English Dub Review: Tune Into The Midnight Heart “Liar; Himekawa Nene’s Ears Give It Away”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Arisu commits to helping the girls of the Broadcast Club achieve their dream voice related roles, starting with Rikka in her singing and Nene in her voice acting.

OUR TAKE

Huh, I kinda thought that they would give each girl an episode to themselves, but it looks like we’re doubling up here, which means the other two will probably get crammed into next week’s episode. I call them the other two since, well, none of them have really begun to stick out as characters quite yet, but I suppose that’s why we’re getting these focused segments beginning their respective character arcs and growing bonds to Arisu, who himself continues to be incredibly extra. So, first up is Rikka, who wants to be a singer, and while Arisu tries to make plans for her to optimize this, she is understandably skeptical and just keeps doing what she’s been doing, namely weekly local concerts on campus that actually tend to get a sizable crowd. Arisu’s plan is for her to sell a bunch of CDs from street performances, which I’m not sure has quite the traction it would have had twenty or even ten years ago. Like maybe instead of a CD have a QR code to her Spotify or something? But then I guess there’s no real money in that. Man, the music industry has really got screwing over artists down to a science by now, don’t they? Well, either way, this half of the episode ends with Arisu not having given her much of a plan but realizing she’s figuring stuff out on her own, which she seems to be fine with.

The second half focuses on Nene, who wants to be a voice actress, and practices by using scenes from a favorite manga of hers with a notable scene between a princess and a knight where the princess pretends to be cleaning off his armor but plants a kiss on his helmet without him knowing. Arisu tries getting her an audition, which ends up failing, but his efforts lead to her replicating the aforementioned scene when a manga volume lands on his face. However, Arisu is genre savvy with this, so he catches on, leading to much flustered tsundere-ness. Still no hints as to who among these girls is actually an older Apollo, the girl that Arisu is searching for, but I imagine we won’t be getting any major leads on that front for a while anyway. So, two episodes down, ten to go, and next week we’ll be giving focus to the other two girls and their respective vocal aspirations…possibly. There are apparently three segments next time and none seem to focus on any specific girl. Ah well.