English Dub Review: High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even In Another World, “It Seems Tsukasa has Resolved to Change the World!”

 

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The prodigies and the villagers of Elm prepare to retaliate for the atrocities committed by the Marquis of the fiefdom. 

Our Take

At the end of the review of the previous episode, I had predicted that this new antagonist, the Marquis, may potentially be a competent villain for our prodigies. Since he kidnapped Lyrule specifically in his raid on the village, I thought he might have known some secret value she held. As it turns out, the only reason she was kidnapped was that she was a hot elf girl with big boobs and he wanted to rape her. Gross.

The Marquis ends up being the stereotypical dumb, gross, pig of a man. He is simply another strawman for the prodigies to stomp. Except he gets more attention than he deserves, namely a brief “love” scene with the coerced Lyrule. Fortunately, this scene doesn’t go beyond groping but it is still disgusting. It is rendered poorly, entirely unpleasant to watch, and completely unnecessary. I hated it.

This entire attack on the village and the subsequent counterattack on the Marquis’ castle achieves a lot in terms of advancing the plot. 

As mentioned earlier, we get to see the prodigies show off and stomp some bad guys. Ringo, the top scientist, has finally finished constructing futuristic weapons that entirely outclass the medieval level arsenal of the setting. Watching this play out is kind of goofy. This is also part of the prodigies’ bigger plan.

Tsukasa finally gets to step up and become the real main character. He comes in, does some psychological anime mind tricks to the Marquis and sweeps Lyrule off her feet. Up to this point, Tsukasa was more like a coach on the sidelines, directing everyone else to do their best while he stood back and bided his time. Now he seems ready to take center stage and be a bigger part of the action.

We finally get the full scope of the prodigies’ grand plan. They aim to advance the technology and culture of this other world by several hundred years, use said advancements to overthrow the corrupt empire and create a better life for its citizens. 

This isn’t a new concept for the isekai genre, but it’s a pretty large scale take on it. This sounds like it would cause an incredible amount of culture shock and a large number of questions to be raised all at once. Given the short brevity that isekai shows generally have, I imagine most of it will just get swept under the rug, but who knows?

Lastly, we receive important revelations from a spirit possessing Lyrule. Apparently, the prophecy of the seven heroes from another world is true, and they have to save this world from evil. This is also very par for the course and raises even more questions regarding Lyrule. It also feels like this prophecy might take up more narrative storage space. Figuring out how to safely advance the course of civilization is hard enough; having to also juggle this prophecy thing sounds like a bit much to handle. But I guess these ultra-powerful teenagers need some sort of challenge. 

The biggest problem with this episode, apart from the gross molestation scene, is that it makes the last two episodes feel a little pointless. This is the big motivation episode, where forces are mustered and goals are set. But it’s the fourth episode and it really felt like it should’ve been the second or third. The entire arc with Masato doing business deals in the big city should’ve come after this as part of the bigger plan to advance society. 

It’s a bit too much a bit too late, but it does finally get the ball rolling. My expectations for this show feel a lot more tempered now. Whether that’s a good or bad thing remains to be seen. Given this show’s tendency to err on the side of cliche, I’ll guess it might not be so great.