English Dub Review: Ulysses-Jeanne d’Arc and the Alchemist Knight “In This Wonderful World”

They say whenever a bell rings, a twelve-year-old burns at the stake. So, stop ringing bells, guys.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

After one last kiss from Montmorency (which for some reason requires an inside view of her throat AS HIS MAGIC SPIT GUSHES DOWN HER ESOPHAGUS BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK NOT AT THIS POINT), he and Jeanne finally defeat Enlil and humanity is allowed to create its own future or whatever. However, Ulysses Noire still lives but begs for Glasdale to put her out of her misery with his arrow. He complies, but only by shattering the helmet that gave her powers, turning her back into Phillipe (Philip? Who cares at this point). English troops meet up with Thomas Mallory (the glasses girl from a few episodes ago, in case you forgot), who assures them that the French soldiers will fight tooth and nail and aren’t worth the fight, but that Lord Bedford, one of England’s leaders has a plan to stop Jeanne from becoming a legend. Basically, it’s foreshadowing for her death.

The French forces recover from their rather weird final battle with a large celebration before returning to Charlotte, who awards Montmorency with the rank of general in her army, the highest authority. That night, Astaroth tries to sneak out, considering her work with humans to be done with and being unsuccessful at that, but Montmorency stops her, telling her that he wants her around. And also that the lady she showed him that one time was Venus, the god of love. Which I guess counts as an explanation, sure.

Glasdale returns to occupied Paris for more missions. Philip finds the magic helmet reformed…somehow, but refuses keep fighting, despite temptings from her ghost dad. Montmorency takes Jeanne to meet Catherine and they become friends, and Charlotte and Richemont make up before traveling to Orleans to crown Charlotte as Queen. And they all lived happily ever after, with the closing scene of Jeanne talking about how small her twelve-year-old boobs are.

But because the show’s not going to mention it: Seven years later, in 1431, Jeanne was captured by British troops and burned at the stake as a heretic. And a year after that, Montmorency would begin his five year spree of abducting, raping, and murdering children, for which he was hanged three years afterwards in 1440. And I guess he fought in the Fourth Holy Grail War in 1994.

And what of everyone else? Who cares. They bore the snot out of me. THEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEND.

OUR TAKE

Thank the Sumerian Gods this is OVERRRRRRR. I mean, FUCK. THIS. SHIT. SO. HARD. Not only does this feel rushed as fuck to wrap everything up in twelve episodes, it looks so god damn ugly in those last few fight scenes. Not that the rest of the show has been that much of a feast for the eyes up till now, but MAN does it really get downright awful in those final frames. Not to mention the friggin close up of Jeanne’s throat ingesting Montmorency’s spit like…what??? Who asked for that? It’s disgusting enough having to watch them tongue kiss every goddamn episode, but what the hell was this meant to invoke? Pure, unrelenting disgust for these animators and my entire species by extension? Well, it sure managed that with flying colors.

Which is to say nothing of the rest of the episode, which is so desperate to keep the viewers’ attention that it will pull out any reference to boobs, butts, long slow kisses with a child, every piece of bullshit harem “comedy” they can pull out to pad this shit out to the 24 minute mark before narrating what happened in the battle they were all training for instead of, you know, SHOWING US WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED IN IT. If this is the utopia humanity chose, I would honestly rather Ian Sinclair just wipe us all out with his giant alien satellite laser and be done with it.

And I don’t think I need to point out all of the revisionism of history going on, since, well, I’m pretty sure there was no actual battle between Sumerian gods against French alchemists in the 1400’s. However, I bring it up because it almost feels like this reframing of Montmorency, or Gilles De Rais, as a noble hero who gained the love of a twelve-year-old Jeanne d’Arc while leaving out the more infamous details of his history paints a rather…a disturbing picture of whoever put together this story. Either they were radically ignorant of certain events or they really just didn’t care about these things. I can only speculate, but if this show makes you do anything, it’s sit and contemplate the true darkness of humanity that could spawn this series’ existence.

But it’s over now, it can’t hurt me anymore. All that’s left is to…rewatch it all over again for the Season Review, but THEN, once I have my truest torment and despair expressed in greatest detail, I can finally put this all behind me. And the rating is, to no one’s surprise: