English Dub Review: I Want to End This Love Game “My Childhood Friend Wants to Win”

Overview:

Miku is going to spend the night at Yukiya’s house, and both find their emotions overflowing.

Our Take:

I was fully prepared to come to this review talking about how awesome this episode was. But instead, we got another resetting of the status quo, talk about boring. This episode had all of the tropes you expect in a “sleeping over” episode of a rom-com. When Miku takes her bath, she gets nervous and decides to put on Yukiya’s clothes to get a reaction out of him. Yukiya fights back by pretending to make a move on Miku at bedtime. At least I think he was pretending. I do wonder what he would have done if she had given him the green light.

What was so frustrating was how it seemed like they were going to talk about how they ACTUALLY feel. I should have known better, I understand that, but there was a part of me that hoped this show might be different. Maybe a show like Horimiya was really one of a kind. I think the part that gets me the most is that the reasoning for continuing the love game and not talking things out was confusing to me. Yukiya wants to continue the game because he wants to remain close to Miku and feels that playing the game is the only way. Miku wanted to quit the game because she was worried that she was annoying Yukiya, and he had resigned himself to losing her one day. It’s become kind of annoying at this point, but it looks like we might get some love triangle teases in the next episode…yay.