English Dub Review: Horimiya – The Missing Pieces “Iura”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Iura finds out his sister has a crush on a boy and is expectedly protective, only to find out the boy seems to have a fascination with HIM.

OUR TAKE

I’m mainly familiar with Horimiya through seeing random pages of it across different accounts on Instagram, but just through that alone I can tell it’s a very cute series about two high schoolers feeling isolated from others for whatever reason finally finding someone they can be themselves around, and then that spreading out to their friend group. I didn’t catch the anime that covers the more plot important details of that, but the only big detail from that one really needs to know is that Hori and Miyamura do in fact get together, rather early on in fact, and that’s basically it. Luckily there was good reception towards the supporting characters like other classmates and siblings and parents that it wasn’t just the Hori and Miyamura show despite the title. And apparently they didn’t even adapt all of the chapters and scenes from that original story, or at least that’s what the title of this spin-off seems to imply, leaving this even more relaxed show just tossing those into a blender and making a slice of life, or rather a slice of slice of life, that covers all the stuff that didn’t get covered in the first go around.

As that overly long and overly explaining first paragraph may indicate, there REALLY isn’t much to discuss or analyze with this specific show, and ESPECIALLY this episode. Seriously, Iura? He feels like a C or D lister in this series and he gets basically his own episode to possibly find out the guy his sister is crushing on likes him? I mean don’t get me wrong, that is pretty funny as a pitch, but it’s not really a plot as written here. Then again, this show is not ABOUT the plot, it’s just fun and cute life stuff with high school students. So, I can’t really complain that the show is doing exactly what it said it’s going to do, and all I need to know it’s doing its job is that the comedy is cute and light and gives me the warm fuzzies, which it indeed does. The first four episodes before this did the same and I’m sure the next seven will also do that, though maybe with some things that are worth writing a bunch of words about. But honestly, just read the manga or watch the first season, you’ll get basically everything this story has to offer, and if you like all that, THEN maybe come back to this, I guess.