English Dub Review: Tying the Knot with an Amagami Sister “The Miracle Begins”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Uryu Kamitate begins his residence at the Amagami Shrine, where he meets the three shrine maidens Yae, Yuna, and Asahi. He later learns one of them will one day be his wife.

OUR TAKE

We got another harem romantic comedy incoming! Hit the decks! Batten down the hatches! Throw out all non-perishables! Yeah yeah, it’s nothing serious, but that’s also kind of the problem, isn’t it? It’s another installment of a pretty well worn and uninspired genre that often uses the same formula to generate the same sort of reactions over and over, ad infinitum and ad nauseum, with very few notable variations to speak of. In this case, it’s a harem of three sisters with one already determined to be the hapless protagonist’s future wife, though instead of them all being the same age like with Quintessential Quintuplets, they’re either three years older, three years younger, or the exact same age as the protagonist. And really, I’m just gonna go ahead and err on the side of caution by assuming that the fourteen year old youngest sister is out of the running already, just so I can hold onto some sense of decency in this world. So, that just leaves the older and middle sister, the latter of whom is a standard model tsundere and therefore the one with the most prominent and obvious conflict. Oh yeah, and both Uryu and the girls all have dead parents, so that can be the first thing they bond over.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t also talk about the themes that are being laid down, most notably those of faith in a higher versus skepticism. The Amagamis, being shrine maidens, naturally feel a great closeness and strong faith towards the gods that their temple worships (though which gods exactly aren’t really clarified). Meanwhile, Uryu is a man who needs proof to make his assertions, especially as someone who has been studying to become a doctor. Both groups have been through terrible tragedies and have come out the other end with differing viewpoints, so that will likely be of focus as the remaining twenty three episodes carry on. Though I certainly hope that’s not all we have to expect in the coming weeks. We’ve only got three girls to get to know and maybe a handful of supporting characters, so the well may run real dry pretty quick. I guess they could always throw in a gimmick around time travel or alternate universes or something. Actually nah, that could never work. Regardless, we’ve got another show started, so I guess we’ll see where it ends up going.