English Dub Review: RE-MAIN “Dude, That’s Scary!!!”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The team tries to compete against the junior high water polo team, but they lose in spectacular fashion. The final score winds up being 18-0 in favor of the grade schoolers and the team is not happy about it. Everyone is upset about the loss, but no one expected Eitaro to walk out and say he’s considering quitting the team.

Later that night, Eitaro visits Minato’s house and confesses that he mislead him about the nature of their relationship. They’re not actually best friends and in fact, Eitaro has never played in a water polo game before. But before he quits the team, Minato makes a discovery that gives both of them renewed hope for the future of Minato and the team.

Our Take:

Coming off last week’s episode, I was excited to see the second half of the water polo game against the grade schoolers. Turns out, it was even worse than the first half — at least for Minato and crew. This fifth episode of RE-MAIN finds the team in a really dark place afterwards, and almost leads to the team falling apart. Luckily, Minato lives up to his main character status and is able to bring the team back together again… at least for now.

To be fair, if I was on a high school water polo team that was completely shut out by a bunch of grade schoolers, I’d be pretty pissed too. It’s almost funny seeing the short and scrawny kids whipping up on the buff main cast so hard. There were definitely some close calls, and overall I think that it isn’t so much the individual players as the fact they aren’t really communicating like a team yet.

Of course, everyone on the team pretty much puts the blame on Minato. The game plan was to get him the ball, but it turns out that he’s terrible. Eitaro storming off wasn’t what I expected. As Minato’s number one fanboy, I thought for sure he’d be the one excusing Minato’s poor play. But what happens instead is much more interesting. It turns out, Eitaro lied about being close friends with our main character. In fact, they barely interacted on the team together and Eitaro was on the bench every game. That’s why he took this chance to start on a team with Minato. It’s a pretty wild revelation and feels a bit out of left field, but it does give Minato the inspiration to do some self-reflection.

After a talk with his former coach leads him to a box in his closet, he discovers that he used to practice his form every single day, and even study his videotaped practice sessions each night before bed. All this time, Minato has been worried that it’s his lack of physical buff-ness holding him back, and while it’s certainly not helping him, his current physique isn’t the real problem. What’s actually lacking is his lack of drive. That’s great news to Minato, because it means he hasn’t lost something he can never get back. With this in mind, he manages to convince Eitaro not to quit and the two of them face the upcoming challenge hand in hand.

Due to last week being the big showdown game match, you might think that the show would let up a bit this week. Dude, That’s Scary!!! might not be quite as thrilling as a head-to-head matchup in the water polo arena, but it offers up plenty of thrills in terms of character development and personal growth. Eitaro’s character really wasn’t one of my favorites before, but after this episode, I think he’s probably in my top three or four. And it’s definitely great to see Minato showing some initiative and getting back on track to be more like his former self. Only time will tell if he’s able to become someone people can look up to again, but I think he’s on the right path.