English Dub Review: Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie “With Fireworks Comes Summer’s End”

Overview

Izumi and Shikimori make plans to see a fireworks show together. As Izumi is readying his yukata, his dad starts to tell him something with a serious expression. Then, on the day of the fireworks show, Izumi sees Shikimori looking adorable in her yukata and tries his hardest to impress her… but his heroics are no match for Shikimori’s. After they enjoy the festivities for a bit, Izumi starts to lead Shikimori somewhere else… but then Shikimori’s sandal strap breaks!

Our Take

Like with most romantic anime stories within the “Slice of Life” genre, we get the “festival” episode where romance usually blossoms, and this time around, this was possibly the first episode where I wasn’t completely annoyed by Izumi’s bad luck antics. As he actually made some serious strides today with how he handled Shikimori’s sandal situation.

Not only were the proceedings of this festival a rather cute and relaxing one, but it was also nice to see Izumi going out of his way to help Shikimori when her feet got blisters from wearing her traditional sandals. Also, Shikimori’s reaction to the cotton candy was really cute, and her being a sharpshooter and winning that wolf for Izumi was great too, which leaves you to wonder what kind of shooting games did she play to acquire such skill?

This episode was so damn wholesome. Shikimori was so cute in Yukata and much like the previous episode, we get to see her not being a complete flawless “mary-sue” and Izumi finally doing something. I’m hoping Izumi as a character continues to develop further because this first half of the show has been extremely rough because of him and all the “wacky bad luck hijinks” this show seems to push as physical comedy at Izumi’s expense…