English Dub Review: Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway: “Starry Sky”

Overview: Sayu (Jill Harris) faces her uncomfortable and tragic history when Yaguchi (Ry McKeand) is revealed to be her co-worker and wants to do more than just run a convenience store. 

Our Take: Sayu comes head-to-head with her tragic past when she realizes that one of the boys she prostituted for, Yaguchi, is a co-worker of her. Sayu hides the truth from Asami, which she is perfectly fine with, showing how much emotional understanding she has in a pleasant moment between them. 

Yaguchi blackmails her with revealing her past to her friends in exchange for heading back to see where she lives wanting sexual favors once again. It’s brutal seeing how Sayu suffers from her PTSD in seeing him, reliving her traumatic experiences that have left deeply embedded scars. He is a disgusting pig to put it lightly in how he puts her in that situation and forces himself on her at Yoshida’s apartment. It is a great scene when Yoshida kicks him out as it touches on how she did consent to it, at the end of the day, due to her low self-esteem, but also highlights how scummy Yaguchi is in never trying to help her too, unlike Yoshida. Yoshida supports Sayu and encourages her resistance in a comforting scene, with him hating how she has not respected herself in the past and been complacent in being objectified. It is made even better in how Sayu’s actions and Yoshida’s observations are a good sign of change in her having more self-respect. 

The next day, knowing Sayu is lying when she is sad, Asami confronts Yaguchi, forcing him to apologize and stay away. At least, Yaguchi has something resembling the tiniest shred of decency in not revealing the nature of their relationship to anyone, however, just as Sayu hits on the head, he is still not worthy of forgiveness yet. Sayu and Asami hang out together and solidify why they have the best friendship. Asami gets phenomenal character mileage in how she reveals her relatable family troubles with her high achieving parents and their expectations of her own problems and how little they, like most parents, understand their children’s problems. She is much more empathic and emotionally complex as a result with her very accepting of people’s feelings and their personal issues that matter to them. Her reassuring and making Sayu understand how strong she is for keeping her head, despite the hurdles she has faced, and moving forward is a really beautiful ending for the girls’ heart-to-heart.