English Dub Review: Radiant “A Paradise of Wisdom and Hope -Artemis-”

Nothing is certain by death and talking cats in anime.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Seth, Melie, and Doc land in Artemis. The first step is getting Seth registered as a citizen, but he’s way too enamored by the idea of a city where sorcerers can be safe. They soon make it to the admissions ceremony, meeting the headmaster of Artemis Academy, Master Lord Majesty, a talking yellow cat who makes cat puns. He preaches the unity of every sorcerer in order to remove their curses and when it’s Seth’s turn to register, he’s given a piece of paper that Majesty is eager for him to sign. Turns out the reason is it saddles Seth and everyone else who registered today with a mountain of debt, and the only way to get rid of it is to do jobs as Hunters for Artemis.

Luckily for Seth, Doc is mistaken for his guardian, so Doc gets all the debt! As well as all the debt that gets piled on as Seth mindlessly wanders through the city looking for Yaga AND the damage Melie causes whenever her crazy side comes out. Soon, they rack up more debt than anyone else in the city. It’s then that they’re approached by a tiny dude in a cauldron on wheels. He asks Seth what he thinks of the city and Majesty in particular. While he doesn’t care much for the jaundiced furball, Seth can’t help but notice that everyone here is more or less living happily, which is a far cry from his life being bullied and persecuted just for having a curse.

Just then, an air horn sounds, indicating the city is under attack by the Inquisition. Before they CAN attack, they’re stopped by legions of armed sorcerers ready to fight off an invasion. Dragunov gets new orders that tell his men to back off; knowing the power Artemis has behind it that would not be worth upsetting just to capture one kid. The cauldron guy informs Seth that defense is where a large portion of all those registration costs go. When Seth asks about finding Radiant, the guy asks why he doesn’t just stay and only protect Artemis, but Seth says that his goal is to protect those on the ground who aren’t safe from Nemesis attacks. The guy reveals himself to be Yaga and says that Seth has passed his test to be trained by him.

Dragunov informs his leader of Seth’s powers and is told he must be captured.

OUR TAKE

We continue our tour of “Shonen Storytelling Paint By Numbers” with the introduction of Artemis, a place where Seth can truly dive into the world outside his home city and learn to grow stronger into the sorcerer he wants to be. It is most definitely a noticeable contrast from the rest of the world we’ve seen before now, being a place wholly populated by sorcerers and solely made for their wellbeing, so I’m interested in how we explore it going forward. It doesn’t seem to be all that remarkable outside of its nature as a sorcerer city, but we’ve got time to prove that wrong.

The idea of it being heavily taxed for the sake of defense and curing those who wish to be free of their curses does raise some questions and moral dilemmas about how governments treat their citizens, but a lot of it is only really implied at the moment. Majesty seems pretty money-grubbing with not much dimension beyond that, though I guess he’d have to be more complex to be considered the leader, I suppose. My hopes are that we’ll be seeing more of a diverse morality and culture as our time here goes on since this introduction is kinda run of the mill.

Which is especially concerning since nothing really happened in this episode other than having the characters be exposed to the awkward system the city has and then deciding it’s worth it for there to be safe people. I was hoping for something a bit more eventful after the build-up about this place. We still have sixteen episodes, but I don’t think that’s enough time to properly flesh out everything they’re setting up. Getting to know more about this “13 Wizard Coven” could be neat, as well as seeing how this Yaga guy works as Seth’s Yoda-like teacher. We also have had those storm clouds on the horizon with Dragunov informing Torque of Seth’s unique magical power, so that’s…something?

Look, I’ve been appreciating the steady structure of this first handful of episodes, especially since I’m watching shows alongside this that can’t even manage that much. Radiant has managed to maintain “acceptable” levels of accomplishment, which is harder to than one might think. However, at a certain point, what is acceptable quickly becomes unacceptable when it can’t surpass itself, and the time to prove Radiant can do that is fast approaching. We’re about to hit the end of the first third of this series, by which something impressive needs to happen. A sorcerer can’t just coast on air currents because sooner or later, they’re going to crash. This rating is coming out of good faith, so I hope it won’t let me down.