English Dub Review: Darling in the FranXX “Boys x Girls”

Internal team turmoil is front and center in an episode starring… puberty?

Overview (Spoilers Below):

When a rather, er, an unfortunate incident occurs during battle, the Parasites are divided into two warring factions – the boys and the girls. What follows is a fairly stereotypical battle of the sexes, with the squad members even going so far as laying down strips of tape to signify which zones are girls (or boys) only. 02 and Hiro have a bit of fun during the squabbling, but in the end, the Parasites realize that they need to come together as a team in order to be prepared for whatever their futures may hold.

Our Take:

Coming off of a fairly impressive beach episode last week, this episode was definitely more of a mixed bag. I know the opening scene was necessary to inciting all the drama that followed, but surely there was a better, less gross, way of going about it. Scenes like this are extra weird because of what the show has established about the Parasites’ knowledge of romance – they’ve never heard of ‘sex’ or ‘kissing’, but ‘ogling’? They know that’s a thing, apparently.

Despite the flaws of the premise, the hijinks were funny at times. Taping off entire rooms felt juvenile enough to at least bring a silly grin to my face. Zorome and Miku’s bickering was particularly engaging to watch, too. (After Ichigo/Goro and 02/Hiro, they’re definitely my favorite pair of partners.) It takes some meddling from 02 to finally bring about the end of the fighting. I do like that they’re giving her something to do that involves getting more interactions with her new teammates. She’s actually making an effort to become more ‘human’, as she puts it.

This was a fantastic Kokoro episode, even if it wasn’t entirely successful on other fronts. Her character has been quietly developed into someone who I’m interested in getting to know further. She raises a secret garden! That’s pretty cool.  She also has the best line of the episode:  “When you’re expected to tow the line, it takes a lot of courage not to. I know because I was too afraid.” By the end, she’s one of the driving forces behind the team’s reconciliation, which was some nice growth for her.

Though it felt overly icky and didn’t have anything new to say about gender roles, this was still an okay episode that resulted in some much-needed understanding between the squad members. And they’re certainly going to need all the support they can get since they now know their fates are up-in-the-air thanks to a hint from 02.