English Dub Review: Kageki Shojo!!”Tears Overwritten”
Overview
As a direct continuation of the emotionally charged events of episode 3, Sarasa and Ai’s confrontation with a random dude that Ai previously had issues with. Only…he’s here to apologize to Ai, which is a bitter pill to swallow considering her previous and unresolved trauma surrounding her screwed-up family past…
Our Take
Continuing where we left off with Ai’s cliffhanger of a dilemma, Sarasa almost divulged Ai’s personal information to the stalker who came to seek forgiveness for all the trouble he may have caused during Ai’s idol days before she exited the group altogether and entered the Kouka Revue. I’m glad he wasn’t an awful person and meant well. Ai inspired him to get his life together and was kind & understanding to her but it wasn’t all sunshine & ponies…
They really nailed the portrayal of PTSD as Ai realistically ain’t nowhere near close to getting over her androphobia, Trauma doesn’t just go away after one good encounter, which I can appreciate and at least you see small steps of progress seeing her express actual concern for the dude to a degree. While we also get follow up with the subplot of Ayako. As one might have guessed from that fat-shaming & humiliation from that specific Teacher also within that last episode, she’s becoming a bulimic now…
Overall, this episode really drives home how hard being an idol or an actress is, as in many ways it’s disturbingly similar to how child actors/actresses deal with specific problems also within Hollywood. When it isn’t drugs, it’s the serious topic of bulimia, having to deal with stalkers & creeps in combination with shitty tabloids and other jealous co-stars trying to destroy your career or take it from you. You hear stories like this all the time but you rarely see topical shit like this being talked about in anime. As for Ayako, If she can barely hold herself together due to the physical and mental stress of not eating (or eating and purging) then she’ll be a much worse performer than she would be with a few extra pounds. Kinda counter-productive for a school to abuse their own students like this which I hope also is touched upon later on…
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