English Dub Review: Wise Man’s Grandchild “The Grandchild, the Magic Gear, and the Engagement Party”

We’ve got a magical wedding, but where’s the magical bachelor’s party?

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Shin and Sicily are now an item, and everyone is quite pleased to see them together as the new cute couple. However, Sicily’s parents have to discuss their new relationship with Shin, because they find it at least a little bit uncouth for someone in Sicily’s station to be dating without being married. They’re very understanding, of course, and inform Shin that they don’t need to get married right away, just be engaged. Shin dutifully accepts, and all is well.

After this, training continues as normal, with Shin continuing once again to hone the skills of his com-padres. Shin shows them that he’s discovered the ability to fly using anti-gravity magic, much to everyone’s amazement. Afterwards, Shin has another sit down with Sicily’s parents accompanied by Merlin and Melinda. The two explain that things might be a little bit more complicated than originally anticipated, because Shin isn’t actually Merlin’s son. This does pose an issue for Sicily’s parents, but they’re still cool with Shin being with Sicily.

Following this, Shin and the Magic Research Society use some new enchanted gear that Shin made to hunt demons. The new gear empowers them quite well and they deal with their enemies without much trouble.

Once they get back, Shin and Sicily have an engagement ceremony. All their friends are there and a toast is held in their honor. Romance fills the air and once it’s over, Shin presents Sicily with a beautiful ring to commemorate the occasion.

Our Take: 

What is there left to say about Wise Man’s Grandchild that hasn’t already been said a dozen times over? It’s a wish-fulfillment show that’s purposefully designed to be as mild and pleasing to the palate as possible. The show firmly believes that there’s no need for any kind of conflict to bring a little edge to things, nor do there need to be any obstacles for the main character, Shin, to overcome. That trend continues here without much surprise. We’ve now completely thrown the “social failings” of Shin out the window, because he defeats every single social obstacle he could potentially with laughable ease.

This time around, the main conflict would lie, in a better show, with Shin’s lack of parentage and how it would affect his relationship with Sicily. In a fantasy setting, especially in a medieval one, (Though, let’s be honest, this isn’t exactly “Game of Thrones” parentage and ancestry is generally quite important, so it seems initially that Shin might have a barrier he can’t cross. He will forever be an adopted orphan, no matter how powerful he is, now matter how many friends he has. This could be a real, tangible struggle for Shin, but…nope. This potential avenue for character development is blocked off almost instantly, because Sicily’s parents don’t have any actual commitment to their concerns about their relationship. It makes you wonder why this episode even bothered to bring this up in the first place.

This is, as all these episodes are, interspersed with random scenes of the Magical Research Society training, but not actually growing. Training is supposed to represent a growth of character and change in agency over the story, but because there isn’t much story to speak of here in the first place, their training is just an excuse to shove magical powers into an episode without too much fuss.

This show is boring and tiresome, an exercise in vanity that doesn’t try to do anything except appeal to a person’s basest instincts to give them the fleeting pleasure of watching an identifiable protagonist succeed. This is an anime on the level of bad fan-fiction, where the Mary Sue self-insert character continuously shows everyone else just how amazing and cool they are. Yet, this is the kind of storytelling that didn’t fool me in middle school, so it’s definitely not going to do anything for anyone who gives a single shit about watching something quality. Pass it up and leave it in the trash.