English Dub Review: Nekopara “Summer Beach Cat Paradise!”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

After going through a health exam on a hot day, the cats decide that they need to hit the beach. But first, Shigure convinces them to go shopping for new swimwear at the mall. Cacao gets to buy her first suit, along with an inflatable fish floatie.

Once at the beach, the family unwinds and chills out. At least until one of the cats needs rescuing from a giant wave. Luckily, a girl who owns a shop on the beach saves the day. In return, they agree to help staff the shop, which is called Beach Clubhouse Orange. It goes so well that Shigure makes a deal with the owners to keep it fully staffed with cats!

Our Take:

Nekopara is finishing up its season with, what else, a beach episode. Granted, it’s not as purely fan service oriented as some other beach episodes I’ve seen, but it still lacks a bit of the feline charm I’ve come to expect from the show, eschewing it for weirdly out of place booty shots and jokes about dieting.

The episode starts out with a hot summer day as the cats go about their daily routines. From hanging up laundry to lounging around the home to cooking noodles, everyone can agree that it’s a nice day. Then it’s time for a health check, and of course, that comes with the requisite arguing about chest size and who’s grown the most. Regardless of your personal feelings toward the sexiness of cats, it’s not the most entertaining television, that’s for sure. Shigure’s vision test is at least a little bit funny, as she coaxes the cats into repeating phrases in praise of her under the guise of getting them to practice their reading and vision skills. But even this simple gag can’t escape the skeeviness, as it turns into a joke about allowing Shigure to take all the pics she wants, even if they get a little “spicy”.

Summer Beach Cat Paradise! doesn’t actually get around to the beach part until the latter half of the episode, when the cats finally make it out of the department store and onto the sand. Once on the beach, things get a little more interesting with the introduction of Beach Clubhouse Orange, a local snack shop that hasn’t seen much success since the owners passed it on to their two daughters. When one of them rescues a cat from drowning, they get repaid in full by getting cat workers for their establishment. This new fad brings a bunch of new business, and it was fun to see the cats all working in harmony – and even little Cacao got to take her first order!

The English dub continues to be a solid affair until the end, with not all of the voices sounding properly mixed, but still being acceptable and matching their characters well. I actually really enjoyed the two new additions from Beach Clubhouse Orange; their voices were very unique and believable.

The final episode of Nekopara wasn’t quite as good as it could’ve been. While it did a good job of including everyone and even introducing a few new characters, I can’t help but feel like a little of its charm was lost in sacrifice to fan service. Still though, it was an okay finale that included a fun line from Maple: “We took a day off at the beach and still somehow ended up working.” Whatever happens to the cats down the line, they’ll always have each other to rely on.