English Dub Review: RE-MAIN “Who Are These Guys?”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Minato meets with Ichinose, who tells him the truth about his former self and the impact he had on people she cared about. As the rain falls above him, he regains his memories and bikes home. But on the way, he takes a wrong turn and falls off the bike, slamming his head in the process. Now he’s lost his new memories, and that means he’s nothing like the Minato who would play for the water polo team at Yamanami High School. With prefecturals looming, will the team be able to convince him to return before it’s too late?

Our Take:

Whew! RE-MAIN may still be four episode away from the finale, but the doozy of a plot in this eighth episode sure felt like a finale at times with how dramatic it was. Who Are These Guys? starts out with Minato regaining all his memories, but quickly resets things back to the beginning again as he loses his new memories from the previous year of recovery. It’s a really strange episode that I did not see coming… but is it good?

I still haven’t quite decided yet. On one hand, Minato losing his new memories and regaining the old ones is really cool in some ways. Finding out that the lovable guy we’ve been following for the past seven episodes is actually a selfish asshole is not something I would’ve expected at the start of the show. Hell, even after last week’s episode I thought his family and friends would assure him that the rant on video was an exception, not the rule. But Minato really is that bad—he bullied a former teammate, has no respect for his family, and won’t even give his new teammates the time of day anymore.

While I kind of love how unexpected and crazy the choice to essentially ‘reset’ Minato’s progress is, it’s also kind of annoying, too. We spent the first handful of episodes on Minato’s initial recovery and emotional distress, then another handful of episodes with him as he made new friends and a new start. To basically erase all of that and have him start over again (with even MORE emotional issues!) is a bit frustrating as a viewer. If he never gets his new memories back, the first half of the show might even seem pointless—which is why it’s pretty obvious now that he’s going to spend the next few episodes slowly becoming less of an asshole, only to recover his memories again by the finale. Right?

So yeah, the whole amnesia aspect of the show is a lot to take in, but RE-MAIN is going there again. What’s next, is he going to regain his school age memories but lose his memories of preschool? As silly as the thought is, there were some pretty serious scenes this week. Minato’s confrontation with the guys from his new team is hard to watch. He sees them as losers, and says it’s good he’s forgotten about them. After the bonding the team has gone through the past year or so, that’s going to be a tough memory for the team to forget. Honestly, even if Minato comes around, I don’t really see how this team could pull together the focus to win any games after how chaotic their season has been so far.

Who Are These Guys? is a very surprising episode, in both good and bad aspects. It’s pretty novel to see the show’s protagonist turn into an absolute dick, but at the same time it’s leaning into the weird amnesia moments a little too much to be believable. I can honestly say I’m not sure exactly what to expect in the next episode, and that’s an exciting thing as a viewer and a reviewer.