English Dub Review: Grow Up Show: Sunflower Circus “Beyond The Stage Of Dreams”
Overview:
The “Sunflower Circus” has been granted permission to participate in the “Circus Collection Japan Tournament.”
Our Take(Spoilers):
My theory that this show would have more than the usual twelve episodes was based on its listing on MAL. They usually have the episode count for a series, and if you look up this show, it says “Unknown” next to the number of episodes. This led me to believe that it would have more than what we usually get. But after this episode, I have doubts about whether that’s the case.
Before we get to that, I would like to talk about all the death flags that Maria is throwing up. Every time the girls come to visit her, she’s putting on a lot of makeup so that she doesn’t look as unhealthy as she truly is. This always ends up leaving her exhausted, and as we learn from the girls a bit later, they can tell that she’s putting on all the makeup. If I were a betting man, I would put good money on Maria not surviving to the end of this series.
I had a feeling that Nanami wouldn’t be as mean and coldhearted as she lets on. She might be upset that Maria decided not to sell her the Sunflower troupe, but ultimately she still cares about Maria’s well-being. She must also care about the girls at Sunflower because she moved Maria to a hospital in Yokohama so that the girls could visit her during the competition.
Speaking of the competition, that’s the reason I’m worried we’re not going to get a satisfactory competition arc here. Sunflower won their first matchup against the Peony troupe, but we didn’t get to see any of it. We got a narration of them losing and then got to see a small newspaper article saying that as well. We didn’t get a montage of them competing or anything, and I think I know how this is going to go. I hope that I’m wrong, though.
Typically, when a show like this does something like that, it means that we’re going to essentially skip to the final. Sure, storytelling conventions tell us that Sunflower weren’t going to lose their first matchup, but it would have been nice to see something from it. If I had to guess, we’re going to build up to the final in the next episode, with the final episode being devoted to the matchup versus Nanami. I hope that I’m wrong though because it is only now starting to feel like this show is getting started.
