Oh god the
engrish.
Dear Japan,
I have to assume that there are people in your country that can speak some
perfectly fine English. I’ve watched Higashi no Eden, I’ve heard a perfectly
serviceable black woman in there. Maybe
I can understand it if you need a character to speak both Japanese and English
and you want a specific voice actress for the Japanese, but this character
could probably have switched actresses later on, considering that she receives an
age-up before we see her again.
It’s hard to
convincingly act in another language, trust me.
You’re so hooked on trying to pronounce everything right, you can’t
really put emotion in. And the accents
are hilarious, but extremely jarring.
My
grievances with the engrish aside, this episode was, well…
Cute. And not that fake, uncomfortable sugar that Hyperdimension Neptunia had. No.
This is real, hardcore heartwarming right here.
The first
half of this episode is a flashback of our main character, as a little girl, going
on a trip to Britain, land of chips, crumpets, tea, and blonds with blue eyes
to live with a family there.
She’s all
chipper and excited, and that’s cute and all, but, trust me, it gets even
cuter. So, she gets there, and she
meets the family’s daughter…
D’awww. I actually do have a heart, after all…
So, the
little daughter is initially shy towards her, probably because she is really
energetic and doesn’t speak engrish like she does.
However, she
gradually warms up to her, and the two become friends despite the language
barrier.
And… It’s the cutest thing ever! Me, I hate all of those Cute Girls Doing Cute Things™ shows! But this…!
It’s just
about two little girls becoming besties!
*sniff* If you can’t love that, then you don’t have a soul!
However, I
have an awesome idea about something that they totally should have done: make
them not talk. It’s not that I think that
their voices are annoying (besides the engrish, of course), but I think that this
flashback could have been easily conveyed with no words, purely through the
visuals. You could probably understand
everything that was going on very easily.
In fact, it may make it easier to really feel the emotion behind
everything.
And it would
help this stand out more. But maybe that’s
just the part of my brain that loves weird, arty things.
I have a
quilt on my bed right now with American flags, McDonalds arches, and fat people
on it. No, really.
However, all
good things must come to an end, and the little Japanese girl has to
leave. This show has to be breaking some
sort of record, as it got me to get all sad about two cute little girls having
to leave each other after only fourteen minutes of development.
I love how,
when she leaves, they yell the only words that they learned in the other’s
language, and it just so happens to be the word for ‘Hello’. It’s ironic.
*sniff*
Cut to THE FUTURE. Our Japanese girl is going to school with her
friends, holding a letter from her British friend in her hand. However, she apparently hasn’t learned any
English at all, so she can’t decipher it.
Her friend understands
a few words on it, including ‘transfer’ and ‘your school’. Somehow, they can’t add two and two and
figure out the obvious. However, I admit, despite how I already knew
that it was going to happen, it made me happy when they saw each other again.
She’s transferring
to her school! And staying at her
house! Yay!
Episode
ends. And, I admit, I loved it in all its
heartwarming glory. However, I’m not
sure that I’ll love future episodes, as I have no idea what they’re going to do
in the future. Probably just run around
and make the unfunny standard Cute Girls Doing Cute Things™ jokes.
However, I
guess I’ll stick around another episode.
If it just becomes a boring show about girls doing nothing, I’ll drop
it. But, If it manages to continue this
heartwarming trend, maybe it will actually become something worth watching.
I expected an
unfunny version of Hetalia. I got Chicken
Soup For The Jaded Anime Watcher’s Soul.
*sniff*
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