English Dub Review: Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest “A Looming Shadow”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Nagumo and the gang make their way to the town of Horaud — a residential area right by the Great Orcus Labyrinth. Nagumo meets with the town’s guild leader and presents him with their formal permission to Fuck Shit Up™, when through the door bursts one of Nagumo’s old classmates, Endou. Endou alerts the guild leader and Nagumo that their classmates are in critical danger due to their exploits in the Great Orcus Labyrinth. He managed to get away using his invisibility, but tells the group that a dangerous woman who controls monsters ambushed the students in the lower levels of the labyrinth. After they denied her ultimatum of joining her and the monsters, one of the creatures impaled their classmate, Suzu. Endou fled above to get help from Captain Loggins, but was followed by one of the creatures. Loggins held it off while Endou escaped to the surface to warn the town.

Endou begs Nagumo for his help. Full of nostalgia (and newly found paternal feelings for Myu) Nagumo discretely agrees to help. Meanwhile, the students flee from the monstrous woman — so frightened for their lives that they consider joining her. However, when a weak Captain Loggins appears to warn them of the danger, he is killed right in front of them by the woman herself. Kouki, filled with rage, charges into her but feels guilty about taking a life.

Nagumo bursts from the ceiling to solve that problem.

Our Take

A few things:

1) The opening scene in the episode where Shea giggles joyously while Nagumo tries to hit her with his car…funny way of expressing affection. It’s not like he’s incapable of not being an asshole, evident by–

2) The Dadification of his character. Despite having no qualms verbally and physically abusing all of his group members (except Yue) he seems to have an unseen side of himself presented by his behavior towards Myu. Yue, Shea, and Tio all comment on how softhearted Nagumo’s personality is when it comes to Myu — he even goes so far as to call her his daughter. Didn’t she have parents? Was this ever addressed properly? Did he just kidnap a child to raise? What goes on? Anyway, he seems to be setting a great example for her by acting like a dick toward everyone he knows and meets.

3) So are we just never going to find out what Captain Loggins’ intentions were when it came to betraying Nagumo? Kaori made it evident that she didn’t have enough mana to heal him, unlike Suzu, so is he just dead forever? Will we ever get an elaboration on the inciting incident of the series or are we just doomed to gloss over it because of the abysmal pacing of the show?

4) The new villain seems interesting because she poises more of an intelligent “humanity” to monsters than we’ve seen before. This isn’t enough to excuse the unfinished, ugly, unshaded CGI monsters that she fought with, though. Seriously — they clip through their own limbs. Just another example of the rushed work in the show.