English Dub Review: Anime-Gataris “Miko Quits Writing”

The anime club creates their own anime!

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The student council president is back at it again, trying to ensure the anime club is shut down for good. This time, she decrees that the club create some kind of presentation to prove that the club is educationally beneficial.

The crew decides to make their own anime! (Well, just a three minute short, but still.) They assign roles and begin production. Surprisingly, things are going pretty well. Minocchi is a fine director, despite having to be introduced to the concept of storyboarding. Kaikai’s knowledge of computers makes him a whiz as the digital effects guy. Even Kouki turns out to be good at voice recording, with the A/V club lending their recording equipment.

But the student council president can’t let the club succeed. After instructing the other school clubs to stop their cooperation, she places another barrier in our gang’s way: if their anime short doesn’t fill the entire track field with viewers, they can kiss the club goodbye.

Our Take:

My favorite parts of this week’s episode were all the visual gags. From the dark bags under Sebas’s eyes, to the way Miko’s hair gets more frazzled with every edit to her script, Miko Quits Writing was chock full of fun. Having all the club members come together to create a project was engaging and kept me excited to see how it would play out. Heck, I think I even learned a thing or two about how anime is created!

It even seems like we might finally be getting more backstory on the talking cat and the empty room that he forbade Minoa from entering. The lack of forward momentum on this storyline has been one of my only complaints with Anime-Gataris. If the show can keep this level of quality up while continuing to flesh out the more mysterious aspects, it’s sure to finish strong.