English Dub Review: Aoashi: “No Compromises”

Overview: Aoi (Ciaran Strange) and Hana (Marisa Duran) visit the high school they both attend as the pressure begins to build on Ashito. 

Our Take: This episode solidifies that Aoi and Hana have some of the best chemistry throughout the show. Hana’s exuberant and overwhelming personality makes her wholesome and endearing, and that is made even more so with how much Aoi gives in reluctantly being charmed as he is during their down time. However, it eventually leads to one of Aoi’s biggest issues that is tackled. Aoi’s anger and desperation at being behind from the rest of his team makes his outburst at Hana understandable in his inadequacy. 

However, his mistreatment of Hana also highlights his continued issue that presented itself at the practice game in being unable to read people’s feelings and communicate properly. What makes it all the more brutal is how it causes Aoi to be a complete dick and form a rift between him and Hana as she genuinely cares for him and tries to push him in the right direction in enjoying his R&R and not letting anger consume him. Feelings that are similar to what Fukada has experienced, brilliantly illustrating how similar Aoi and Fukada are and how much Hana understands him. 

Although, as well as issues, it also smartly forces Aoi to come up with his own solutions with only breadcrumbs to help him, just what Fukada has been counting on. Otomo’s devious and jealous taunting of Aoi for messing things up with Hana is also a hilarious dig that sets up his confrontation of Marchis and Kanpei. It makes for a gratifying and friendly scene in Aoi communicating and nicely clarifying his thought process in the heat of the moment, at least initially. One of their issues is not wanting Aoi to fulfill his role as a forward with him being the one scoring goals makes for a difficult impasse showing the trying issues that come from teammates own respective pride. However, it also points to it being just a part of a larger problem, unbeknownst to Aoi, that is intriguing in what exactly it is. Marchis being resentful of Aoi making the team but his friends not along with another unknown issue points to a deeper complexity that hopefully leads into the building of the team dynamic and the other members on their own. Thankfully, that already starts to show in even Kanpei against his friend’s unfair and cruel criticisms of Aoi as well as Otomo showing how much integrity both have. It ends with Aoi being given a huge test from coach Nozomi. Aoi will be a starter and he must come up with a game plan that shows he learned from his previous problem and if he can not do it, he will not be on the field for three months making for an intense cliffhanger leading into the next episode.