English Dub Review: Hana-Kimi “Episode 8”

Overview:

Mizuki is still doing her best to hide that she’s a girl. Meanwhile, Sano and Makita continue to butt heads.

Our Take:

It’s crazy to me how much this show follows the rom-com tropes to a tee. One of the guys walking in on Mizuki when she’s in the bath? Check. Two guys are trying to pick her up when Makita intervenes, upsetting Sano. Check. Speaking of that last one, while I was watching that scene, the whole time I was thinking, “Why doesn’t Mizuki say ‘I’m a guy'”? Sure, they might not have believed her, but it felt like that would have diffused the situation a whole lot faster, and no one else would have needed to get involved.

The episode ends with Makita wanting to have a conversation with Sano, man-to-man. I’m interested to see where this conversation goes, but I think we can figure it out. Sano doesn’t know what he’s feeling when it comes to Mizuki, so I see one of two things happening. Either Makita is actually a nice guy and will use competition to help Sano realize he has feelings for Mizuki, or he’s actually interested in Mizuki and in trying to pursue her will do the same thing for Sano. If anything else happens, I’ll be legitimately shocked.