English Dub Review: Wonder Egg Priority “Colorful Girls”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

As Ai and Rika face off against their Wonder Killer, a new girl takes centerstage in her own story. Momoe is a a girl who’s always being mistaken for a boy due to her more masculine style of dress and hairstyle. A lot of the girls she saves in the egg world mistake her for a boy and/or confess their love to her. Even the person she’s trying to save did the latter. Momoe has put up a bit of a frosty exterior, but when Ai comes along, that gets broken down quickly.

Our Take:

In the fourth episode of Wonder Egg Priority, Ai and Rika finally conquer that boss and we’re introduced to the fourth and final member of the main cast. It’s an episode with a lot going on — epic fight scenes one minute, hushed confessions of molestation the next — but there’s no denying that Wonder Egg Priority is great at going for it all.

Colorful Girls does a delicate balancing act for the first half, as it cuts back and forth between Ai trying to protect the twin fangirls and Momoe waging a war of her own against a bigwig sexual assaulter. There’s big action moments with excellent animation and direction, but also plenty of little subtle moments of humor like when Ai has to do the wave with glow sticks.

Underlying the visuals is our uncertainty about Momoe and her introduction. When the episode first premiered in the original Japanese, there was a fair deal of debate about Momoe’s identity and presentation. I’ve watched most of the show in the original language, and it seems like the creator’s intent is for her to read as someone who identifies as a girl, but struggles with how others perceive her due to her outer appearance. There are other readings, and we’ll get into some of those in a later episode, but for now, Colorful Girls does a nice job letting us see our first glimpses of this group of egg warriors as they begin to bond.

The English dub is still a solid affair, although my initial enthusiasm is becoming a bit more muted as Ai takes up less screen time. Mikaela Krantz continues to be phenomenal in the leading role, but because she’s just so darn good at inhabiting her character, the rest of the cast feel a bit less natural in comparison. In any other dub, Michelle Rojas’s performance as Momoe would feel just fine, but when she’s talking to Ai in this episode, it just comes across as a bit strange. Krantz sounds just like the young girl Ai is, while the others can’t quite shed their realities as adult actors trying to sound younger.

We may be already four episodes into Wonder Egg Priority, but the sheer awe at the magnitude and scope of the show continues to amaze. From the A-level visuals to the heady themes and action packed drama, there’s plenty to love here for fans of all sorts.