English Dub Review: Toilet-bound Hanako-Kun “Mitsuba”

(Possible Spoilers Below)

As a direct continuation to the previous episode, the supporting character Kou the young exorcist in training now has his work cut out for him after encountering an effeminate rude male ghost named “Mitsuba” that loves nothing more than to insult Kou and doesn’t take him seriously as an exorcist. With Kou wanting to approach his job in a different way by helping good and harmless spirits cross over and attempt to find out whatever unfinished business Mitsuba had and help him fulfill it. As we find out what Mitsuba’s “unfinished business” is, Kou’s friend and classmate Yokoō takes notice of an object that Mitsuba once owned in Kou’s hands and reminds him of the time when they were first-year middle school students together in the same class, until Mitsuba died in an accident just last winter.

As the further plot unravels, Mitsuba becomes less of a jerk and comes across as a very sympathetic character who didn’t exactly have friends or even a support system when he was alive which is often a harsh reality for new kids at school in general, but Kou assures Mitsuba that the two of them can be friends even after one of them is dead, to which Mitsuba responds with something flattering but unexpected. Of course, this happiness doesn’t last due to the meddling of Tsukasa who is a character I avoided talking about in previous episodes to avoid Spoilers, but in a nutshell, he’s Hanako’s Twin Brother with a twisted philosophy.

With Tsukasa manipulating the ghost rumors into something harmful and negative, it leads to an unpleasant and tragic fate for Mitsuba, and consequently, this forces Hanako to step in and handle the situation. While Kou attempts to get through to Mitsuba, it doesn’t go the way Kou imagined. But after a brief skirmish between Hanako and his Brother, Hanako tells Kou that arguably there is no future for the dead as such a fate of being stuck amongst the living after death isn’t a particularly desirable one, but Kou disagrees. At home, The episode ends on a bittersweet note when Kou makes a discovery of something Mitsuba had left behind during their time together.

Our Take

WOW. I did not expect a new level of pathos from this series. I mean I did think it would get twisted at some point, but not like this. Of course, we did get previous episodes that unraveled certain parts about Hanako’s past that sold the drama, but this manages to top it even further.

Strangely enough, Nene is nowhere within this episode or if she is, she had no speaking role as I think the tone they were going for was a serious one for Kou’s side of things. Also, this episode’s animation was rough in places with a few in-between frames, sound unsynced, details missing in certain shots (such as a scene involving blood on Kou’s face). It was janky to the point that it almost screwed up the immersion for me.

While this episode was faced with its share of technical problems, it still excels in selling the drama and characters and I look forward to seeing the schism of how Hanako and Tsukasa became such extreme opposites of each other hopefully in future episodes.