English Dub Review: Rinshi!! Ekoda-chan “Episode 8”

I had a teaser here, but I think it must have gotten lost in translation.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

We begin the episode in a restaurant in Ekoda district. A group of twenty-somethings has just settled in for an evening meal together. Seated among them is a young woman named M. M seems to be a friend of Ekoda-chan’s, as everyone is asking her questions about the show’s protagonist. They are most interested in her line of work. Everyone seems to have seen Ekoda at a different job: customer service, modeling, administrative jobs, and even light sex work. M refuses to give any credence to these rumors.

Suddenly, another friend of the group shows up. The young adults all think it’s Ekoda, and M quickly realize that she forgot to invite her. Someone saw her earlier that morning with a bag of fancy meat, so M knows where she must go. As the new girl sits down, M excuses herself and heads over to Ekoda’s place. When she arrives, she finds Ekoda-chan all alone in her apartment, surrounded by a gorgeous dinner. It turns out that Ekoda-chan was cooking dinner for Maa-kun, but the latter bailed at the last minute.

M and Ekoda sit down together in order to commiserate. They both forgive each other for a past argument they had about Ekoda’s obsession with Maa-kun. Ekoda opines about her inability to marry the meat that she cooked for dinner. She goes for seconds, and M wonders if she’s okay. Ekoda-chan tells her that it’s alright and that she’ll do whatever it takes to get the life that she wants.

Our Take

There isn’t much to say about this one. Director Kojima Masayuki & Ekoda-chan voice actor Ise Marya are trying to understand Ekoda-chan, but the lack of precarity in the lives of the creators translates to a motivation-confused filter of the original character into something that the older male director can understand and the privileged actress can embody. All of this is coupled with the (still) unfortunate fact that the episodes are a scant three minutes long and are followed by some punishingly long commentary.

The only new fact that I discovered this week is that not only are the episodes dubbed, but they are restricted for content. Apparently, in the original script, according to Mayara, someone asks if Ekoda works at a Filipino bar. Albeit, while the young man asks nicely, it can be misconstrued as anti-Filipino racism. As such, it was kept out of the American draft. (This and also the regional conflict being lost on the audience were surely a factor).

I am already unable to hear each week’s performance of the script by the original actor. To add insult to injury, now I am unable to discern what pieces of dialog were in the source material or if they belong to the show’s director. This whole show has become an exercise in displacement. Unfortunately for Ekoda-chan. It has become the same story when it comes to disappointment.