English Dub Review: A Couple of Cuckoos: “Don’t Treat Me Like a Little Sister”

Overview: Nagi (Nicholas Andrew Louie) and Sachi (Bryn Apprill) run through different gifts for their mom for Mother’s Day and later Erika (Lindsay Sheppard) drags Nagi with her as she runs away from home. 

Our Take: Sachi and Nagi spend the day trying to figure out what Mother’s Day gift to get their momma. The trope of everyone staring at Sachi and him is a bit goofy considering Sachi is not a social media celebrity like Erika is and it just comes off as a goofy retreading of old ground needlessly. Their montage of cycling through possible gifts is fun in imagining her various responses and her respective use cases. It also brings up the problem Sachi has in being treated like a little kid sister, rather than being seen as a woman, a possibly romanceable one. When they settle on a new cooking apron because of how much she loves the restaurant and leave it at her door, it makes for a sweet scene. The love triangle that the three find themselves in is made interesting by Erika believing Sachi is perfect for Nagi, showing how complicated their feelings are and how much more so it will be in the future. 

With Erika’s father planning to visit, she runs away with Nagi, to avoid him. It builds upon the existing gripes and issues she has with him in his controlling nature, especially as she is fearful that he would have made her leave with him. Her continued progression towards being independent is an understandable plight for all adults in the making in standing up to her dad. Nagi’s chemistry with her is excellent in continuing to be a nice, calming voice of reason. Erika’s father getting to know about them, through a dinner with Sachi, highlights their differences and how they complement one another because of that with Erika and Nagi’s playful grass hill sliding showing adding to that. Sachi’s spitefulness of how well they get along, the juxtaposition of her believing Erika is most suitable for Nagi and neither one believing themselves good enough illustrates excellent points on why both of them are strong potential love interests and how loving they are as sisters. Erika’s father had Nagi and Erika meet when they were children, making one wonder why and how they do not remember and if the purpose was to gauge their compatibility at a young age.