English Dub Review: Radiant “A Meeting in the Sky-Encounter”

Everyone expects the Inquisition!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Doc, a Nemesis Researcher, arrives at Alma’s house to pick up the corpse but says his assistant has gotten lost. Said assistant is Melie (Caitlin Glass), a Sorcerer who has been captured by an Inquisition Captain named Dragunov. She’s quickly joined by Seth, whose inexperience with a broom and short temper led him to crash into Dragunov’s ship and start a fight with the troops on board. When he’s unable to provide his papers, he’s imprisoned as well. He and Melie become quick friends, though her pet Boobrie isn’t as easy to warm up to. Doc shows up to get Melie, even showing his ID, but his association with her and carrying Nemesis remains lands him in a cell too.

Luckily for them, Boobrie grabs the keys and breaks them out, though their freedom is brief as soldiers surround them. Seth takes out a few with his Titan Punch, and Melie wows him with her defensive magic, but when she’s cornered, her curse manifests as a personality shift from nice and adorable to cold and ruthless. Even that isn’t a match for Dragunov, so Seth blows a hole in his ship as a diversion so they can get away. Dragunov decides to let them go but takes note of how Seth used magic with his bare hands.

Seth and his new friends soon reach the floating Sorcerer city of Artemis, where he’s been tasked by Alma to find someone named Yaga who might have information on how to find Radiant.

OUR TAKE

We’ve seen the good and bad of the Sorcerer side of this world, as well as how the regular humans view all of this, so now is our chance to see what the Inquisition is all about. As the name implies, they’re pretty radical in their hunt to either imprison or at least heavily regulate them, and use some sort of Christianity-like religion to justify their crusade. Dragunov is a good starter villain for this faction, having a pretty standard but sufficient bad guy look. We don’t yet have a clear idea of his fighting strength, but he’s made an impression through his personality and his threatening position of authority. I expect we’ll be running into him at least a few more times over the rest of the series, so I’ll look forward to that.

We also are introduced to Melie and Doc, the former practically screaming “designated love interest” from her design, bubbly nature, and prominence in the Opening and Ending. It’s neat to learn that curses don’t always manifest as something physical, but can be mental quirks too, and Melie’s personality changes are a pretty mild introduction to what that could imply. My immediate reaction to her changing from nice and sweet to mean and bloodthirsty was that this was a rather unsubtle homage to the lesser-known Dragon Ball character, Launch, who went through a similar transformation whenever she sneezed. It’s long enough ago and obscure enough that I can chalk it up to the creator of this simply being a big enough Dragon Ball fan and not a shameless rip-off, but I’m gonna be keeping an eye out for Melie to break out of these comparisons with her own character.

I didn’t think we’d be getting to Artemis this soon, but I’m glad we’re not dragging things out anymore than is necessary. Apparently, this is about Chapter 3 of the comic with some events moved around and noticeably padded, so it could afford to go a little faster, but I have no idea how much of the comic actually exists to adapt, let alone how much of it they PLAN to adapt. Seeing a society made up solely of Sorcerers will be a neat thing to see, and the preview seems to imply it’s just as imperfect as a regular society, which is appreciated for keeping the magical people grounded. This show continues to a serviceable watch, but I hope it has a chance to shine as much as its title implies.