English Dub Review: Mother of the Goddess’ Dormitory: “The Problem with Kiriya and Serene/ Atena Awakens”

Overview: Koshi (Brittany Karbowski) helps Kiriya (Katelyn Barr) when she gets overly excited and damages her room while Serene (Natalie Rial) also offers her aid. Later, Atena (Christina Kelly) goes with Koshi to the grocery store in hopes of understanding how he was able to swoon all the girls.  

Our Take: Even with the nature of this series, there’s comfort in knowing that Goddess’ Dormitory doesn’t completely treat its character like they are nothing more than blow-up sex dolls. I’m really beginning to enjoy the little seeds of attraction that are being planted between Koshi and that of the other girls.

The approach to seemingly focus on a few girls per episode is a very smart one. If each entry can give one or a few their own day in the sun without one getting left out of sufficient development, then it’ll be worthwhile. The redheaded girl, Kiriya, gets to show off her more feminine sweet side, despite how she may appear more tomboy-ish. It’s nice that there are actually different sides to the girls and they are not just a one-note personality wise. Koshi showing genuine interest in her was an unexpected surprise as I truly thought all the sexual and potentially romantic elements would be one-sided. This definitely changes things. If the series is to move forward by crucially developing that plot element, it would definitely be better executed if there was some time skip to age up Koshi making him more age appropriate and it feel less…taboo. 

Out of nowhere, Serene appears to want to solve a problem for Koshi in fixing the broken ceiling caused by Kiriya’s flustered outbursts (which is insanely adorable). But that’s not the random part though. It’s how she does it in her seemingly using moon powers of some kind?! Can’t say I was expecting that one. Nor was I anticipating her kissing Koshi and her making him her servant. At this point, Serene needs her own dedicated section of an episode to explain all this craziness. 

The other half goes back to Atena as she faces her fear of being around men and seeks to understand why all the girls love Koshi. This is pretty sweet for what it is. They both find qualities in one another that leads them to appreciate and respect one another. Not to mention you get a lot more story context out of the first episode with some revelations here which offers better storytelling than what I was expecting. As well as maybe…love? But then of course the endearing development of Atena wanting to be a big sister had then to transition into some weird kink in being sexually pleasured out of being called sister in some form. Honestly, though it didn’t ruin it for me. I really thought it would but the unexpectedly bizarre, hilarious and perverse nature of it all really worked for me across all three ways.