English Dub Review: In Another World With My Smartphone “Ocean, and Vacations”

Thank god in this feudal another world, all the girls are still able to get skimpy bikinis.

The beach episode. Truly one of anime’s classic episode formats and in the case of today’s episode, one of the most easily exploited. Like we don’t need to sugar coat this, In Another World With My Smartphone has plenty of fan service written into it. The episode with the slime castle is more than enough proof of that. Plus, In Another World, just loves to try and write Touya as if he is super pervy but ironically enough also write him to be as sexually oblivious as can be, totally unaware all his girls are fawning over him. Basically, Touya is as perverted as the script of the day requires him to be and it’s that fact that makes having a beach episode even more redundant than it already is.

OVERVIEW (Spoilers Below)

So, the story of today’s episode? Touya and Leen bring everyone to the beach for a day of fun as they are preparing to search the nearby underwater ruins for the secrets of the magic gemstones that have been causing trouble. But other than that? BIKINIS! BOOBS! LOLIS! The story is really that transparent.

MY TAKE

I would like to try and dissect the episode more to try and give you all a deeper narrative deconstruction of this episode but there really isn’t much left to discuss except the stupidly forced nature of the writing. We’ve set up until this point that the characters are in a more Feudal world with no source of electricity or anything highly technological. But they are all able to still buy cloth bikinis and swim trunks. I can buy Touya making the pool floaties and such because he’s anime Jesus in this show but the characters clearly say they will go to a store to buy swimsuits. In a world that still needs a horse and carriage to get around in.

I just want to make this crystal clear. Writing in a beach episode into this setting makes no sense and throws another monkey wrench into the show’s unclear tone. Slice of life? Fantasy adventure? Self-aware comedy? It throws in all of these ideas and what we’re left with is just Touya’s overpowered adventures with useless harem girls. Even as poor as these episodes have gotten for In Another World at least they weren’t as redundant as this one. The only narrative important bits are the beginning and the end, everything in between can be skipped.