English Dub Review: Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie “How They Each Feel at the Start of Summer”

Overview

Summer begins at last! Izumi joins Shikimori and their friends in deciding what they’ll all do together over summer break. They decide to go to the river, but is the combination of a river and Izumi’s bad luck too dangerous? Then Shikimori says something amazingly cool… After some discussion, they all head to the mall together. Shikimori seems disappointed when Izumi says he won’t wear a swimsuit at the river. She says she won’t wear one either, but then Izumi-kun does something that lights a fire in her…

Our Take

During the proceedings, it was nice to see how Nekozaki and Shikimori became friends, and later see Shikimori buy the swimsuit she thought Izumi was looking for. I was expecting a beach episode but much to my surprise we get a river one.

Shikimori doesn’t back down from a good challenge but as long as Izumi is involved, she gives it her all, it’s getting close to summer and they can go out and have fun. I get that the show wants to show how hyper capable she is and have beauty in equal measure to back it up, but it makes me wonder how she feels with everyone praising her? Hopefully, she isn’t as oblivious as Yuki from Fruits Basket who went to a high school that had a fan club about him and was completely unaware of its existence…

Overall, this was another passable episode. Shikimori as usual carried the rest of this story and had some wholesome moments. Izumi has largely been very annoying and hard to watch sometimes. But the night sky scene was adorable. Probably the best thing he’s done in this series so far, hopefully, he gets some well-deserved development later on. Also, the post-credits scene was quite fun.