English Dub Season Review: Chio’s School Road Season One
Chio’s School Road talks the talk, but does it walk the walk?
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a deeply critical sort of guy. With every show that lands in my anime feed, I’m always examining, poking, prying at the edges of whatever anime I’m taking in, unraveling it to see it for what it really is. Yet, sometimes, I find even my trademark cynicism charmed by wacky, nutball animes that really have no right to be as funny and cute as they are.
In short, I’m a sucker for a good anime comedy.
How happy I was then, to find Chio’s School Road, a 12 episode cotton candy explosion of a show that’s got as much heart as it does sass. And believe me, there’s a lot of sass.
The setup is refreshingly simple but perfectly appropriate for the anime genre. There’s a high school girl named Chio, as normal as any other, save for her otaku’s imagination, which she uses to make her walks to and from school just a bit more interesting. She’s the kid who ducks around corners, pretending to be Solid Snake, the good-natured weirdo coming up with shenanigan after shenanigan to make life just that much more interesting. Along the way, she rolls with a cast of like-minded misfits, most notably her friend Manana, who serves as something of a straight man for Chio’s silliness. (Though she definitely doesn’t suffer from her own brand of hair-brained ideas) Each week, these two endure one adolescent odyssey after another, getting into some real goofball situations. The kind of stuff you would tell stories about to your pals at lunch.
Sound familiar? It should. Chio’s School Road bears a remarkable similarity to “Nichijou”, another screwball high school girl comedy about adding a little spice to one’s mundane life. Chio’s School Road is something of its spiritual successor, which isn’t at all a bad thing. It’s an excellent premise for a comedy, one that allows for spunky dialogue and has enough motion to put the visual medium of anime to good use. Yet, that does mean that in my eyes at least, Chio’s adventures are something of a “Diet Nichijou.” They’re good, familiar, entertaining, but very much not the classic comedy I’m looking for.
The comedy you’ll find here is mostly based on the over-the-top situations Chio and her friends get into, along with their outrageous reactions to problems. Both Chio and Manana are vain, short-sighted, and impulsive, but this is all part of the charm. There is an excellent chemistry in the dialogue between these two, whose friendship serves as the engine where the funny is made. If Chio wasn’t likable, if Manana was annoying, if their characters made me roll my eyes, then this show certainly wouldn’t work. Yet, the two are as relatable as they come, and their antics remind me of a younger me, as I imagine most of us can. The show taps into that most human of features: the imagination; the mind that, when faced with a boring walk to school every day, creates its own fun.
When it comes to anime comedies, the main thing that can kill the funny is the English dub. Japanese humor is exceptionally hard to translate since a lot of it relies on language puns and cultural references that simply don’t exist in the American world. This means the dubbers of Chio’s School Road had a titanic task ahead of them. I am happy to say, however, that this dub completely nails it. Slam dunk. Touchdown. Goal. The localization of this show is the bomb, exploding over and over again each new episode. This dub is so fluid, so filled with idioms, slang and western culture that one almost forgets this show originated from Japan. Not to mention, the voice acting for Chio and Manana is done with enough adolescent charm that the two of them feel like actual American teenagers. They talk like a couple of memesters who spend too much time on the internet, an interpretation of their characters that works like peanut butter with chocolate. It’s delightful, and one can’t help but grin and chuckle at nearly every line spouting from Chio’s mouth.
There’s a lot to love about this show, but, sadly, not all is perfect. Chio’s School Road, for all of its strengths, just never really gets to that level of quality to make it a must-see. It’s entertaining for what it is, but it doesn’t stick with you. In other words, you’ll chuckle quite a bit watching this series, but you will rarely burst out laughing. The shenanigans can be a bit predictable, and the screwball humor doesn’t go far enough to smack you over the head like a good joke is supposed to.
If you want a good series to watch, would give this show a look. If you need a pick me up or want to enjoy something charming with which you can decompress from your day, then you’ve got a solid choice right here. It’s a good show, but there’s just something missing here, that piece that could elevate Chio’s School Road to something really special.
"There are also other characters that come and go (also owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery conglomerate media company)."
Huh. Is that just referring to other characters from the show itself, or is this implying that the new season is going to have cameos from other WBD IPs