English Dub Review: The Demon Girl Next Door “A Short Break!! The Demonic Summer Festival”

Overview

Yuko/Shamiko’s summer vacation has turned out far more hectic than intended. She tries to reclaim some peace in her life, but the looming stack of homework casts a dark shadow…

Our Take

After all that she went through, it was time for Shamiko to enjoy a more traditional summer vacation and the local shopping district just so happened to have its festival. Shamiko looked rather adorable in her Yukata, although it was hard for her to enjoy it alone. That changed when Momo and Mikan joined and the group had a rather good time. Along with the fake story recaps involving Zombies and rap, and the intercom announcements were quite brilliant and gave me a good laugh, too.

Another thing to do in a traditional summer vacation is, of course, summer homework. While Shamiko can’t deal with math, at least she sprung into action in motivating Momo to actually do any of hers at all. Not just that, but it also had Momo open up a bit more about her past with Sakura and how lonely she was after she disappeared. Also getting more details on Momo’s backstory was nice, yet semi-tragic. She’s basically been a magical girl for as long as she can remember, she doesn’t know anything else, and the one person who anchored her to life disappeared. Now Shamiko is that anchor, though Momo’s not really in the big sister position as much as Shamiko might insist it’s the other way around.

This was an introspective yet hilarious episode. First Shamiko is trying to find her small demonic place on a peaceful summer vacation and later Momo is procrastinating and engages in demagogy about school rules. And you can tell most of the voice cast had fun in their lighthearted and wacky performances.