English Dub Review: YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of This World “The Cause of the Curse”

Takuya and the gang get spooked at a 400-year-old house.

Overview (Spoilers Below):

After apparently being sent back in time by his father, Takuya restarts, so to speak, at Mount Senkaku. This new path seems to be less centered on Ayumi and more on Ryuzoji. When Takuya goes to deliver his father’s notes on research to the old guy’s house, he takes Yuki and Mio with him. This turns out to be a lucky thing, as they end up intervening just as Ryuzoji is up to some weird brainwashing type business.

Our Take:

The seventh episode of YU-NO is a restart for both Takuya and the series in general. As you have probably guessed, the last six episodes have not been my favorite episodes of anime ever. The introductory arc had issues with pacing, direction, and unlikable characters. With the beginning of a new plotline, the series had a chance to fix things… but has the show changed for the better?

Certainly not in terms of characterization. If you hoped that Takuya would be a slightly more sufferable version of himself in this new timeline, all thoughts of that are squelched as he fondles his teacher’s underwear in the first five minutes of the episode. (What was that all about, anyway?) At least the more enjoyable characters like Yuki and Mio are still hanging around him for whatever reason. The previous arc didn’t have many characters I actively rooted for, so I’m praying that Mio and Yuki stick around in this storyline longer than they did last time. Yuki, in particular, is just such a breath of fresh air. In a show with treacherous spies and asshole teens surrounding him, Yuki stands out as a blast of pure, wholesome energy. His ‘weird walking’ as they sneak up to the creepy mansion is fun, as is his jumpiness in summoning Takuya’s attention: “Boss, look over there!” 

I’m really interested to see what exactly Ryuzoji’s goals are regarding Kodai’s research. As one of his father’s closest partners and believers, Ryuzoji should be someone that Takuya can trust with his information. However, from what we’ve seen so far, there are some serious reservations there. He definitely tried to pull some kind of hypnotizing trick of the light on Takuya in order to steal the time travel apparatus. If the show left enough room at the end to cleanly wrap up how Kodai felt about Ryuzoji and perhaps let Takuya get a good talking to from his dad, that’d be appreciated.

The English dub this week does a fine job of adapting the show, despite missing a few mouth flaps that I especially noticed. I’m usually not too harsh a judge about this, but there were a couple of sentences that were clearly mismatched. Erin Vale is still doing a good job playing an occasionally-funny asshole: “It’s gonna suck if I have to keep doing this.” I don’t know what happened to their teacher, but I hope Takuya is right because she deserves a better classroom: “Maybe the lucky thing finally shed her cocoon and flew off.” I thought Mio’s quiet observation about her two companions was great: “Wow, what a shock that the boys are into the mysterious beauty.” Even Takuya himself had a good line when he admits to his lack of knowledge: “I… yeah, I have no idea.”

This reset episode of YU-NO wasn’t the complete turn-around that I dared dream about, but it opens up enough mysterious possibilities to keep me coming back around for another week. Having Yuki and Mio around for a lot of the episode was a welcome break from sexually-assaulting reporters and treachery-committing businessmen. Ryuzoji’s angle on the mysterious device makes me curious to see how that’ll all go down. And hey, maybe next time we get a reset, it’ll be a world without Takuya?