English Dub Review: Aharen-san wa Hakarenai “Are We Being Followed?”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Aharen finds herself having even more trouble with distance than usual, thanks to her impaired vision. When Raido tries to help her with eye drops, he incurs the wrath of Aharen’s imposing childhood friend.

Our Take:

Raido’s odd friendship with Aharen has gotten to an interesting start as far as this show goes. However, there’s still plenty more stuff for them to learn about each other to achieve maximum friendship. This week’s episode offers another piece of information about this young, soft-spoken girl: she has a childhood friend.

“Are We Being Followed?” introduces us to Mitsuki Oshiro (Kristen McGuire), a tall girl who’s also the mysterious student that watched over the characters in the last episode. Oshiro seems intimidating at first, but she’s actually a highly overprotective teen who cries a lot and spies on Aharen and Raido. More importantly, she sucks at hiding. My first impression of this character is about as odd as my thoughts about Aharen and Raido, and that’s weirdly amusing. McGuire, known for voicing Milim Nava in That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, was enjoyable in her role as Oshiro, even though her personality can be annoying after a while. Hopefully, she won’t slowly become a massive pain in the later episodes.

The other brief misadventures that don’t involve Oshiro also have their share of humorous moments. One of them involves Raido and Aharen attempting to put eye drops in their eyes, with the latter being terrible at handling the drops. The other small segment is Aharen spending all day concealing Raido’s exposed underpants when he came to school with his pants unzipped. That moment is my favorite of the bunch regarding its innocence and comedy. Raido’s naivety and Aharen’s attempts to warn him about his pants are genuine school comedy gold in my eyes.  

Overall, “Are We Being Followed?” follows the same formula as the previous episode with decent results. While the moments with Oshiro are entertaining, the ones involving Raido and Aharen still managed to bring some comical charm into the show. With the addition of Aharen’s whiny but caring childhood friend, there’s no telling what other awkward shenanigans these characters will get into next week.