English Dub Review: Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines “Losing the Battle Before it is Ever Fought”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The literature club goes on a beach trip and Chika shoots her shot with Shintaro.

OUR TAKE

Just as was mentioned last week, the third episode gives focus to the third main girl of the story, Chika. Chika was around a bit for the first couple of episodes, where it was established she had feelings for Shintaro, the president of the literature club. Like with Lemon and Anna, Chika is the third wheel in a relationship that is either just starting or about to start, or at least that seems to be the pattern that’s forming. Anna started the story having “lost” the battle for her childhood friend Sosuke’s affections, Lemon only found out last episode that her own childhood friend and crush just started his own relationship with someone else, and while things are a bit tweaked with Shintaro and Koto being childhood friends, it’s definitely looking more likely for them to get together than with Chika. Like, yeah, the episode ends with her asking Shintaro out, but we really haven’t seen any indicator that he feels anything for her outside of protecting sibling adjacent feelings. As such, the three “losing heroines” have fully been assembled, which just makes me wonder what the heck Kazuhiko is going to do going from here. Three girls who he has some significant moments with who are in love with other guys BUT said guys end up turning them all down, which may lead to them seeing him as a fine alternative.

Or at least that seems like the most obvious route, which doesn’t necessarily mean that’s where we’re going with all of this, especially only three episodes into a twelve episode season. We’re still getting to know these three girls as they each get a bit of focus, but we actually don’t know that much about Kazuhiko despite him being our ostensible protagonist. So, while I definitely have some educated guesses about what exactly the relationships between Kazuhiko and these girls will be, I must relent for the moment and admit that there’s just no way I could know. Unless those AO3 plot synopses will turn out to be at least somewhat prophetic. For now, I can at least tell you what is like 85% likely to happen in the next episode, and that’s Shintaro turning Chika down because he still has feelings for Koto. It sucks, especially for Koto, but it kinda just has to be this way to allow Chika into the group. But I’m open to being wrong!