English Dub Review: Chio’s School Road “Chio-chan Changes Her Image/Flat Cut”

Chio is too blessed to be stressed about tests.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

After a night of failing to study for her exam, Chio makes a desperate plea to the local shrine for a good score on her test. Her prayer is answered by the homeless man, Roshi, from a few episodes back, who proceeds to give them life advice. His words of wisdom? For Chio and Manana to get a makeover, so people won’t notice how much they suck.

After some convincing by Manana, Chio is all for the makeover, but it’s not long before things go south. Chio’s got some fashion issues, and nothing Manana or Roshi does seem to help. In fact, without her signature glasses on, it seems like Chio’s appearance can only get worse.

Regardless, eventually, Chio gets convinced of her post-makeover sexiness with the help of a wig and demonstrates her newfound confidence with an aggressive pole dance. Her wig flies off mid-dance without Chio noticing, and so Manana and Roshi try to play it off like this whole makeover scheme was a self-confidence exercise. Chio yells at them for wasting her time and runs off to school so she isn’t late for class.

In the second half of the episode, Chio and Manana run across Andou delivering newspapers in a fiery, masculine fashion. Manana stresses over Chio’s gushing over Andou and his manly ways and how Andou seems to be showing off for her. Her suspicions are soon validated, as it becomes clear that Andou actually is pining for Chio’s affection. He even learned to strike a remarkable foot slam pose from a boy love game that he thinks Chio likes. Unfortunately for Andou, this just makes Chio think he’s into dudes.

Our Take:

This episode was a fun watch but trades off the funny for a lot more of the cute. The story this week is all about love and image, which brings a unity to the two scenarios Chio and Manana find themselves in. While this means that there’s a lot less of the screwball humor that has come to define Chio’s School Road, there is quite a bit of heart, and dare I say it, a touch of romance in this week’s colorful offering. Long time viewers will get the most mileage out of this particular episode since it requires some prior character knowledge to get the humor out of the tension between Chio and Andou.

The first scenario of this week is definitely the weakest of the two. Manana and Roshi’s frittering over giving Chio a makeover doesn’t really hit home, feeling more like a time waster than a good bit. I thought it was funny, though, how the typical “Ugly duckling gets a makeover” storyline gets undercut by Roshi and Manana’s frank analysis of Chio’s poor physical features. It was a dark gag, but a funny one, that I think should have continued as the main focus of the sequence instead of having Chio try on a bunch of different wigs. It was interesting to see “Pole dancer” added to the list of Chio’s many talents, though; who knew you could learn such techniques by playing video games?

The second scenario is where a lot of the fun really begins. Chio and Andou have an awkward chemistry that makes them perfect for each other and seeing them do this “Will they won’t they” bit is pretty enjoyable. Manana gets all the funny bits in the scenario with her stressing over the Chio and Andou’s potential future together. It doesn’t make her a good friend, of course, but seeing her try to justify breaking the two of them up “For Chio’s sake” works really well with Manana’s character. I wish there was more “funny” here, though. What’s interesting is that it’s not the main gags that got the laughs from me this time around, but the little quips and turns that take place in unexpected places. If Chio’s School Road can master those almost random gags, then it could probably keep the laughs coming from start to finish. As it stands though, this episode is just a cute, but enjoyable twenty-two minutes, that dazzles and entertains, without hyping the audience up too much.

Score
7/10