English Dub Review: The Day I Became a God “The Day You Choose”

Overview


While he is with Hina, Youta is called out by Dr.Shiba for being a fraud and she tells him to leave after discovering his fake credentials. He then begs her to allow him to spend one last half-day with Hina. As he talks to Hina, she recognizes and pronounces the names of his family. However, when he shows her his picture, she throws it to the ground. After that, Dr. Shiba tells Youta that his time is up. Just as he is about to leave, Hina starts crying and tries to walk towards Youta and says something rather unexpected…



Our Take

Quite a touching yet bittersweet finale despite some of the flaws this show had. While it did have its moments of sadness when we did see Hina in her semi-lobotomized state, most of the characters sadly added absolutely nothing to the story, which they wasted like 5 episodes on. The whole point of the show is that you are supposed to feel sorry for Hina’s fate, but it just falls flat since Hina before her surgery was a mixed bag who went from wacky to annoying at times but all of that changed once Youta and by-extension the audience met Hina’s parents then everything is then disrupted for the last 3 episodes.

While English Dub performances of Dani Chambers as Hina and Mark Allen Jr. as Youta try their damndest to really sell the drama in their respective leads, I kept expecting Jun Maeda to take the lazy way out at the last minute and instantly cure Hina’s current situation. But I feel like the last 3 episodes really fumbled the bag which keeps me from giving this a higher rating. And despite the twist with Hina having some sort-of disease that her father previously mentioned, it felt so pointless to touch upon it again. Everything we were told by Hina’s father was just glossed over for the sake of a rushed bittersweet ending.

Overall, for one of Jun Maeda’s works, this anime was underwhelming but by no means as terrible or melodramatic as I thought It would be. I didn’t really appreciate the ending feeling so unresolved in places. And despite Youta making a big life-changing decision for his future, I’m left with so many other questions but I don’t think any of them will be properly answered. You know it’s bad when the ending to the Happy Madison comedy “50 First Dates” found a delicate and creative way to acknowledge the problem while still maintaining a happy ending of sorts…