English Dub Review: Asteroid in Love “The Riverside Milky Way”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

To raise a bit of money for the ol’ Earth Sciences budget, Ms. Endou forces the girls—practically kicking and screaming—to a riverside bar-be-que. Why something like this would add money to the budget, since they have to pay for the food they eat, is unclear to everybody. However, they begin the day by looking at rocks, and plan to end it by watching the cosmos, so everybody in the club is down for the cue.

Tricky Endou even tempts Suzu over to the Earth Sciences dark side by ordering a bunch of food delivered from her parents’ bakery. At first, Suzu insists that she can’t stay, but when cute little Inose smothers her with praise, the attention whore has no choice but to hang around.

It turns into quite the day. First Mira gives everybody nicknames—all of which I’ve forgotten—then, Sakurai identifies a bunch of different types of rocks for the benefit of the astronomy club. Mira wants to take all the rocks back to school for the geo club to clean up and put on display, but they’re too heavy, and Mira isn’t very strong.

At night the astro-heads bust out their telescope and teach the rockers how to look at the stars and planets. Sakurai and Inose are won over by the beauty, but not enough to approve a $200-400 extension that would make following the stars easier. D’oh! Overall, the club ends the evening amicably by enjoying a very rare meteor shower together.

At their next meeting, everyone is doing great on their newsletter article except for Mira. She wants to write about asteroids, but has trouble finding her voice. Later on, at home, her older sister gives some constructive criticism which Mira takes poorly by storming out of the room. The next day, inspired by Ao’s words encouraging her artistic flair, Mira decides to write her newsletter article as a short Manga comic. The other members love it, and think it’s totally cute.

When the first issue of Sparkle hits the newsstand, it becomes an immediate success. This is due in large part to the rambunctious cheerleading from Mira’s older sister, Misa, who is also the student body president.

To celebrate the girls visit an urban hot spring. Nobody in the group seems to be embarrassed of their bodies or getting excited over the powerful jets. These are very liberated women. The rock girls give them a little history on traditional and urban hot springs and it’s surprisingly captivating.

After their bath, they run into two giggly old ladies who are friends with their club adviser who gave the girls the discounted spa passes in the first place. The old biddies seem nice enough, but also a little too obsessed with their life mission of getting Ms. Endou laid!

 

Our Take

I’m going to say this in the most delicate way possible, in hopes of keeping these reviews at a PG-13 (TV-14?) level. Even though she’s not in the episodes as much as everybody else, it has become quite clear that Suzu has a serious case of “The Horn.” This girl is horning after any co-ed with a pulse. She’s horn-dog for Inose, she’s horn-icopia for Mira’s older sister, and she’s even Jason Horne over a sexy-looking loaf of bread.

Mira and Ao already have quite the relationship. It doesn’t matter where you put these girls, they’re going to find common ground and have amazing conversations no matter what. Since we’re only in the second episode, I’m glad things didn’t get too awkward or romantic at the spa when Mira was shaking her bosom and bottom every which way but loose. Ao was having fun, no doubt, but she’s wise enough to know when and where to draw the line—for now.

I’m expecting greater things from Misa; she’s very similar to her little sister but with way more confidence. I suppose such bravado comes naturally over time. It seems as if Misa is a senior while her little sis is only a first-year. Therefore, it’ll be a while before our Mira fully emerges from her shell. The same goes for most first-years, such as Ao, but excludes Suzu who’s basically an unruly animal with an unruly thirst for the ladies.

For the most part, we had a relatively linear episode going on. The BBQ was a day-to-night affair that led into the upcoming school days of newsletter preparation. Next, Mira went through some trials and tribulations in getting her article from concept to function which ended in a creative solution. And then the paper sold out. Boom! End of story—except it wasn’t.

What did those creepy little spa ladies have to do with the overarching story or theme? It felt like we were driving down a smooth highway, and all of a sudden a garbage truck forced us off the road, into a ditch. Are these golden girls going to play a larger part going forward, or will this be the last we ever see of them? These are the discombobulating questions that keep me up at night.