English Dub Review: Mission: Yozakura Family “Nanao’s Medicine”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Taiyo returns to school with Nanao, learning his brother-in-law actually has a pretty rich social life.

OUR TAKE

After so much action and plot development in the last handful of episodes, it makes sense that we would get a nice cool down story about regular stuff. And lo and behold, it’s also the first episode we actually get to give Nanao a bit of focus! Every sibling has gotten an episode by now to at least be involved in a self-contained plot in some way, though not all of them have gotten a chance to actually BE the focus. Nanao is one of those in the latter category, having mainly been in the background and providing plot inducing or solving devices in the form of his injections, so it’s nice to see him get the actual spotlight for once. And as it turns out, it’s both endearing AND kinda gross. Like apparently he can change his appearance to be a normal looking high school kid, but then sometimes he has to deal with GIANT VEINY MUTATIONS that may require the use of a vaccine that might make him his huge monster looking form forever. It’s not really discussed if this is just a condition he has or if this is something related to the Yozakura blood, whose compatibility (or sometimes lack thereof) can lead to similar monstrous mutations, as we’ve seen.

But the point of this is not to show how much of a gross freak Nanao is, but also that he apparently has had a life outside of all of the Yozakura spy family stuff this whole time! Including a crush on the head of the biology club, Rinne, who has her own pet snake that is constantly wrapped around her neck. Now, to keep this entertaining and fun, shenanigans must ensue with said snake and it turns into a monster, leading Nanao to think he may have to just settle for abandoning a normal life, but Taiyo manages to convince him otherwise. The stuff with Tanpopo is interesting and all, but it’s also nice to see that the members of the Yozakura family are also people with fleshed out lives, some of whom want to have normal fulfilling status quos with people they care about. Taiyo was no different until very recently, so naturally he is the one who is able to tell Nanao he can wish for something like that too. Maybe we’ll get more insight for other siblings in the future, but this is still a fine breather after all the action to remind us just what everyone is fighting for.