English Dub Review: Horimiya – The Missing Pieces “The Hori House”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Kyousuke regails Miyamura about how he met Hori’s mother. Hori tries fitting into her brother’s clothes. Miyamura plays judge to a sibling dispute or two.
OUR TAKE
As we approach the end of this anthology series, this episode shows us a quintessential look into the dynamic of the Hori family and all its foibles, with the only thing missing being a David Attenborough style narration. I was actually kind of looking forward to seeing just a full prequel episode about how Kyousuke and Yuriko met, along with whatever mishaps they may have gotten into with Sengoku’s dad or other classmates, but the rest proved to be sufficient. Having not seen the full series itself, I’m not sure where this lands in the timeline, but it looks like it’s far enough along in the main couple’s relationship. It also makes good use of putting the talk about Hori’s short temper at the beginning and coming in at the end so there’s at least some semblance of cohesion. Everyone gets a chance to be part of a comedic bit, even the mom, whose comedy is more just about being the side of Hori that’s nice but capable of great violence. Even if not all of them get to be in the spotlight much of the time, or at least not from what I can tell, the family as a whole is pretty fleshed out in both how they interact and who they are as people.
However, the main wholesome and funny thing about this episode seems to be how Miyamura seems to be integrating pretty well into the family. He’s still getting smacked around by Hori every so often (though she clearly wishes he would do the same to her every now and then), but he’s welcomed by every one of them, especially Sota, Hori’s brother. In the segments about the siblings going at it for different reasons, Miyamura is very easily able to determine that Hori’s seeming meanness towards Sota is simply because she wants to make sure he’s learning to take care of himself and clean up his own messes. Sota, who I sadly can relate to much more than I expected in these moments, knows this and is trying to take steps to do chores and clean up after himself, but is still a child, and so gets upset when he’s not trusted to do these things. And things only escalate further when Hori feels like her dad and Miyamura are taking Sota’s side over her, when really they’re just trying to settle things. It’s obvious by now that Miyamura’s a part of the family, even getting called Sota’s big brother, though it looks like that’s not exactly a welcome surprise by the rest of them. Still, it’s part of this show’s charms that things are so wholesome and pleasant, which I’m sure will continue with whatever this author does next. And we’ll see if any of this gets brought next time in the finale, Graduation.
