If you're truly an actress, don't belittle a project you appeared in.
What They Say:
No one wants to get stuck in a boring profession, so when college student Chitose Karasuma storms into a voice acting training facility, she thinks that her future is poised for awesomeness. However, this bad-mannered beauty is in for more than she bargained for as she gets accepted into the talent agency “Number One Produce.” Together with her coworkers, including a girl with a Kansai accent and a cunning airhead, Chitose charges into the competitive world of professional voice acting.
The Review:
Content: (Please note that the content portion of this review may contain spoilers)
Woohoo! Road trip! In last week's episode, it was decided that Shibasaki and company would be paying her parents a visit in order to make up for Kuzu's less-than-professional rant about their daughter's swimsuit shoot. And while mostly everyone manages to show up for the train's departure, Chitose oversleeps making this the first Chitose-less episode of the series thus far (And I use the term 'Chitose-less' because she still has a few lines, albeit less than ten). Either way, this episode expectedly centers almost entirely around Shibasaki as she returns home for the first time in years. When she gets there, however, things aren't as bad as we'd expected them to be.
Her father, though dismissive, is very classical. He pushes his ideals onto other people and speaks only when necessary. However, he isn't really opposed to his daughter's life as an actress at all, contrary to how it seemed in the last episode. In fact, it is revealed by Kazuha's mother that her father actually spent hours upon hours of researching voice acting when his daughter decided on that as her career. As it turns out, he just has a hard time expressing his feelings -- which is very common for many older Japanese men considering their culture. The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree as Kazuha is essentially the same exact way. Regardless of the similarities between father and daughter, it is incredibly apparent that Kazuha isn't fond of her hometown in the slightest. Instead, she feels more at home in Tokyo where people don't throw affection and gifts at one another every day. On the other hand, Momoka is the exact opposite. She wishes that she had strict parents that would act more like parents than professionals, and she wishes she were from an area where things like that were typical.
While on the topic of Momoka, I think it's pretty important to say that she kind of just tagged along on this trip without really telling anyone. In fact, her agent spends the entire episode repeatedly calling her only to have her calls dodged by the seventeen-year-old actress. And while both Momoka and Kazuha aren't exactly in the best state of mind throughout this trip, we begin to see their relationship flourish as they confide in one another about their problems at home. Even though these problems are on completely different sides of the emotional spectrum, connections can be made between them as the two seiyuu become outstanding complements to each other. At the end of the day, both girls reconnect with their parents and allow for the story to move on as they return to Tokyo. The only problem is that they forgot to buy Chitose a souvenir. Oh boy, that's sure to end well.
In Summary:
The first Chitose-less episode of Girlish Number goes surprisingly well thanks to some excellent chemistry between Kazuha and Momoka. This episode, though lacking in comedy compared to the others, does an exceptional job at illustrating the familial relationships of the two veteran seiyuu. Kazuha's hometown in the Yamagata prefecture is remarkably well-drawn and scenic in various parts throughout the episode, becoming a complete contrast to the Tokyo landscapes we've become accustomed to in the weeks prior. With our heroines returning to the city next week, I'm excited to see how Girlish Number carries on from this point.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
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