English Dub Review: Akebi’s Sailor Uniform “Please Let Me Hear It”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Everyone at school is a part of one club or another. At least, it seems that way to Oshizu Hebimori. Whether it’s basketball, track, or drama, all of her classmates have found something they’re passionate about. So she sets out to learn the guitar. It’s tough going at first, but when Akebi wants to hear her music, Hebimori puts her doubts aside and, with some advice from her roommate Togano, accomplishes what she set out to do.

Our Take:

Akebi’s Sailor Uniform is definitely one of the most beautifully-animated shows of the season, so I’m glad to get to cover an episode today! Last week’s episode focused on fishing with Akebi and Kizaki, but this week we get to follow another character around for most of the runtime: Oshizu Hebimori. Please Let Me Hear It is a small exploration of the start of her journey to find what makes her happy, and it’s a pretty solid ep.

To be fair, there really hasn’t been a bad episode of the show so far. I feel like it’s a little easier to get away with good episodes when most of the show doesn’t really have any sort of overarching plot. Since every episode is just filled with simple slice of life moments, we already know what we’re getting into with Akebi. The seventh episode is more of the same, with plenty of sweetly relatable scenes of growing up and discovering yourself.

What is different is that Akebi doesn’t really feel like the main character of this episode. Even last week, when it was an episode focused around Kizaki, I still feel like Akebi was our POV character. But this time I think it shifts more to the ‘guest star’ of the week than is has in past episodes, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Oshizu Hebimori is a fun main character to watch: quiet, relatable, and maybe a little lost.

The plot sketches out the basics of her one-episode arc. She goes from feeling out of place and a bit left out, to being someone who has found a goal they want to strive towards fulfilling. Seeing her gain self-confidence as the episode goes along was great, and I think she and Akebi have a fun dynamic together—although at this point, it seems like Akebi is flitting from one classmate to another every week.

This was my first time watching an entire dubbed episode of the show, and I have to say I was a little let down. Akebi is such a masterfully put together series that even little out of place bits of dub dialogue stick out. There were a couple lines here that felt a little cringey, like when Akebi shortens ‘jealous’ to ‘jelly’. I’m not totally sold on Akebi’s actor, either, although it is hard to play such an effervescent character while giving them any sort of depth. I did really enjoy Michelle Rojas’s performance as Hebimori, however, and hope she sticks around in the show. Finally, it isn’t surprising that none of the singing was dubbed, but that always disappoints me nonetheless.

Overall, I think this was yet another solid episode in a long line of solid episodes. Akebi’s Sailor Uniform is definitely one of this season’s highlights for sure, and tackling adolescent issues like this is one of the things that makes it so engaging—watching these girls work towards their goals while mutually inspiring each other along the way makes for a perfect ending.