English Dub Review: The Helpful Fox Senko-San “Still…”

Still, have no idea what’s going on.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Nakano tries calling Senko, but she doesn’t respond. He does, however, get a call from his coworker, asking him to come home from his vacation ASAP. He takes that as his cue to say goodbye to his mom and hit the road. He doesn’t find Senko at their apartment and even tries asking Koenji about her whereabouts. She mentions she saw her leave yesterday, looking kind of down, but that she and Shiro would probably be back to watch the finale of Little Yoko, Inari Girl. When it airs, though, neither are to be found — because they’re both back in their realm with Sora.

Senko’s purpose for returning was to ask Sora about why the darkness surrounding Nakano won’t go away. Sora responds that because Senko has been unable to rid him of the darkness, she should leave him. Sora explains to Senko that she can’t keep trying to repay him for his ancestor’s kindness to her (whom she stayed with until he died.) Although Senko says she is aware Nakano’s life is short (darkness related or not) she still wants to stay with him.

Meanwhile, Nakano has been searching for Senko all over. She appears by some cherry blossom trees, and they finally have their cherry blossom viewing — full of drinks, food, and sentimental sentiments. Koenji and Shiro join them, too, and Nakano tells Senko he always wants to be with her, like how she’d always been there for him.

Our Take

If there were ever a melodramatic, vague finale for the books, this one would be in it. Granted, while we finally got a few questions answered, it almost seems like even more sprung up just before the finish line.

We finally got to see how Senko met Nakano’s ancestor! It was really sweet to see that a simple helping-hand gesture could unfold a decades-long dedicated to one bloodline. This does bring Senko’s feelings for Nakano into question again, considering that Senko’s initial eye for Nakano was because of his resemblance to his ancestor (something Shiro even brought up to Nakano in a previous episode.) Genuineness aside, something bigger appears to be going on underneath when it comes to the “darkness.”

When the flashback showed Nakano’s ancestor dying, they didn’t show “darkness” around him. He just appeared to be frail — but something even more peculiar is how he really didn’t seem to be that old. If anything, it seemed like he might have died from illness related causes. That being said, this makes Sora’s statement as unnerving as it is saddening: “No matter what the outcome may be, a sad parting still awaits you.” Could this mean that the growing darkness in Nakano is death’s slow grasp onto him? Is it possible that Nakano could die of some illness or other cause? Sora also could have just been referring to old age, but if that’s the case, what could the darkness mean, then? It doesn’t seem like Nakano is unhappy — if anything, the finale seemed to highlight his personal growth. So if the darkness isn’t related to unhappiness, then what exactly is it?

It seems like these are questions they purposefully left unanswered so that they could make it to season two. It would be really weird to see this show get dark if Nakano were to actually die, but this is all speculation. Other than the unclear drama, it seemed like a soft note to end on. There wasn’t anything crazy, there was no spectacular animation — just another day in the life of a guy and his fox girl.

Talk about a tall tail.