English Dub Review: Tsukimichi -Moonlit Fantasy “The Melancholy of Handsome Middle-Aged Men”

Tsukimichi is finally getting into gear with the story, and I am all for it. We’re reaching out into the world Makoto got dropped into, and we’re finding more diverse settings. The setting of this week’s episode, “The Melancholy of Handsome Middle-Aged Men”, could have been mistaken for a city street modeled after a modern city. Well, if it weren’t for the horse drawn cart in the open.

Anyway, we finally get into the why the ruby eyes were so important last episode. And that’s a curse who’s cure is named after one of the most atrocious foods, ever. And Rembrandt is the man who needs it for his family. God damn ambrosia is the worst, and the cure doesn’t seem much better. In fact, I think I’d rather have this fake curse over the food. Meanwhile, I’m digging the interaction of just Tomoe and Mio, which is something we haven’t gotten too much of.

Just like Skeleton Knight in Another World, there is a lot of building right now. The background machinations are making things more and more interesting. There’s a definite upswing in the quality of the story from episode to episode, and I think that “The Melancholy of Handsome Middle-Aged Men” just adds to it. There’s a bunch of intrigue, because there’s a man who was tailing Makoto, trying to stop Rembrandt from doing whatever he’s doing.

Elsewhere, Makoto got his Merchant’s Guild app done, tests aced, and now he’s an official merchant. I like the little details like this, because it’s another avenue to get stories up and running. Speaking of, going back to the demi-plane, and giving Mio something from Makoto’s memories to get hooked on, which was cartoons.  I can’t tell you why, but this is an amusing idea as well.

We couldn’t go too long with more ploys to get Makoto to give out the D, but it didn’t happen. For some reason, the constant desire of teenage D wasn’t as off-putting this time around, because it wasn’t completely taking over the episode. I was able to deal with it. It was actually done with as much tact as this could be. You forget Makoto is barely a teen, and two demons want the D real bad.

Overall, I think Tsukimichi is hitting it’s stride now. It took a really long time for it to gain some traction, but it’s definitely pulling together. Tomoe and Mio aren’t as insufferable, and Makoto is coming into himself by making power moves. Next week is going to be interesting to say the least.