English Dub Review: Akane-banashi “Her Path Forward”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Akane butts heads with her high school guidance counselor, Ms. Iwashimizu, but her old bully Jumbo Okazi comes to her defense and invites Iwashimizu to see Akane in action on stage.
OUR TAKE
With the first handful of episodes being about establishing Akane’s path to learning Rakugo and achieving what her father couldn’t, it makes sense that this episode takes the perspective off Akane for a second to focus on how people are viewing her from a distance. While we as the audience know that she is uniquely talented and likely on her way to doing something great in her chosen field, that doesn’t (and shouldn’t) mean that people around her necessarily know or feel the same thing. Someone like Ms. Iwashimizu, a guidance counselor whose job is to make sure students like Akane are on the right path to a stable and beneficial future, is understandably not as on board with Akane pushing that her only goal in life is being a Rakugoka, a pretty niche and unstable profession. Though not blatantly, this calls back to the attitudes that surrounded Akane’s dad, how he felt pressure to find a “normal” job when he was pursuing Rakugo, and how most people around him were so relieved when he quit it to get that job, subtly letting him know about their disapproval that he had strayed from the expected path. Akane seems pretty committed to avoiding that and going full steam ahead towards her dreams, but she’ll still face the same challenges.
That said, it’s not like Iwashimizu is an antagonist or a villain for wanting Akane to consider her options, and thus lies the complexity of the struggle between pursuing your dreams in a world that values productivity above all else. Luckily, Akane has an unexpected advocate, Jumbo Okazi, the kid who once bullied her about her dad back in the first episode takt took place six years ago. Yeah, the fat kid is named Jumbo, though I genuinely wonder if that was a coincidence since it’s pronounced JOOMbo. Anyway, he’s changed his tune about Rakugo and Akane since then and has actually been friends with Akane for awhile now, and so encourages Iwashimizu to see her in action, which then shows her that Akane does have a future in this…even if she does still have to figure out her life on other aspects, including her grades, as even her Rakugo mentors have told her. Iwashimizu even encourages her to participate in a student Rakugo competition, and as fate would have it, one of the judges is the man who expelled her father, Issho Arakawa. Oooooh, tension!
