English Dub Review: Fairy gone “Kite Laughing Out Loud”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Smugglers try to smuggle a chapter of the Black Fairy Tome out of the port island city of Baleun, but inspectors catch it and hold it in the administrative building. Dorothea is alerted, and are on their way to retrieve it. However, they aren’t the only ones aware of the one-of-a-kind book.

Veronica and Damien are after the book, too. Plus, Bitter Sweet and her stoogie, Patty, are on their way to find it as well. And if that wasn’t enough, before any of them can get to it, Eajey busts his way into the building with a fairy weapon and steals the chapter, leaving the building burning behind him. Bitter Sweet and Ver team up in order to take him down, but even together, they aren’t mighty enough to finish him off. And he seems to have taken a strange interest in Ver.

Our Take:

I was worried at the start of this episode. It seemed like we were falling back into old habits from season one. For the first five minutes, we watch a series of expositional conversations unfold between a bunch of nondescript old white dudes with fancy titles who we’ve never seen before. But just before Fairy gone went over the edge, it pulled back and got a bit more exciting. This episode is jam-packed with characters, and it definitely comes across as being a bit overly complicated. With so many different factions warring for control over the Black Nine, it’s no wonder that things get heated.

Eajey from Gui Carlin is the main new character introduced. He’s certainly a man worthy of a grand introduction. As ruthless as he is powerful, he forces his way through the guards like it were nothing. Not even Ver, Bitter Sweet, and Patty can take him on. (Although I could argue they never really worked together as a team, and if they combined forces and trusted each other, they would’ve stood much more of a fighting chance.) Eajey is a top executive in the Gui Carlin mafia, which probably helps explain why he was able to get his hands on such a powerful fairy weapon. But I’m still wondering just what kind of history he has with Damien and Veronica.

This episode overall felt like a step down from the last few weeks. With so many characters and so much going on, it’s hard to focus on any of them in particular. This makes Kite Laughing Out Loud feel bloated and monotonous. Still, Eajey is an interesting new character who feels like he poses a very real threat to our heroes with how overpowered he is. Bitter Sweet and Patty had a fun dynamic, and I love how quick Patty is to split once she finds out how tough Eajey is. Ver’s refusal to even sit with Bitter Sweet and Patty even though there was an extra chair was funny.

The dub was solid, but nobody’s performances really stood out to me until the end, when Marlya starts interrogating Damien about how he knows Ver. When Ver is involved, Marlya’s passion is doubled. “Without realizing it, I did open up.” Marlya’s trust issues aren’t fully healed, but her teammates at Dorothea are helping. “He’s Gui Carlin’s eyes. One of the top four executives. And quite frankly, not my type.” Bitter Sweet’s comedy certainly helped the episode have a bit more life. “You’re a loose bitch with no loyalty, Bitter Sweet.” Eajey is harsh both in battle and in one-liners. I’d love to see how he knows Bitter Sweet. “The War of Unification was good to me. People were dying left and right, while I made a handsome profit.” If this doesn’t tell us everything we need to know about who he is as a person, nothing does.

Kite Laughing Out Loud is a return to the Fairy gone of season one, in some ways. That’s not an entirely bad thing. While it was overcrowded and moved too fast without stopping to really get into any single person’s POV, it did introduce a cool new character and allow us to get a taste for some of the deep-rooted alliances going on behind the scenes. I just hope next week we get some time to breathe, too.