English Dub Season Review: Grow Up Show: Sunflower Circus
Overview:
In Japan, during the height of its economic boom in the mid-1950s, the circus became a central part of many people’s lives. The best troupes are invited to the world-renowned “Circus Collection” festival, and many come from across Japan to compete daily.
Our Take(Spoilers):
If I were to base my entire review on the visuals for this show, it would probably be a perfect 10/10. It’s a gorgeous show when it’s focusing on the circus performances. Surprisingly, for a show centered around circus performances, there were very few of them in the show. Not only that, but it feels like this show committed one of the most egregious sins an anime can commit: skipping a tournament arc.
As I mentioned, the visuals in this show are fantastic, and the voice work is just as good. Lizzie Freeman and Cristina Valenzuela play the two main leads, Mizuki and Ouka, respectively. I feel like Cassandra Lee Morris rarely takes on new anime roles lately, so it was awesome getting to hear her as the ringleader, Maria. As much as I hate to say it, the technical aspect of things is where most of the positives end.
The story is disjointed, and I still don’t know where it was trying to go. As much as Mizuki talks about her father (or paramecium, as she refers to him), you would think that he would make an appearance. That’s why I had a whole theory about him being dead or something, but nope! Turns out that he’s a surgeon in the US; more on that in a bit.
If you’re creating an anime, you have two choices when you’re thinking about including a tournament arc. You either don’t have one, or you have one and make it the focus of at least an arc of the series. This show tried to hedge its bets; they decided to have a tournament but only show the final. Even then, the final was only five minutes or so of the final episode. This was almost as disappointing as the character assassination performed in the last few minutes of the season.
Maria is not a child, but she does look like one, and I think she was a teenager at the very least when she met Mizuki’s dad. So imagine my surprise when we learn that not only was he the surgeon who helped Maria with her illness, but they also got married. This pretty much ruined any goodwill I had for this show. I love romance, and if Maria’s marriage had any build-up at all, they could have maybe helped with some of the problems. Mizuki’s father is played by Jonah Scott, another amazing VA. So I would have welcomed more characterization of him but instead all we get is second-hand accounts, and now his character has married someone he knew when they were very young. This show unfortunately committed too many storytelling sins for me to recommend it to anyone, despite the amazing visuals and voice work.
