English Dub Review: Death March to the Parallel Word Rhapsody “The Crazy Princess That Started with a Death March”

I’m just a hero, saving people from slavery and oppres-WHY ARE YOU NAKED?

Overview (Spoilers)

In the aftermath of the dungeon, Satou found himself in the possession of a number of slaves. Three of them are Liza, Pochi, and Tama, the demihumans he rescued and trained as party members. However, when he went to register them as his own (not because he wanted slaves, but because he wanted to protect them from worse masters) the trader offers two more: the bashful workhorse Lulu, and the loli with more than a few scary titles, Arisa. However, Arisa seems a bit off. She greets him as “Satou-san”, with the traditional honorific. He suggests that she has a “kumo” (spider in Japanese) in her hair, and she immediately freaks out. That settles it. She doesn’t belong in this fantasy world either. Still, he has to take care of these girls. He takes a moment to feed and clothe them well. At least, better than they’ve known in their life of slavery. New problem. He has gone from a party of one to a party of six. The rooms at the Gate Inn really only have space for three. Further, there are a bunch of racists jerks who have taken up the remaining rooms and hate the demihuman girls. Arisa’s eyes begin to glow a strange color. The hatred in the room calms down, and the long-haired loli negotiates a place for the demihuman girls to stay. It would be troublesome if they stayed in the room. Instead, they get to stay in the barn. To make them more comfortable, Satou learns the needlework skill and sews them a mattress out of hay and a sheet.

So, Satou heads to sleep and gives Arisa and Lulu a place on the floor. As he’s about to turn in, he looks to the girls. Both have set their armor equipment as “birthday suit”. We get a popup for his use of the Poker Face skill. Good thing that is maxed out. They kind of assumed that he bought them for “services”. He tries to explain that he had only honorable intentions, but both girls seem to have issues with this announcement. Lulu is afraid that he isn’t pleased with her, and Arisa is just mad. He goes to sleep but wakes up in the middle of the night to a pair of announcements. He learned about Psychic magic, and how to resist it. But why? Arisa is still naked, straddling him. He doesn’t want to, but his hands and mouth reach out to her. He figures it out. He dials his Psychic Resistance up to maximum and commands her to release her spells on him. The two take a moment to talk things out. She is a reincarnation of a girl from Japan, who retained all her memories and tried to use them to lead her country to greatness. However, things didn’t work out, and a series of horrible events landed her as a slave. She fell in love with Satou the instant she met him and really wanted him to want her back, but it’s obvious that he isn’t a pedo, so this isn’t gonna work. The next morning, Zena arrives to check on him, and finds him asleep with a naked Arisa! Under the loli’s advise, he runs out to explain himself, armed with a bit of dance and copious flattery.

Courtesy: Funimation

Skills Learned: Contract, Needlework, Service, Psychic Magic, Psychic Resistance, Dancing, Persuasion

Our Take

So, just before I started this episode, I was working in the office with my sister. I tell her that this show hasn’t had any fanservice yet, but it’s been threatening it. A while later, she returns to the room to ask a question. I answer and return to the screen. Two naked girls. Well. That escalated quickly.

I have a question. This show has gone to great lengths to play up how chivalrous, chaste, and gentlemanly Satou is. However, what gentleman takes the bed while the ladies take the floor? I know he’s keeping them as slaves officially to keep them from being mistreated, but a gentleman never seeks his own comfort over those of his charges or guests. If it weren’t for Hypno-Arisa manipulating things, I would have called bogus on the whole scenario. If he were really such a good guy, he’d have let the young girls have the bed, the older girls the floor, and him take the stable. It would have been cramped, but they would have all been safe together. The demihumans are now combat tested, and he already knew Arisa had at least the powers of suggestion.

This episode dealt with a few important things about the universe. First: we learn a few ways that people enter this realm. Either they are summoned (in which case, they arrive exactly as they were) or they are reincarnated as a newborn baby, retaining their memories. However, neither state seems to apply to our hero. Now, let’s compare this with many other “alternate world” anime. Either there is a concrete reason they’ve been dragged into their adventures, or there is no reason given at all. Here, there is a reason, but it is reserved as a part of the mystery. We likely won’t find out why he’s there until the end of the series, but they will continue to give us clues. I like that. Our other bit, which is a little less important, is we get to see the life of a slave. The fact that it is assumed you are banging your slave girls is disgusting but consistent with the universe. They treat these slaves horribly. This whole scenario makes sense, fanservice nudity and all, without making it feel forced.

Speaking of that nudity (again), as much as they handled it tastefully by hiding the bits with hair and hands, the placement of things in many of the shots is suspect. As the two talk, we have a view behind her head as she talks, with his shirtless form directly ahead of her. Apparently, talking requires her to bob her head, giving the whole shot the look as if she was servicing him anyways. It’s just a batch of awkward, especially when things were supposed to be cooling down. Another spot it does this is when Liza is carrying the two young ones. The shot has their buts swaying. At first, i couldn’t tell whose posteriors those belonged to. They looked much older than they were supposed to. I don’t think that these were intentional things. They were more like unfortunate oversights in direction. The animation was actually pretty good, including one scene where we watch the reflections of a scene in Arisa’s eyes. I found the voice acting fine enough. Arisa (Monica Rial) was full of various emotions, and emoted them well. It was a good way to attach ourselves to this new character. We don’t get as much about Lulu, but I’m guessing the next episode will be about her.

Score

Summary

So, even though this episode features fanservice, it doesn't do so with a contrived, obvious story. The awkward shots are somewhat balanced out by the more interesting shots, good animation, and solid enough voice acting. I give it eight spare slave girls out of ten.

8.0/10