English Dub Review: My Clueless First Friend “Yukata, Jungle Gyms, and Orthopedic Casts”

Overview:

Takada and Nishimura go to a school festival and they prepare for field day.

Our Take:

I love watching Takada and Nishimura become closer with each passing episode. They have a great time at the middle school’s festival. Yukiko gives them the idea to go in the first place and it works out great. It starts as an excuse for Yukiko to give Nishimura her old yukata and it ends up being a fun time for both her and Takada.

The two also talk about their upcoming field day. Nishimura wants Takada to his best, but she’s not confident in her own abilities. They climb up to the top of the jungle gym and have a great bonding moment. Unfortunately, Nishimura falls off but Takada manages to break her fall…and his arm.

Nishimura feels terrible for landing on Takada’s arm and breaking it. She apologizes to his mother, but she tells Nishimura it’s fine. Takada’s mom knows her son very well and it’s obvious where he gets all of his positive energy from. Takada thinks it’s cool to have his arm in a cast and more importantly, he’s happy that Nishimura didn’t get hurt.

There’s so much to love about this episode. I love seeing Nishimura and Takada have fun at the school festival. Most of that segment is just a montage of stills, but I think that’s fine. It still manages to get the feeling across.

My heart broke when I saw Nishimura crying in the hospital after Takada breaks his arm. I felt so bad for her, but Takada’s mom is the star of this scene. She holds no ill will towards Nishimura. In fact, she’s happy that her son has such a great friend and she makes Nishimura feel better about the accident. Every member of Takada’s family that we’ve met so far has been great, so I’m glad to see that his mom is no exception.