English Dub Review: RE-MAIN “C’mon, Let’s Get Started”

 

Overview (Spoilers Below):

It’s finally time for their second match of prefecturals–the long-awaited showdown with Shogakukan. Minato, Eitaro, Jo, Amihama, Ejiri, Babayaro, and Ushimado join their seven hearts as one and challenge the best team in Japan. It’s going alright at first, but then Shogakukan turns up the heat and forces the Yamanagi boys to ask themselves if they’re in this to win individually or lose as a team.

Our Take:

I didn’t expect Funimation to drop the final episode of RE-MAIN this weekend, but I’m not complaining! C’mon, Let’s Get Started is a really good finale to a really solid show. It features the water polo team at Yamanagi coming together for real and triumphing over their opponents despite not actually winning the match.

It was actually a much closer game than I expected, at least at first. Minato and the boys are high off their first win and excited to face the league leaders at Shogakukan. They’ve got a few strategy changes and lots of positive energy—but I still was in disbelief at the score being tied at zero after the first half. I was surprised that they ended up winning their first game to be honest, so it was feeling really fake and manufactured for the sake of Yamanagi being the protagonists.

And then the shoe dropped at half time. It turned out that Minato’s old teammates at Shogakukan were going slightly easy on him because of how much worse he is than how they remember him. Thankfully the show gave us this explanation; I knew Minato couldn’t have improved that much! It’s honestly really sweet to see Minato’s ex-teammates still caring about him in this way despite how much of an asshole he could be at times, so I appreciated this bit of characterization for the guys at Shogakukan.

They aren’t the only ones who get their time in the spotlight, though! Since this is the final episode of RE-MAIN (at least for now), there are plenty of other storylines to wrap up. I wasn’t sure how well they could all be integrated into a single episode that already has a big game to focus on, but I needn’t have been too worried. The show does a good job tying everything up neatly, even though some of the conclusions are little more than a line or two of dialogue.

We learn that Jo and his dad have been talking about water polo tips, for instance. After seeing how Minato has changed, Chinu decides that she can change too, and says no for once to the teammate who always asks her to talk to the younger girls. Amihami gets a nice little moment of acknowledgment from his older brother. Even Ushi, who hasn’t had as much screen time as the others, ends up stealing the spotlight and scoring the team’s sole goal in the match in an exciting trick play that had Minato reverting to his old ball-hogging ways for a brief argument.

In the end, C’mon, Let’s Get Started is a great way for RE-MAIN to finish off. It’s an end, but also a beginning, as Minato and the team have realized that they work best when they all work together. It’s also a new beginning for Minato’s family, as he forgives his mother for the car accident in one of the more touching and understated moments in the episode. All in all, a fantastic end to a good season.