English Dub Review: Smile Down The Runway; “A Professional’s World”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Stumbling down from the high of his successes, Ikuto is made to search himself once more for the motivation to pursue his passion

Our Take

Well, just as quickly as Ikuto’s future is formed does it crumble apart. I guess we couldn’t have that much of a good thing at once. Chiyuki’s father reneges all of his offers to Ikuto, simply because he does not employ high schoolers. Chiyuki is chided by her father for all the lying she did, but Ikuto decides to sheepishly accept all of the blame for her. 

Ikuto is willing to wipe his hands of the debacle, but Chiyuki remains adamant that Ikuto sticks to his passion, refusing his refusal. She then off-handedly insults his work, which surprisingly inspires an outburst of anger from Ikuto. While a bit unexpected, it isn’t outside the realm of reason for even a softspoken boy like Ikuto to have a button that can be pushed. It seems he is the sort of craftsman who would say, “You can insult me, but don’t insult my work.” Even if he doesn’t have lofty ambitions, he appears to have a great amount of pride in what he makes. 

Rather than sparking an argument, the two teenagers feel immediate remorse and apologize. Ikuto opens the fashion magazine Chiyuki had with their debut project in and for the first time sees all of the fruits of his labor at once. With a boost in confidence in having fully recognized his potential, Ikuto returns to Chiyuki’s father to beg for a chance. While Chiyuki’s father still cannot offer him a job at Mille Neige, he does send him over to the studio of an ex-employee.

Here we meet the prodigious Hajime, who puts Ikuto straight to work by having him finish a dress that Hajime is currently modeling himself. Hajime’s is prickly, blunt, and sharp, all at the same time and all to a fault. He is quick to deride everybody at the first opportunity and grievously overworks his dressmakers. At first, he appears to be the master who is overly-critical but is willing to help his employee improve. But that image may potentially be faulty as we will see later on.

After dismissing Ikuto for a mishap on the dress, Hajime does grant him his additional chance, though not without rebuffing him first. In each instance he is rejected, Ikuto reminds himself of Chiyuki’s steadfast resolve and bolsters himself with it. Witnessing Ikuto use Chiyuki’s confidence upon himself is great, but it’s particularly interesting when you consider they aren’t entirely friends. Strictly speaking, while they are definitely (mostly) friendly to one another, they function more like business partners together. Motivations are being exchanged, along with a little bit of camaraderie, but they don’t have a ton of screen time where they explicitly bond with each other. While some would appreciate an approach with more bonding and a bit of it would certainly serve it well, I think this approach works just as well, choosing to instead show the characters working hard and falling back on each other when they’re feeling down. 

Ikuto is allowed to tag along with Hajime’s studio to Tokyo Fashion Week, the biggest fashion week in Japan (which is actually a real thing). Disaster strikes for Hajime though, as one of his models drops out on him at the last minute and he has to rely on a replacement. Said replacement is, of course, the freshly minted Chiyuki, who now receives her chance to prove herself.

Disaster strikes yet again for Hajime, as the horrendously overworked Moriyama suffers a nosebleed and passes out, unable to perform the finishing touches on the dresses. This is where Hajime’s image of unconventional competence sort of devolves into plain old incompetence. Granted, he’s a fairly new indie studio at only six months in operation, and a model bailing on him is completely out of his control. But working his only two employees until one of them is nearly comatose and the other loses consciousness from a little nosebleed when he cannot perform any of their duties himself is basically the easiest recipe for running your company into the ground. He bemoans that unexpected disaster just fell upon him, but he very clearly dumped it upon himself. It’s probably too early to make a definitive judgment call on Hajime’s character, but this isn’t a particularly flattering start. 

Now the only dressmaker left alive in the room, Ikuto receives his chance in the spotlight. The two protagonists’ opportunities to prove themselves have perfectly aligned to benefit each other simultaneously. Next week, we’ll see them tackle Tokyo Fashion Week and how they perform in their second collaboration.