English Dub Review: Hana-Kimi “Definitely Weird”;”Please Make Me Stronger!”
Overview:
Sano’s jumping well, and he seems happier. Nakatsu’s still confused about Mizuki, but then a girl asks him out?!
Even though Nakatsu is dating Komatsu, he can’t stop thinking about Mizuki. Meanwhile, Mizuki starts karate…
Our Take(Spoilers):
This season of Hana-Kimi kicked off with two episodes. I fully expected to roast this show as I did previously. My Wednesdays were finally Rent-a-Girlfriend-free, and then this show started? I thought the gods above were laughing at me for thinking I could get through a season without reviewing a bad show. But now I feel like I have to eat my own words because these two episodes were honestly pretty decent. It’s still an outdated mashup of anime cliches that would have worked better when the manga was written back in 1996. But I was still surprised by how it went.
What surprised me most was how Nakatsu and his feelings for Mizuki were handled. A girl named Komatsu confessed to Nakatsu, and he started going out with her. But he kept thinking about Mizuki and decided it would be best if he ended things with Komatsu. What impressed me is that he could have just told her that he had feelings for someone else and let that be the end of it. He did do that, but he told her that the person he was in love with was Mizuki, and with Mizuki being a “guy,” I thought that was interesting. I was worried that Komatsu would tell everyone that Nakatsu likes a guy vindictively, but Nakatsu didn’t give her the chance, even if she would have.
Nakatsu went right up to Mizuki and told her that he loved her. Of course, he thinks she’s a guy, so I am very interested to see how he reacts when/if he finds out that she’s a girl. If you like a girl who’s pretending to be a guy, does that make you gay? Not sure, and honestly, with him coming to terms with it, I wonder how this will go. Still, though, good on Nakatsu for letting his feelings out.
Nakatsu’s mini-arc here stole most of the spotlight for me, but other things happened as well. There’s an older woman reporter who follows Sano around. Her name is Kinuko Karusama, or she goes by KK as a pen name. When Mizuki realizes that all the articles she ever read about Sano were written by Kinuko, she gets a little upset. I’m pleasantly optimistic about this season of Hana-Kimi.
