English Dub Review: Dies Irae “Verweile Doch”

Google Translate says it means “stay for a while.” I don’t think I will.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Rea tries to console Isaac when he senses that something is coming that they won’t be able to stop.

Kei continues to battle Eleonore, but despite taking on Tubal Cain’s powers, she’s still struggling. It also seems that she’s been toying with Kei out of pity, but Kei fires back that Eleonore isn’t good for anything but bloodshed and trying to copy the man she loves. So, with one last showdown, Kei throws her sword right into her face and then her neck. Eleonore embraces her death with a smile and beheads herself, triggering a massive explosion. As the flames engulf her, Kei wishes Ren the best of luck.

With the remotely good fight out of the way, we return to the Shiro/Wolfgang fight, which is mercifully short. Something…happens to make Shiro sense “the déjà vu” he’s been feeling his whole life is gone, and this causes time to stop because of course, so he shoots Wolfgang’s motorcycle which sends them crashing. Wolfgang has a mental breakdown and Shiro and Erie aims their guns at him…and wait…and wait…as he goes on and on about how nobody knows what it’s like to be him and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, EITHER SHOOT HIM OR SHOOT ME. And then…they die? Even though Shiro didn’t get hurt that bad and Erie…already died, apparently?

Well, that leaves us with the last mini boss fight between Ren and Machina, where Ren realizes his time has “stopped”, and that gives him a power boost. While that happens, Heydrich flashes back to an experiment he put together with his soldiers under the control of Karl Kraft where all of his soldiers would kill each other and the last one would get anything they wanted, even if that was also dying. Machina and his Ren-look-alike friend were the last to fight, and it seems Machina won that fight back then…until Karl pulled a little blue fetus out of Machina, which he would go on to incubate into Ren, and then told Machina he would fight that Ren fetus again later in life, so he’d have to beat it next time in order to die. After more banter, Ren uses the heart of the dead Nazi cards to finally kill Machina.

With everything else out of the way, Heydrich and Ren prepare for their final battle with the most dramatic slam poetry fight ever as Karl looks on.

OUR TAKE

We’ve finally wiped out all the Nazi-Akatsuki-Espada-Organization 13 rejects and they were glorious insane train wrecks all the way to the end. Like last time, Kei’s battle is still easily the most coherent (an extremely rare compliment for this show), with her wrapping up her brother’s business while taking down an impossibly tough foe. I started to lose track in their dialogue regarding stuff like metaphorical “hygiene” and “diseases”, which I’m sure meant something, but at least we got to see my least anti-favorite Kei go out in a quite literal blaze of glory.

Meanwhile, the last few minutes of the fight against Wolfgang really knew how to suck dry all the remaining crazy. And apparently, there was QUITE A LOT LEFT. Between the random time stop at the beginning, the big ranting monologue, the near eternity waiting for Shiro and Erie to take the easiest shot in the world, and then there random out of nowhere deaths…yeah, I think I’m just going to assume this was all just a big fever dream. It could be, for all I know. I mean, it could also be said that having a vivid enough recollection of one’s own fever dream that they could turn it into a Visual Novel and then convince enough people who bought it to fund an anime adaptation of that fever dream is a very special skill. But I won’t!

Though those last two fights take a back seat to the main attraction this week: the conclusion of Machina’s odd dream to end his life after re-killing his old Nazi war buddy who was turned into a magic blue fetus by a wizard who may also be God. I think we can all relate to that in one way or another, but I suppose I should also mention that it sheds light on the last few key bits of information about Ren’s origins that we didn’t know about yet. They’re still ludicrous and mind-breakingly perplexing key bits, but I guess it’s nice to at least fill those pieces in.

Now, the other pieces have been wiped away for the final episode next week, where Ren will fight Heydrich, Marie will (maybe?) fight Issac and become God to replace Karl, and I’m sure something else that’s just friggin strange will probably also happen. Either way, I will finally have this whole batpoop crazy series behind me…until I binge watch it for the Series Review and my perception of reality truly crumbles around me.

And yes, if you’re wondering, I am aware the title is a reference to Faust, alluding to the Faustian bargains each of the bad guys made to get their powers. Certainly sounds cool, but it doesn’t make this any less of a catastrophe.