English Dub Review: Hatena Illusion “Episode 7”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Mamoru returns home again; however, nobody realized he left after returning the last time, so no one has strong feelings one way or another. Besides, he has to leave again, right away. All the girls want to know is when their mother will be back. Mamoru doesn’t have a definitive answer for them but believes she’ll be gone for a while longer. Before the great magician leaves, he informs Makoto that his old mentor will soon be visiting the mansion to train the boy.

Aunt Mariah shows up, claiming to have free reign of the mansion since it belongs to the family (Aren’t we tired of her yet?). Again, she gets into Hatena’s head, convincing her that she needs to develop prompts or programmed responses to truly have control over her personal artifact. Hatena, who always thought her relationship with Muffy was strong, looks to her recent string of failures, and agrees she could probably do better.

And so, she, Makoto, and Yumemi start training within their respective fields. The girls work on their artifact control while our amateur magician juggles knives and does other goofy magician shit as “The Final Countdown” plays at full blast.

They all struggle at living their best life. Ema takes notice and segregates Yumemi and Hatena for some precision waterfall meditation. The littlest sister already hates water, but by the time Ema is done drenching them, they both hate it equally. Also, how is it meditation when you’re just dumping cold water on girls in all-white clothing? There’s something wrong with you, Ema!

Next thing we know, Mariah is back with two very special, British guests. At first, Hatena doesn’t want them there because they came with her horrendous Aunt, but soon realizes they may be allies. They’re revealed to be Sir Gregory Camelot and his nephew, apprentice, and heir, Dina Camelot. Gregory is Mamoru’s former master; the one he promised would train Makoto.

Gregory, on the contrary, doesn’t think Makoto is a very good magician. In fact, he was never too keen on Mamoru either. The only reasons he stopped by was because a) he’s already performing a few shows in Japan and b) the lovely Maeve persuaded him to give Makoto a chance.

After a pretty impressive card trick, the old Brit is not amused. Hatena and Yumemi try to advocate for their honorary brother, but Dina jumps in to play the spoiler. He’s pissed that Uncle Gregory would even consider taking on another apprentice besides himself. Dina is also a far better magician that presumably doesn’t rely on artifacts. The young lad shows off one of his tricks to the amazement of the entire household, especially Makoto. Fortunately, Gregory decides to give our hero one more chance. All Makoto has to do is wow him with his “best trick.”

The episode ends with Mariah forcing the children to hand over their artifacts at the behest of their mysterious grandmother. Worst of all, Jeeves agrees with her. What the Hell, Jeeves?

 

Our Take

I’m just going to come out and say it. For the rest of the season—and the entire series if it continues from here—we never need to see Mamoru come home and leave again. I also never want to hear the girls wax poetic about their missing mother. We’re more than halfway through this initial run, and everybody sounds like a broken record all of the damn time.

Face it, girls, you may live in a mansion, but you’re nothing more than a couple of latchkey kids. Plenty of damn kids have had to deal with their parents being gone for extended periods of time and they didn’t get all bent out of shape like the two of you—and Makoto to a lesser extent. There’s so much other shit going on that you’re 100% neglecting.

First off, your dimwitted Aunt is running amok all over your mansion, acting like she owns the place and is also the interior decorator. It’s funny that Jeeves is bending over backward to please Mariah, the whole time acting like it’s the most natural series of events. Hey, idiot butler, did you miss when this bitch tried to kill Hatena twice?

The girls should feel safe in their own home, and they should have possession of their personal artifacts. Maeve made sure the girls had them before she left—and reiterated the point when she briefly returned as a rubbery avatar. And so the question remains, why hasn’t either of their parents mentioned the prospect of the girls giving up their artifacts—and Makoto to a lesser extent? Don’t you think that’s something that might’ve come up on one of Mamoru’s half a dozen visits?

It’s frustrating. And now we have this annoying British bloke running around, unmonitored. How can we even be sure this was Mamoru’s master? Only Jeeves remembers him, and we can no longer trust that senile old prick. Things are going to get worse before they get better. That much is clear.