anything happened to her. But something… felt honest about that. Saving her again melts away some of the worry and she opens up to the possibility that maybe, this guy might just be for real. The driver of the car walks up to check if they are all right, stepping in the middle of this touching scene.

And throws herself into Masamune’s arms. As she does so, the same question we are asking ricochets around in Masamune’s head like a .22lr rifle round in a steel can. WHO THE HECK IS THIS?

Unlike the last episode, which felt like two slapped together, this one feels like a single episode that zips right by. The constant back-and-forthing the conflicted emotions, it all just keeps you guessing. While Aki catching him by the necktie isn’t unexpected, her verbally savaging him afterward makes you take a step back and wonder what the heck is wrong with her. Something is wrong with her, and it is painfully obvious that something that happened with Masamune in the past broke her heart as much as it did his. This episode makes you much more sympathetic towards Aki, without villainizing Masamune at all. This is a tough balance to reach in writing.

Visually, this episode had its ups and downs. Early on, I noticed a few visual glitches in the animation that were slight but showed a lack of supervision. Later, however, the art and animation actually kicked up during the necktie-choke and his rescue of her. We see a very thoughtfully animated scene of her touching his arm. It kinda made up for the glitches I saw, but there is an irregularity that might need to be addressed by the studio. The dub continues to be right where it needs to be. Aki showed a much larger array of emotion, and it was all very believable. Even I had a hard time continuing to be mad at shy Aki.

The writing having stepped up a bit this week, and the dub striving for excellence, keeps the show in my good graces, despite the visual glitches. I give it eight crumpled love letters out of ten.