English Dub Review: Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie “Cultural Festival I” ; Cultural Festival ||”

Overview

Cultural Festival I

Izumi and his friends are busy getting ready for the school’s cultural festival. Izumi is working with the group in charge of making costumes for their class’s display, and Shikimori is in the group working on decorations. They don’t get many chances to talk, and when they each see the other having fun chatting with their groupmates… And then the festival begins at last. Izumi is so busy his head is spinning, and this causes his unlucky nature to awaken yet again. On top of that, he’s on duty in the library the next morning. The one on duty with him is Kamiya, whom he first met the previous year through the library committee. But she’s acting a bit different today…

Cultural Festival II

During the cultural festival, Izumi and Kamiya have a good time chatting as they share library duties. Then Nekozaki suddenly comes along and takes Kamiya-san away to see Shikimori. When Kamiya hears what Shikimori wants from her, she readily agrees. Later, when Kamiya returns to her classroom to help with her class’s festival project, her elegant look draws a crowd of classmates and guests around her. As she drowns in all the noise, a certain someone suddenly comes to mind, and she breaks away from the classroom…


Our Take

Even at the cultural festival, Izumi’s bad luck still rolls, but Shikimori’s bunny animal costume is alluring against the mismatched lion costume being a kitty cat. To have volleyball team ace Kamiya be on the library committee with Izumi, their friendship was certainly a lot better now though their backstory that has her developing a crush on Izumi (it’s not mentioned, but heavily implied). Of course, Kamiya would know of Shikimori, but to ask him of how they both met in which the tale was at least wholesome enough. I also liked the animal cafe, with everyone in animal costumes was both cute and funny.

As for the other episode, vonsidering it’s their last event before graduation the third year going all out is to be expected. It’s nice that the present that Izumi went for turned out to be perfect for Shikimori. Such a rare moment to see her lose composure though. Overall a damm good ep that balanced out Kamiya’s expansion with a nice development of Izumi and Shikimori’s relationship.

Overall, both episodes which premiered at the same time through Crunchyroll worked as a decent two-part story with the first half having us get to know the backstories of Izumi/Shikomori’s early years. But there may still be more info to go because they already like each other at this point? Also, Kamiya has made a full-fledged entrance after her volleyball cameo, and hey she’s hot don’t get me wrong, but this is the closest thing the show has done to introduce a “Love triangle” when the other episode further continues this particular narrative with a lot of focus on Kamiya, and to me, she’s the most complex character in the show with a personality.

And the analogy to Cinderella within Kamiya’s thoughts was pretty interesting when used in conjunction with her feelings. But it must be hard holding those feelings in. The rooftop scene was quite touching. And it was a nice break from the wacky Bad Luck Hjinx the show frequently abused for the sake of a joke. But at the very least, I hope we get to see more from Kamiya in the future…