English Dub Review: Heroines Run the Show: The Unpopular Girl and the Secret Task “Passion is Unbeatable!”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

It’s almost time for LIPxLIP’s performance at the New Year’s countdown! But first, Hiyori has a few more tasks to perform as the heroine-in-training.

Our Take:

The last few episodes of Heroines Run the Show have been an emotional roller coaster. We experienced a scandal that threatened to ruin LIPxLIP’s career, and Hiyori was forced to quit her manager-in-training job to avoid any more backlash. Now, we just found out that Chizuru, one of Hiyori’s friends, is responsible for taking the pictures of Hiyori and LIPxLIP together due to her jealousy and hatred toward Hiyori. It was painful to witness Chizuru throwing a nasty punch at Hiyori. However, it’s also frustrating due to her poor choice of words towards Hiyori.

The previous episode left me hoping that Chizuru gets what she deserves because there’s nothing worse than having a friend who secretly stabs you in the back out of jealousy. Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to be the case in this episode, as Chizuru’s still in school and is pissed at Hiyori. Although, she also feels guilty for sharing the photos and punching Hiyori in the face, resulting in her quitting being LIPxLIP’s fan.

I will give the episode credit for attempting to make me feel empathetic towards Chizuru compared to the last episode. I still don’t like her for what she did to Hiyori, even if her reasons are understandable. But, her guilt is enough to make me not want to punch her myself.

What I also liked about the finale is that Hiyori still tries to help Chizuru after discovering that she’s a massive fan of LIPxLIP. No matter how often Chizuru refuses, Hiyori doesn’t take no for an answer. As a last resort, she tells Chizuru about her manager job and offers to share her all-access pass with her to regain their friendship. Her willingness to make friends and show passion toward others make Hiyori one of the more relatable characters in anime history, and this episode is another fine example of that.

Unsurprisingly, the countdown event is worth the wait, with LIPxLIP’s performance being the main highlight. It wasn’t just because of the song they performed, but because of the animation. The fluidity of the characters’ dance routines and the colorful lights that accompanied them are enough to make viewers want to dance along, except for me. I just sat and watched in awe.

“Passion is Unbeatable!” successfully tied up some loose ends with Hiyori and Chizuru forgiving each other and LIPxLIP delivering a successful performance in the New Year Countdown event. More importantly, Hiyori happens to get her manager job back. This means there might be more adventures for the manager-in-training and her idol friends to have in their careers. Admittedly, I’m hoping that’s the case as I enjoyed the series a bit more than I expected.