English Dub Review: Chio’s School Road “Convenience Store Chio-Chan/ Chio-chan and the Duel/ Remnants of That Day”

This week: “Ultra-violence. For world peace.”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

In the first story of this triple shot episode of Chio’s School Road, Chio finds her beloved hardcore western game magazines at the local convenience store replaced with boy love mags. Despite her initial protests, she ends up falling in love with the saucy paperbacks and decides to invest in some of them. Her smutty plans are ruined, however, when Ando turns out to work the counter at the convenience store, and she has to somehow sneak her purchase by Ando, or else risk embarrassing herself forever. Naturally, shenanigans ensue, and Chio’s magazine purchase quickly spins out into a deep cover stealth operation.

In story number two, Chio and Manana encounter Chiharu, a vicious youngling who challenges Chio to an “Ass-off” a duel which involves making a precision stab of a finger into your opponent’s ass. Chio holds her own well enough until Manana comes in with the save and successfully dispatches the impudent child. Chio and Manana tie Chiharu up with a zip tie on her thumbs, but turnabout is fair play, and the child strikes back to duel Chio…to the death.

Finally, things wrap up with a little side story about Chio and Manana running into an old lady reminiscing over the past in front of an old store. Though her story is beautiful and tragic, it turns out her motivations for hanging out in front of the store are less than romantic.

Our Take:

Chio’s school road continues running strong with an episode full of a plethora of shenanigans, great gags and voice acting sure to give even the most stone-faced viewers a snort and a chuckle.

Our first story is probably the best of the three, giving us a real, but exaggerated conflict that captures the essence of what Chio’s School Road does best. Seeing Chio desperately struggle to find ways to hide the pervy magazine she wants to buy is as funny as it is endearing; poor Chio is always struggling to make her way, but watching her face her madcap adolescent troubles fills my heart with joy. This story also comes to a satisfying conclusion by having Ando turn things around on Chio, revealing that he knew she wanted the boy love magazine the whole time, and even putting it in a bag so that no one else will see it. Chio, who’s obsessed with image and sneaking around, just falls apart when faced with Ando’s sincerity. It’s something funny and cute at the same time.

The second story is a bit weaker, just because it feels a little bit too wacky for my taste, but its entertaining enough in its own right. Chiharu’s motivation is pretty much nonexistent; she’s much more of a natural force, like a hurricane or an earthquake than an actual character. And since Chio’s School Road is a character comedy…well, you can imagine how that can get in the way of the episode. Her battle with Chio is exciting to watch though, a treat for the eyes that rivals some action anime out there. Having Kushitori come in to save the day is a nice story weave connecting these different episodes all together, and I look forward to seeing more of her butt-loving silliness in the future.

As always, the voice acting and localization is really what sells all these jokes. It’s hard to tell if they’re matching up to the translation of the original Japanese since they’re so filled with modern slang and quips, but that doesn’t really matter so much. I would much rather have English lines that are funny to me as an English speaker than accurately translated lines which might alienate me from the series.

Keep it up, Chio’s School Road, you are a delight to behold each week and a symbol of just how much fun an unique anime can be. If anyone is in need of a lighthearted show with a ton of fun energy to it, this is certainly the anime for you.