English Dub Season Review: Horimiya: The Missing Pieces

Based on the manga series written and illustrated by Hiromi Adachi (Hero), Horimiya, also known as Hori-san to Miyamura-kun, chronicles the high school misadventures of Kyouko Hori (Marisa Duran) and Izumi Miyamura (Alejandro Saab). Hori and Miyamura both have secrets they hide from their friends whenever they’re on school grounds. Hori is a bright and popular student who’s secretly a homebody who stays and takes care of his younger brother, Souta (Emily Fajardo). Miyamura is a seemingly gloomy fanboy with numerous piercings and tattoos all over his body. After encountering each other, they both attempt to keep their true identities concealed from other people while learning more about each other.

Horimiya: The Missing Pieces is the second anime adaptation of the manga series. Known as Horimiya: Piece in Japan, the show continues the adventures of Hori, Miyamura, and their friends as they encounter more slice-of-life dilemmas while the former two continue to hide their secrets and maintain their relationship. The Missing Pieces contains stories from the manga that were not adapted in the previous anime.

Horimiya is another series that flew underneath my anime-watching radar. Before watching its second series, The Missing Pieces, I thought it would be a stand-alone show that didn’t require me to watch the previous adaptations. Boy, I was wrong. It turns out that The Missing Pieces is a companion piece/continuation of the popular rom-com series that was released two years ago. So, I was left feeling concerned that I would be in a similar situation with this series as I was with Bungo Stray Dogs, where I jumped into its fourth season without watching the previous seasons. However, upon watching the first couple of episodes, my concerns quickly flew away from my body and were replaced with joy, comfort, and laughter.

As someone who’s seen a few rom-com anime shows, I didn’t expect myself to enjoy Horimiya: The Missing Pieces as much as I thought. I figured it would be a basic and formulaic high-school rom-com like many others and nothing else. However, following my experience with the season’s thirteen episodes, I can see why people love Horimiya so much. Sure, it has the usual rom-com elements we’ve seen before, but they’re used to effectively portray a highly compelling and surprisingly hilarious love story between two secretive high schoolers.

The Missing Pieces plays more like an anthology series than a narrative-driven season, showcasing the self-contained storylines centering on the Katagiri High School students. These stories include a class trip to Kyoto, Sports Day, chocolatey mishaps during Valentine’s Day, and graduation. On the one hand, these episodes offer a more relaxing and light-hearted approach to the high-school rom-com formula that isn’t without a heartfelt moment or two. On the other hand, those who are looking for another narrative-driven season of Horimiya may not be impressed with its series of random mishaps that may or may not serve a purpose to the season. However, it’s safe to assume that the show’s fans will be thrilled to reunite with their favorite characters regardless of the format.

This is also another series that doesn’t require newcomers to watch the previous season to understand the characters and concept of The Missing Pieces. Its first episode, “The Journey Begins”, is one example of this, where Miyamura attempts to avoid getting naked around the other students by not taking public baths and swimming. That episode displays Miyamura’s personality and inner conflict of hiding his tattoos and piercings from his friends, fearing what they’ll think of him. It gives newcomers a clear idea of the show’s concept without watching the first season and provides plenty of fun humor in Miyamura’s struggles. It’s another reason why I was more comfortable watching The Missing Pieces.

Of course, because of the season’s mini-adventure structure, the series couldn’t escape from the downsides that prevented this puzzle from being completed. Along with its rom-com sitcom formula, The Missing Pieces features a few storylines that would’ve provided some interesting depth to the characters but didn’t commit to any of them. One such example is the season finale, “Graduation”, which involves the students graduating high school. At the same time, Hori reminisces how far she had come since her first encounter with Miyamura. Unfortunately, it only occurred during the second half. While heartwarming and sweet, that moment was brief and lacked the strong emotion to make the season’s conclusion emotionally fulfilling. It still has a couple of small segments I enjoyed, but everything else resulted in it being a missed opportunity to close out the season on a high note narrative-wise.

In addition to its high school comedy and heart, The Missing Pieces benefited from its voice cast and animation. All of the voice actors from Horimiya returned to reprise their respective roles for the second series, and they knocked it out of the park with their performances. Marisa Duran and Alejandro Saab continue to deliver charm and humor in their chemistry regarding their roles as Hori and Miyamura. Their relationship is represented as a flawed yet cute couple that supports one another but can also be hilariously complicated on several occasions, including Hori’s outbursts. Belsheber Rusape Jr also does a solid job delivering the laughs as Kakeru Sengoku regarding his lively personality. As for the animation, CloverWorks returns to produce The Missing Pieces after working on Horimiya, and I have to say that it didn’t miss a beat with its style. A few sequences in The Missing Pieces were nicely animated regarding the character designs and backgrounds, and the chibi versions of the characters were unsurprisingly adorable.

Overall, Horimiya: The Missing Pieces offers plenty of enjoyably wholesome and entertaining pieces that complete the show’s puzzle, even if some of their moments don’t fit as well as others. In a river of high school romance anime full of drama and laughs, it’s nice to have Horimiya be one of them that’s more comedic, light-hearted, and fun. Its lack of interesting character-driven plots won’t make everyone fall in love with it as much as the fans. Regardless, it provides a sense of wholesomeness and joy to specific newcomers and the show’s fans regarding its lovable characters, humor, heart, and gorgeous animation. If this really is the end of this high school saga, then its series of untold tales is a pretty good way to complete this heartfelt puzzle.