English Dub Review: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun “One-way Train to the Far Shore”

We’ll meet beyond the shore, we’ll kiss just as before

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Nene, Akane, Kou, and Teru make one last ditch effort to enter the Boundary to the Far Shore and save Aoi and Hanako.

OUR TAKE

Well, that’s the short of version of what happened, but the main thing I left out is the main orchestrator of this plan, Teru, who basically (and literally) pushes everyone else to go on this last trip. He’s got good goals and intentions…on the surface. He definitely wants to save Aoi from being permanently dead (apparently she is a spirit but going beyond the boundary to the Far Shore will seal the deal), which is something everyone else in the group wants, but he’s also got secondary goals. Namely that he wants to kill Hanako once and for all (which is gonna be a bit hard considering he is already a ghost, so I assume he means in a way that he won’t even be that). In addition, he is aware that Aoi dying is what will (somehow) secure Nene from having a short life, but upon finding Hanako and attempting to take him down, he confesses that if Aoi is not returned to life, he will kill Nene and make Hanako’s sacrifice pointless. Oh, and then there’s also the fact that he sprinkled a powdered dead demon hand on the pizza he got for everyone so they would be able to enter the boundary, so chalk up drugging to the list. I guess that mellowed out vibe he seemed to have was not real after all.

But then there’s Hanako, who is hell bent on making sure that Aoi stays dead without telling HER anything, so he’s not innocent in any of this either. Heck, if Akane wasn’t there to save Aoi, she would have been devoured by other apparitions, something that Hanako either didn’t know could happen or may have LET happen if it made sure her death couldn’t be undone. He may not have actively caused Aoi to cross over and die, but his push to keep it from being undone simply for Nene is horrendous. Thankfully this flawed behavior is at least interesting to watch, and it’s all coming down to the season finale next week, where all of this will be resolved. I get the sense that things may just go back to the status quo, though I feel like that would be a bit of a cop out if none of this was addressed later. We’ll just have to wait and see to find out, I suppose. That said, I wonder what’s been going on with that green haired girl?