English Dub Review: Dies Irae “To the New World”

And so ends our strange tale of insane Nazi magic and bad German accents.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Ren and Heydrich begin their final battle, with Heydrich’s destructive power being forced back by Ren’s, which seems to make people freeze. Heydrich then turns to make giant golden skeleton soldiers that Ren has to beat down single-handedly with his winged powered up form while reminding himself he does this for his friends. Heydrich pulls from his fallen soldiers for power, but we only see him use the abilities of the vampire guy with the child sister-mom, the little girl who Shiro literally punched his way out of, Eleonore the pyro, and Wolfgang, because who couldn’t use more Wolfgang in their lives. Yes, no love for ones I actually liked, such as Kei or Tubal Cain, because THESE are our “Best of Magical Nazis” compilation for this last fight.

Soon, Heydrich draws from even Issac’s weird power reserves, but the fight is stopped by Karl Kraft, who now properly reveals Marie as his successor…and then they get right back to fighting, since Ren doesn’t have any plans for the universe other than letting only his friends survive, and Heydrich’s resume is basically just a list of war crimes so he kinda ruled himself out. They go for one last killing strike, with Ren seemingly taking the worst of it until help from the spirits of Shiro, Erie, and Kei arrive to bring Rea (who was trapped out in space or something, it’s not important) to defeat Heydrich once and for all for his treatment of Issac. Marie runs to Ren in a final clutching embrace as the world is remade around them.

Also, Kasumi has apparently been watching the fight from the ground this whole time imagines a selfie with all of her friends (and Erie and Kei, who she would have no reason to be friends with) as she awakens several decades later as an old lady. Apparently, she has relatives who sound exactly like her friends, except for Ren, who is still totally alive and the same age and remembers everything. They discuss reincarnation, which I don’t think this show has ever brought up before, but these are the last few minutes and I’m not gonna question it. At least, not until Marie’s new kid form enters the room and romantically locks eyes with Ren, and it wouldn’t be Dies Irae if I didn’t end the episode with a little bit of throw up in my mouth.

OUR TAKE

I guess the most I could really ask for was having an ending that felt focused, and I would say we got the closest thing to that. With the exception of the barest of subplots about Rea and Issac, this is pretty much entirely about Ren’s last fight with Heydrich and Karl fully handing over the keys to Marie on the whole “being the one true god of the universe” thing. Kudos to Ren for realizing he really wouldn’t be cut out for godhood, since not many people look past themselves enough to figure that sort of thing out. Though I am kind of confused that his goals for the world are simply “freeze my friends in time and everyone else can just die”. I guess I never pegged him for being that selfish or impractical, but somehow I get the sense that I’m supposed to think of this as compellingly tragic, along with all the sweet and saccharine confessions of love between him and Marie. The truth is, I was never all that invested in either character, to begin with, but boy does their relationship seem like the most hardcore wish fulfillment that is completely untethered by reality. But I’ll get more into that next week.

The epilogue takes the cake for this week’s growing list of reasons to render an insanity plea. Last we saw of Kasumi, she was unconsciously being held hostage as a possible alternative grail over Rea, so I had assumed she had been the victim of the first or second or apparently THIRD apocalypse that killed the population of Earth several times over. It turns out she’s been alive this whole time and survived the whole final battle…not that we learn what happened afterward in the slightest. We know that all of the main high school kids died (even though only Kei really earned hers) except for Kasumi and Ren, but it seems they never really talked once it was all over, which is…strange to me to say the least. Also, supposedly Kasumi had a lot of descendants who end up sounding like and vaguely looking like her old friends, because genetics has nothing over the crammed in concept of reincarnation, even when it’s Marie, who is still pretty much alive and conscious of things, but still has a reincarnation who immediately recognizes Ren who doesn’t age and SOMEBODY PLEASE PREFORM A LOBOTOMY ON ME TO GET THIS SERIES OUT OF MY SKULL. I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO PULL OUT ALONG WITH IT.