English Dub Review: Ensemble Stars “Miracle”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The SS is put on delay while the runners deal with the “technical difficulties” of the smear campaign launched against Subaru. The rest of Trickstar consoles him backstage while they try to figure out who did it. Subaru reveals that back when his dad was alive, a crazy fan climbed onstage and tried to grapple him, but when he was shaken off, the fan fell to the ground below — Subaru’s dad wasn’t blamed, but other charges (such as financial crimes and alleged treatment of his workers) started to pop up in the investigation, so people were quick to label him as a murderer and bad guy anyway. Hokuto deduces that Eden didn’t actually do this, and goes to confront them about what to do.

Eden discovers that it was actually the CosPro higher-ups/producers who orchestrated the attack on Subaru, so when Eden goes out to perform, they give Trickstar an opening to halt the performance to call out the CosPro scandal. The item that Wataru and Hokuto found in Hokuto’s father’s chest was actually a flash-drive containing evidence that cleared Subaru’s father’s name. Subaru announces they contacted authorities, the proof is now public, and that he hopes they’ll still have faith in him and Trickstar. The CosPro higher-ups are arrested.

Trickstar then performs a beautiful number, and unsurprisingly, beats Eden in the SS. Nagisa gives Subaru his respect concerning his dad, and Trickstar performs an encore alongside all the characters.

Our Take

A finale that gave us everything we expected, a few things we didn’t, and, simultaneously, not enough.

Ensemble Stars has been an anime that really never raised its stakes — or rather, its stakes were never that serious to begin with, so it never had a lot of drama. It’s been very cutesy, even when the cast was dealing with sabotage. This arc with Subaru’s dad has been the most serious the show has ever gotten, but knowing the overall tone of the show, it was pretty predictable that everything would turn out okay in the end. There was so much content with Subaru’s dad in this episode that it absolutely warranted more of a buildup when it came to this arc. They tried to shoehorn in surprise the fact that Nagisa had just remembered his dad and Subaru’s dad were great friends, and that Subaru’s dad was a good person, but it just didn’t work. Why did that only occur to him now?

In the end, they decided to make the antagonists unnamed higher-ups with no faces, so it really didn’t have much of an impact. Also, why did Hokuto’s dad just happen to have a hidden flash-drive of evidence that Subaru’s dad was innocent? The fact that this just coincidentally and conveniently appeared when the gang needed it seemed really…unlikely.

However, all the musical performances and animations in this finale were pretty beautiful, and Subaru’s speech was heartfelt. Even though it was hilarious that Subaru acted as though he’d been physically beat up by the attempted smear, it still wound up being a pretty fitting finale.

…Oh yeah, and Anzu was there too.