English Dub Review: Horimiya “It May Seem Like Hate”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The group talks about how they don’t have a lot of friends with siblings. Ishikawa brings up a new fact about Iura and that he has a younger sister. Then the guys start talking about Yanagi’s formalness with them and try to get him to act more casual around them. He tries at a slow pace at getting used to calling the guys by their first names.

Meanwhile, Iura’s sister, Motoko struggles with her studies to the point where her teacher laughs at her choice to go to attend East High. After getting angry on her behalf, Iura asks Hori to tutor his younger sister for the entrance exams. While Motoko is tutoring with Hori, Miyamura and Souta bake and the girls chat about Motoko’s sibling relationship with Iura. Iura buys a good luck charm for Motoko at the shrine. Both siblings hope that the other isn’t hating them.

Our Take:

The episode’s got high school shenanigans and heartwarming scenes between the Iura siblings. Admittedly the snow transitions don’t make sense at first until I got to the last scene where it’s snowing while Motoko is at Hori’s house. It reflects Motoko’s emotional state with the colors, and I did like how the anime showed Motoko’s distress before Iura comes into the living room.

The first half is mainly just everyone casually conversing to get Yanagi to be more comfortable with casually addressing them. Then there’s Sawada slowly expanding her comfort zone around the guys. They give her candy and it gets Sawada to be more comfortable around them. The scene moves to place Iura’s story with his sister to the front. Her interaction with Iura is awkward which works with her discomfort around guys that she doesn’t know well yet.  However, Iura still helps her out by helping her carry stuff to the science lab. His actions do cause a bit of misunderstanding when he tries to protect her from getting infected with his possible cold and getting Sawada to think that he hates her with her previous words about him being a loudmouth.

The second half of the episode was good with Iura siblings. A common conflict for students is studying to get into the school of their dreams, and Horimiya works with it to bring out more aspects of Iura to the viewer. He’s not just a loud and tactless guy. Iura’s serious demeanor at home with Motoko does show that he has another side to him as an older brother. He does care about Motoko as he says he’ll punch the teacher who downgraded her choice to go to East High.

Motoko lashing out at her brother was good. She clearly expresses the struggle of studying only to see that her grades were slipping and her frustration with it. She tries to forgo food, but Iura points out that she won’t be able to do anything on an empty stomach. Then Iura requests Hori to tutor her for the entrance exams. He even goes to get Motoko a big good luck charm for the exams with Ishikawa at a shrine. Motoko describes her relationship with her brother as not that close. Not to mention Iura’s serious demeanor at home in contrast to his cheery self at school which surprises Hori. It shows how they view their relationship with the last line of the siblings hoping that the other won’t hate them.

Even though the episode didn’t focus on Hori or Miyamura, it was good at expanding on the minor cast. Their interactions with each other were amusing and heartfelt. Hopefully, the next episode will have a similar emotional impact.