English Dub Review: Hana-Kimi “I Can’t Not Think About It”

Overview:

During her midnight bath, Mizuki runs into Sano. Shaken by this, she can’t look him in the eyes the next day.

Our Take:

So I didn’t expect that Mizuki and Sano would discuss her being a girl, but I thought a little more would come of the midnight bath. Instead, it was mostly a way for Sano to realize he might be starting to get feelings for Mizuki. But it wasn’t all for naught, I suppose. Later on, someone bumped into Mizuki when she was saying goodbye to Julia, spilling juice all over her shirt. Nakatsu tried to get her to take her shirt off immediately to go clean it. Sano stepped in because he knows that Mizuki is a girl, and Julia took notice of this.

Speaking of Nakatsu and Julia, I think my “enemies to lovers” cliche hope might be on the table. Locals stop Sano, Nakatsu, and Nanba for a photo op. While watching this go down, Julia notes that Nakatsu isn’t half bad-looking so long as he isn’t talking. Unfortunately, Nakatsu has a way of talking way too much. But it at least shows that there’s something there.

Now that Sano is acting more protective of Mizuki, I would like to see them have a conversation about anything substantial. I don’t think Sano is going to admit that he knows her secret anytime soon, but it would be nice if that weren’t the case.

Unfortunately, Hana-Kimi is a manga from the 90s, and I think we shouldn’t expect massive story changes just because the anime is released in 2026. I was hoping that since this story is just now getting an adaptation, maybe it would be like “remakes” in the past and change a few things. But typically when things like that happen, it’s to make it more faithful to the manga. From what I can tell, this has been a rather faithful adaptation, but the source material is just kind of dated.

This was my long-winded way of saying that there was some good and some bad in this episode. But I have to say I think it’s a bad sign that I’m rooting for side couples more than the main one. The main couple just isn’t very interesting to me. We already know how that’s going to end, which is normal in stories like this, but the least they could do is make getting there interesting.