English Dub Review: Tomo-chan Is a Girl! “Junichiro’s Promise / When Tomo Puts On a Swimsuit…”

Overview:

Jun reminisces about how he met Tomo and everybody goes to the beach.

Our Take:

Jun thinks about something he said recently. His ultimate goal is to become stronger than Tomo. He recalls how that all came about and we see how the two met. We also see how they became friends and how Jun decided that he wanted to be stronger than Tomo. As a bonus, we also get to see how Jun and Misuzu first met and their relationship even started out the way it currently is.

I love this segment because it puts everything in perspective. I’ve been curious how all of this came about and I’m not disappointed with the backstory here. In fact, I think it makes a lot of sense. It’s also amazing how Jun was able to go from an introverted gamer kid to the outgoing beast of a guy he is now. As for Tomo, she hasn’t really changed much, but that’s fine. I also find it hilarious that Misuzu was cold and blunt even as a kid. I’m glad to see that she hasn’t changed because she’s one of my favorites.

The second segment takes us to the beach. Jun is acting awkward pretty much the whole day and he’s trying to avoid Tomo and Carol due to their swimsuits. I find it hilarious that he doesn’t have this same issue with Misuzu. It’s brought a couple of times as a gag and I definitely got a kick out of it.

I’ve been asking for more bonding moments between Tomo and Jun and we get some here. Jun saves Tomo from a creepy guy and they just sit around eating ice cream. Not only that, but Misuzu says it herself at the end of the episode. This is the first time Jun is really seeing Tomo as a girl. That’s a step in the right direction because I feel like we can only go further down that path from here.

This is my favorite episode so far. The backstory is well-executed, the beach segment finally takes Jun’s and Tomo’s connection to the next level and it’s also a very funny episode. We get plenty of moments from Misuzu and Carol, which is always great since they round out the show perfectly. I hope the show can continue this momentum in the remaining episodes because this is a strong entry in the series. It would be such a shame to see it go downhill from here.