English Dub Review: RE-MAIN “But, Give Us a Hendy”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Minato, Jo, and the rest of the water polo team are ready and willing to give it their all this season, but they still have a problem: they can’t compete with the current number of club members they have. Jo has been scouting a potential new recruit. Shugo Amihama is a super fast swimmer who hasn’t picked a club yet, but will they be able to convince him to join? After stalking him across campus all day, he agrees to a race that may decide the fate of the water polo club… and the team loses.

Our Take:

When RE-MAIN started out, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. There were a number of potential directions the series could go in, from following Minato’s recovery efforts to exploring his relationship with the strange girl who bet against his success. But at least for now, the show is heading towards pretty standard fare for club sports series: recruiting new members to join.

It seems like every anime about weird clubs has to have an episode or two devoted to trying to attract more club members and RE-MAIN is no exception. Despite the fairly novel addition of Minato’s memory loss and his physical degradation, But, Give Us a Hendy plays out with a pretty typical plot of identifying a potential with good stats and then trying everything under the sun to get them interested. Luckily, even when it isn’t breaking boundaries in storytelling, RE-MAIN still manages to be a well-written and fun show to watch.

It seems obvious that Amihama is going to be joining the club eventually, but the ways in which the current members try to gain his attention are some of the funniest moments I’ve seen in a sport club series. After sending Minato to confront him and watching their famous member fail completely, the water polo teams enacts a kind of short form drama skit all over campus, following Amihama from the bathrooms to the hallways and making sure they talk really loudly and enthusiastically about water polo. It gives the voice actors a chance to have a lot of fun in their delivery, and was definitely the highlight of the episode.

The actual race is fun to watch, although it’s not exactly as thrilling for the audience as it could be. We don’t really know how fast each of the members is yet, and since the race isn’t exactly a 1:1 due to the handicap, it was a little hard to know how close they were until the end. Minato already seems to be recovering well from his time off, which seems a little speedy, but hey, he’s gotta become the top player before he can settle that bet! (Speaking of which, isn’t it a little strange how seriously he’s taking the bet? Like, he underwent a horrific accident and has documented memory loss, surely it wouldn’t be a big deal to just call it off.)

The dub continues to be very solid. The main cast members are all filling their roles nicely and the English script comes across as very natural and realistic — with the exception of Jo’s ‘water polo with your water bro-los’ phrase…yikes! I know he’s a dad joke kind of guy, but that line felt too cringe-y even for him.

Overall, the third episode of RE-MAIN felt a little underwhelming compared to the excitement and energy of the premiere, but it was still a good outing in general. The members of the club are becoming more unique as we get to know more about them, and I like the number of guys involved — not too many to become overwhelming but enough to give most audiences member someone to identify with. And despite losing the race, I’m betting we’ll have one more guy join the team next episode!