English Dub Review: Tomo-chan Is a Girl! “How the Contest Ends / To Stay Best Friends…”

Overview:

The students run a marathon and we see what happened when Jun finally realized Tomo was a girl.

Our Take:

In a complete contrast from last week’s episode, this one focuses almost entirely on Jun and Tomo. It takes a look at how they get along now and what their friendship was like in middle school. I like that the episode is split up like this because it helps progress their current situation as well as answering more questions about how we got to this point.

Jun and Tomo compete with each other while all of the students are running a marathon. Tomo ends up catching a cold and collapses during the race, so Jun has to carry her all the way back to the nurse’s office. Tomo appreciates this gesture, but it also settles their score that goes all the way back to when they were kids. I was wondering if we would ever get a conclusion to that part of the story and it turns out we do.

The second segment also gives me some answers. I was wondering when Jun first realized that Tomo was actually a girl. It turns out that happened when they started middle school and he saw her in a skirt for the first time.

Rumors soon spread about Jun and Tomo dating, which caused Jun to avoid Tomo for a year. Misuzu also felt as though she couldn’t be friends with Tomo anymore since she couldn’t physically keep up with her. This also led to Jun going out with Misuzu. This was touched on in a previous episode, but I’m glad we got more details about this brief relationship. We also see how Jun reconciled with Tomo and we get yet another glimpse at how he feels about her now.

This is a very strong episode. It has a good balance between the past and present between the two segments and it inches us closer to what I hope is yet to come for Jun and Tomo. It also fills in more of the blanks regarding to their past. The show is on the right track now and with only three episodes to go, I hope it stays on that track. I would hate for this slow burn to be all for nothing.