English Dub Review: Teasing Master Takagi-san 3: “Dislikes / Gyoza / Audition / Fishing”

Overview: Takagi (Sarah Wiedenheft) continues her teasing of Nishikata (Aaron Dismuke) as he (very) slowly but surely is starting to get a clue about how he really feels about Takagi. 

Our Take: The small glimpses we get of Takagi and Nishikata’s future daughter is always a treat. The parallel/juxtaposition of her disliking green peppers and being the one who is constantly teased by her crush, similar to Nishikata on both fronts, perfectly sums up how much she resembles her father. The detail of her always thinking her crush is just trying to get a rise out of her when in reality he is being honest about his feelings is also a great extra layer. Back to the present, Nishikata being duped once again by Takagi’s explicit rules, this time of the dislike guessing game, is yet another entertaining victory for her. 

Sanae is the gloomy girl we all know and love. However, she also has a kind side, sort of. Sanae offering to trade a bun for Mina’s gyoza, only after she took the first one from her as she offered it to Yukari, perfectly encapsulates how amazingly aloof she is. 

The class holds a play where Mina, Yukari and Sanae, funnily enough, clearly took inspiration, let us call it, and adapted from Princess and The Frog/Romeo and Juliet into a fantasy amalgamation of both. Nishikata’s “fake” love confession that served as his audition to be the frog prince to Takagi’s princess is a briefly sweet moment.

The two love birds go fishing at a creek, where they compete to find the prized fish. Nishikata mops the floor with him, of course, and as a beginner to really rub salt on his wounded pride. However, Takagi came close to nabbing the prize fish, but also came close to falling in, trying to reel it in before a certain someone catches him and holds him tightly at the waist side, eventually making his heart skip a beat. It is also cute, and long overdue for god’s sake, how signs like these are just beginning to make Nishikata realize his true feelings of wuuuuv for Takagi.