English Dub Review: YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of This World “A Summer That Won’t Come Back”

The gang has a beach day complete with wild dogs, stalkers, and…

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Takuya, Yuki, Mio, and Kanna’s beach vacation getaway has begun! The four of them are on their way to a private beach house that Mio’s dad, the mayor, owns. First, though, they have to evade Hojo’s weird snooping with a brilliant plan involving Yuki’s watermelon.

Once they arrive at the beach, the real fun starts. They swim, play volleyball, and are about to make dinner when they realize all their barbeque meat is missing. Thinking Hojo might be responsible, they go to investigate. It turns out to be merely a wild dog. Takuya wonders if he should revert time, but decides what’s special about the day is that it only happened once. Everything is ending up lovely until Kanna collapses on the way home.

Our Take:

I was pleasantly surprised by A Summer That Won’t Come Back. I was kind of expecting the episode to be a bit of a detour from the main storyline, but I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much. When they aren’t exploring hidden caves and getting attacked by dimension-traveling aliens, these kids are pretty fun to watch.

The episode begins with a scene that sets the news for the rest of the rent I’m pretty well. it’s a flashback from Takuya’s childhood when he visited a beach with his family. he builds a beautiful sand mermaid sculpture only to be amazed to see it wash away in the waves a few minutes later. It’s a really cute, sweetly innocent moment that we don’t get to see much from the Takuya of these days. the rest of the episode is surprisingly low-key. apart from the drama with hojo, it’s a relatively calm beach day shared by a group of friends. The childhood mermaid scene is echoed later on in the episode, and Takuya’s reaction is just as funny the second time around.

As I’ve said, the only real source of conflict in this episode is Hojo. This is only the second time we’ve really seen him, so it’s still unclear exactly what his deal is with Kanna. He could be working surveillance for Ryuzoji, or possibly something even more sinister. Whatever he’s doing, it’s not okay and it was nice to see the group come together and get him out of the way. That said, I thought it was a little strange how dismissive Mio and Yuki are of Kanna’s stalker. Shouldn’t they be more concerned since it’s the first they’re hearing of it?

Of course, this wouldn’t be an episode of YU-NO without a little bit of creepiness from Takuya. I found the scene where he and Yuki peek through the girls’ window to be a bit much, even for him. And it was really strange that Yuki went along with it. Yuki is no stranger to the creepiness in this episode. He attempts to chomp down on Takuya’s, er, hot dog during the night because apparently, he mistakes it for their missing meat in his slumbering stupor. ”

The dub this week had some fun lines to match the fun events going on. Obviously, it wouldn’t be a complete episode without yet another gross sexual comment from Takuya to his stepmother: “A harness and a whip might come in handy – those are in your room, right?” His response to Hojo in the men’s room killed me: “I’m a grower, not a shower.” Yuki’s pure-hearted love for the watermelon was super sweet: “Bye little friend, it was fun while it lasted.” I love how deadpan Mio is while telling Takuya: “If that was my dad, you and Yuki would be dead by now.”

All things considered, I liked this episode a lot more than I was anticipating going into it. It was nice seeing the gang hang out without all the weird magical mysteries. I even liked Takuya a little more than usual – it seemed like he loosened up a bit and acted a little more decent than usual this week. Probably because Yuki and Mio are good influences on him.