English Dub Review: Kaiju Girl Caramelise “All Eyes on Arata”

Overview:

Arata deals with the fallout of his newfound fame.

Our Take(Spoilers):

I can’t believe that I didn’t think about how Manatsu would react to Harugon “kissing” Minami. She’s quite literally in love with Harugon, so seeing Harugon kiss someone else would rightfully upset her. Sure, we know that Harugon is Kuroe and won’t be falling in love with Manatsu anytime soon, but she doesn’t know that, and I think her having a little bit of conflict with Minami could be interesting for the narrative.

I also feel bad for Minami because now he’s the most famous person around. Paparazzi follow him around nonstop, so this leads to him and Kuroe having to hide their relationship, essentially. With her hormones turning her into a kaiju, it makes sense that she wouldn’t want that to be caught on film. Not only would Minami’s life get harder, but hers might literally be over. If Kuroe is found out, then she might be killed, and that’s the best-case scenario. More than likely, she would be captured and experimented on to try to find out why she turns into a kaiju.

It would still be cool if we got some sort of other oddity to deal with outside of Kuroe. I’m not going so far as to say this is a negative, but it’s almost starting to feel like an episode of Power Rangers. We know at some point near the end of the episode that something is going to happen to cause Kuroe to change into Harugon.

I still love this show, but it has become slightly predictable. Kuroe has a moment with Minami; she changes, and then Minami has a “moment” with Harugon. That’s why I’m so excited for Manatsu to have some sort of conflict, because maybe it will inject something new into the story. As much as I like Manatsu, it would be kind of cool to see her turn into a villain of sorts. Of course, my preference is to have another kaiju or something. Perhaps this could be like the inverse of an Ultraman story? Instead of an Ultraman-like character being the good guy, perhaps they would be bad, and Kuroe needs to use her kaiju powers to fight back?

This show has been a hit for me thus far in the season, and I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt. But I think the next couple of episodes will be important in determining what kind of series this becomes.