English Dub Review: In the Clear Moonlit Dusk “Temperature of Love”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Yoi and Kohaku continue to experiment with their dating terms, while their respective friend groups look on and see how much both are changing in behavior.

OUR TAKE

Things continue to get increasingly spicy for our would be couple and their burgeoning feelings for each other, though it’s also starting to get difficult to hide it from the people around them, which is really the main difference of this episode compared to the last few. Like yeah, the throughline of this whole show is these two getting to know each other and become closer as romantic partners, but there’s only so much I can really go into that before I’m simply repeating the same thing over and over. I’m fairly certain there will be more substantial twists and turns in future episodes, but for now the only major step forward in this specific episode is that the friends are noticing and eager to see their friends try out this whole love thing for once. Yoi hasn’t dated anyone or had any interest in anyone before, while Kohaku has had other women want to date him but he never felt compelled to do so until meeting Yoi. And it seems he can’t really put much of his feelings into words at the moment, as when one of his friends asks why he likes Yoi so much, once again all he can say is it’s her face.

Yeah, that SOUNDS a bit shallow and superficial, but it’s actually not quite that simple. Kohaku is still just a teen boy, after all, so he only has so many ways of communicating that he’s familiar with. However, going in a little deeper shows us that he does in fact love her face…but more because of the reactions he can get from her that he finds attractive. Her face that is usually calm and stoic and near expressionless lights up in numerous ways whenever they’re together or he gets close or touches her or anything close to that. What that likely means is that it’s not Yoi’s face that Kohaku is drawn to, but his curiosity in learning more sides of her and seeing her expressions change as he learns more about what she likes. And as we see from her side, what she likes is very much increasingly him. That’s two people who may not know what they’re doing but they’re interested in learning more about the other as they navigate these new feelings and curiosities together. And hopefully next time I’ll have more to talk about than just that because I’ve already covered it now!