English Dub Review: Watari-kun’s XX Is About to Collapse “Nao-kun Mk. II”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Naoto finally learns what is up with Satsuki’s family, along with meeting her foster brother with a similar name as him.

OUR TAKE

We’re officially in the second half of the season, marked by a new Opening and Ending, which is good news for me because the first OP had a lot of very weird implied nudity that drove me crazy, mainly because I had no idea what it was trying to say by having it. But we’re past that now so we can focus on the plot at hand. Specifically, we’re getting to know Satsuki probably more than we have in the entire series thus far. Before it was clear that there was definitely something wrong with her home life, and it seems we have some sort of answer for that: turns out that when she first disappeared from Noato’s life many years ago, she was actually getting adopted by a family their parents knew in Tokyo, apparently for some financial difficulties. However, because this new foster family was busy taking care of a huge inn, she ended up feeling neglected, and this would have been a lot worse if not for the family’s son and her new brother, Naozumi, who she quickly befriended and named “Nao 2” since she already knew a Nao. In fact, the parents did plan for the two to marry at some point so they could both take over the inn, though that quickly went out the window when Naozumi could only see Satsuki as his younger sister.

As for what Nao Mark 1 is doing there at the moment…well, he’s being a good enough friend by standing up for her and admonishing her foster parents for being so neglectful and then suddenly asking for her to come back, though while he eventually comes clean that he’s not her boyfriend, everyone can tell that Satsuki is very much in love with him. Apparently this is something that she was not aware of herself, which is…REALLY hard to comprehend considering she was all over him for those early episodes, but okay. With Naoto’s encouragement, Satsuki decides to head back to Tokyo for the time being, no doubt to further homewreck his relationship with Ishihara, but at least we feel a bit more sympathy for her and her situation. Still, Naoto is definitely going to have to explain A LOT of stuff when he gets back, including that he went on a fake date with the girl his girlfriend was worried about…but that will have to wait until next week.