English Dub Review: Grow Up Show: Sunflower Circus “That Was So Dazzling”

Overview:

The “Sunflower Circus” is headed to Toyokawa, a popular and officially sanctioned performance venue.

Our Take:

So we got a little more information to work with now. Ouka went to the circus as a kid and that’s where her love of performance blossomed. The person she saw performing was non-other than Mizuka’s “paramecium” father. Now we know that he was something to behold back in his performing days. I had assumed that to be the case but now that we’ve seen how his performance affected someone we can understand why.

There’s some serious circus politics going on for Sunflower Circus. They have a competing circus, Sumeragi Circus, that uses lavender for their logo. There’s a lot of flower symbolism in this series so far. But Sumeragi plays dirty when it comes to facing off against Sunflower. The girls of Sunflower had an agreement in place to perform at a certain place and when they got there Sumeragi had already set up shop. Luckily, Ouka knew of a place that they could perform but it seems that it’s the foster home she grew up in.

Of course at this foster home is a girl like Ouka who wants to fly through air in the circus. That would be fine in and of itself but she wants to participate in the performance. The fact that they decide to allow a little girl to participate in a circus performance with little to no practice and experience is wild to me. It turned out that she decided to conced her spot to Ouka so technically she didn’t perform but still. If she didn’t do that, there would have been a little kid doing a dangerous performance with little to no experience.

Having said all that, this show is still one of the most beautifully animated shows I’ve seen in a while. The character designs are fantastic and not too “anime” if you know what I mean. There aren’t a bunch of characters with green or pink or blue hair that scream “main character” energy. Everyone looks like a normal person that could exist outside of the giant, expressive anime eyes that we have to have.

Suspension of disbelief aside, I enjoyed this episode and Mizuka and Ouka are interesting characters. I want to learn more about Mizuka and Ouka being asked to join Sumeragi was a nice little twist. But I hope we get a bit more soon.