English Dub Review: Chain Chronicle: Light of Haecceittas “The Expanding Darkness”

It’s all fun and games until someone casts Meteor.

Spoilers Below

The loss of Berkhardt has struck the team a mighty blow and robs them of their tactics. Berkhardt knew everything they were going to do, and the paths they were taking. They simply have to keep pushing forward as hard as possible and hope they get their goals before the Black Army catches them. They strike towards the Sage’s Tower, hoping that they can help the heroes find their missing fairy that happens to be the linchpin of the universe. In the meantime, the princess heads to the Holy Capitol… Okay, there seems to be a few more capitols in this kingdom than there should be. The Royal Capitol, The Holy Capitol, The Vice Capitol. I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

Anyways, the Holy Capitol be burnin’, yo. And it ain’t from my shade, neither. The Black King has spread the rumor that he would spare anyone who joined his army as a demon. Scared people start rioting and looting, doing as much damage as they can in the name of joining the Black Army. The princess steps in, talking down one of the rioters by sharing her very real, very raw feelings bout Berkhardt, who had just done what they were trying to do. She may have gotten through to him, but we’ll never really know. More fires to put out. Oh, and apparently, a world away, a sprite strikes a cliff. A giant golden thing pops out of the wall to play peek-a-boo.

Switch back to our heroes on the road. Yuri’s darkness is spreading up his arm, and no amount of getting tackled by a pretty girl is gonna change that. When even the magics of the Chain Chronicle have no effect, Phoena begins to despair. Yuri holds her back, a tender look in his eye. Has he resigned himself to death and darkness, or is this his resolve? Or, as is suspected by the peeping Aram and Kain, is this a romantic interlude? The next day, the gang arrive at the Sage’s Tower to a less than friendly welcome. Fireballs and magic words flying every which way, and the fighters throwing themselves into the fray. Just as Aram is about to give the strongest mage in the enemy party what for, he is interrupted by the sages. Apparently, only one of the three sages found this funny.

The Sages are more than willing to help the gang, but they want him to earn back the people’s trust first before they actually throw their hats in the ring. One of them, quite literally. It’s the only thing she’s wearing. Honey, you have to shapeshift the hair a little bit if you want to cosplay as Bayonetta. She will, however, give them some clues as to where to go next, the Maze Pass. Joining them will be some of the dudes they just fought, now under orders to retrieve the big golden thingamajigger we saw earlier.

This episode seemed mostly like a set-up for what was coming up next. What little plot there is just focuses on how dire the situation is becoming, and the need for our heroes to fight the dark with hope. The animation and art was pretty much as the rest of the series has been thus far. It uses every available technique to its advantage at all times to give high-quality action sequences. What I liked the best about this episode was the performance of certain lines by the voice actors. Hearing Phoena yell out “Do it, Dammit!” or Aram ponder if the sage of fate knew she was naked were lines that could have come off cheesy. Instead, the actors showed they were thinking through each character’s mental processes and acted accordingly. Phoena’s line comes off with a desperation and frustration that shows not only her worry for Yuri, but her need to pay him back for everything he’s done. Aram really feels disturbed by the lady in hair, and that comes through. It could have been played as him joking around or ragging on her. This thoughtfulness makes the characters come to life. For that reason, I give this episode eight giant gold thingies out of ten.

As an interesting side note, I looked through a few of the characters that you might be able to collect in the Chain Chronicle video game. You know who I found? The Seven Deadly Sins. Meliodas himself is a 5 Star Knight, and is represented with all of his abilities from the anime. How’s that for some crossover?