English Dub Review: How Not to Summon A Demon Lord “Point-Blank War Dance”

‘cause if your friends don’t war dance, they are no friends of mine.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Carrying on from last episode, Rem and Celeste face the Fallen known as Gregore while Diablo battles with the Fallen commander Edelgard in front of the village of Ulug. Gregore makes short work of Celeste’s guards and chases her and Rem through the city, plowing through any and all defenses and spells. When all seems lost, Emile arrives to save the day!…and is promptly beaten within an inch of his life.

Back with Diablo, the fight against Edelgard is closely observed by the villagers and the other Fallen soldiers. Edelgard charges up a powerful attack to finish him off, but he shrugs it off easily and throws her off-guard. Her spirits perk up when news about Gregore’s infiltration make it to them, which means Diablo has a time limit. Using a grand magic spell, he wipes out the Fallen forces in an explosive white blast, leaving only a naked Edelgard behind so she may become a good guy later.

With that threat taken care of, Diablo manages a teleport spell to return him and Shera back to city and right to where the rest are fighting. He makes short work of Gregore by crushing him with his own gravity spell and then sucking him into the shadow realm. He’s a little worn out, but everyone we know is alive, so I guess it’s fine. Oh, aside from all the people who apparently died in the short time Gregore was around, which teach him a valuable lesson that there’s no coming back from the dead in this world. Clearly this is something we need to be told and not something we could say, has happened to a character we’ve met and like somewhat.

10 days later, more fanservice, followed by the big news: The elves are demanding Shera back in ten days and are ready to go to war, so the three will have to prevent that. No pressure!

OUR TAKE

You guys like vanilla ice cream? Of course, you do, everyone likes it (barring lactose intolerance and such). It’s sweet, it’s cool, it’s smooth, not too much flavor, and you can eat it by the carton. Well, that’s basically what this show is. It’s everything you expect from an Isekai Harem story of this decade that does absolutely nothing to go off the beaten path. Flash some bozongas and add just the right amount of action and you have a tried and tested formula that has become more and more prominent in the anime medium.

As for this episode, it fulfilled its purpose of concluding the two-parters serviceably enough but also uncovered a couple more problematic elements. This is only briefly mentioned, but the fact that whatever casualties supposedly happened during the battle were just brushed over is frankly really lazy. Even Sword Art Online did the work to have the topic of death with a bit of gravity to it. Then again, this would only really be new information to Diablo, who is leisurely learning bit by bit how this world is different from the game he’s accustomed to. Though right now, the only major details to come out of making that differentiation are that the humans are weaker and the Fallen are more dynamic than just being boss monsters. That’s something at least, but the level of intrigue in that decreases by the episode for reasons that lead me to my next point.

Diablo’s invulnerability was neat enough in these first few episodes, but we need more drawbacks to that beyond him getting a bit tired. I understand this is meant to be a light-hearted show about funny sexy times with magic, and this is a pure uncut power fantasy, but the best versions of those know to have some tension added to that or AT LEAST some comedy. Diablo is super powerful and knows a bunch of spells he can use to beat anything but that makes any and all opponents he fights feel like cardboard cutouts who pose no threat. And when there’s no threat, any and all fights just become boring. We’re a third of the way through the season, so I’ll hold off on longterm judgments for now, but this is definitely not the right road to head down.

We now head into a new arc and conflict as Diablo tries to prevent war from breaking down. Maybe a dive into the political will break up the monotony of this very quickly thinning premise.