English Dub Review: Aoashi “Just Like You”

Overview: When Ashito (Ciaran Strange) stumbles into some trouble trying Kuribayashi’s (Garret Storms) techniques, Anri (Molly Zhang) offers a helping hand and grows closer to him.

Our Take: Aoi is having trouble picking up a basic skill like Kuribayashi’s head tilt skill. While all the impressive and cinematic nature of Aoi’s eagle eye vision is exciting to watch, it’s nice that the show is still grounded, going back to the fundamentals of a sport with mastery of them being the key to success. Also, thankfully, the same applies to Aoi in him not mastering everything within the blink of an eye. 

Anri’s own budding skills as a coach also lend themselves to how competent she is and lends itself to her relationship with Aoi. Anri and Ashito’s shared love of soccer with Aoi recognizing her adeptness at the sport and Anri doing the same with his upbeat morale makes for great chemistry and even a potential romance. It also continues seeding the love triangle with Hana in her being less than enthused about them spending time that’ll be intriguing to unravel further. The down-to-earth elements of the show are nicely built upon in Aoi practicing his head tilt and, even when benched, makes the most of it by going through scenarios in his head in what he would do throughout the game. Aoi’s positive attitude is a great way of showing how much he has grown and demonstrated nicely through his interactions with Anri and Tachibana.

There is some great inner team drama in Tachibana blaming himself for the team’s weakness, even asking for tutelage from Aoi. It culminates with a sweet bonding moment between the boys in Togashi, Otomo and Aoi offering their perspective on how they deal with losses. All of this transpires before reuniting with their tryout buddies, Kaneda and Nakano, which starts off jovial with the boys having an adorable reunion. Kaneda, however, is on a different wavelength, feeling cheated out of his spot on Esperion from Aoi and the gang. Kaneda is very much establishing himself as the chadtagonist of the arc with him having some beef, in what seems a bit contrived. However, only time will tell if his grudge will be further and/or better developed within the next episode or later on.