English Dub Review: Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?, “Didn’t I Say I’m Not Going Into the Forest Anymore?!”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The Crimson Vow finish their escort mission and take in the sights of the trade town on the border of the kingdom. But soon after, they become involved in yet another bandit-related conflict.

Our Take

Who thought a show this annoyingly self-aware could become this boring so fast.

The girls finish their quest with the old merchant that they were accompanying from the episode before last. I had nearly forgotten about this weird old man. In the aforementioned episode, he was just a bit character serving as the cliche perverted old guy ogling Pauline. I guess if you need an impetus for a shoddy plot, you may as well bring back a shoddy character you used before.

The old man goes off on another outing with some other merchants but is not escorted by the party this time because Mile wants to be a tourist. There’s even an anachronistic gift shop for Mile to make silly references in. This is the only scene where Mile partakes in her typical shallow array of humor. Normally, I’d be thankful, but with how uninteresting the rest of this episode is, I actually wouldn’t have minded a bit more of it.

Some time passes, and wouldn’t you know it, the merchants were ambushed by bandits. You can’t throw half a bandit without hitting ten other bandits in this world. They’re everywhere and they’re always killing everybody’s parents. It’s no wonder there are so many bandits; nobody has ever done anything to stop them, so you might as well become one for the job security. 

Some of the merchants are killed, and the rest return, but the old man is nowhere to be seen. And since he left behind a cute granddaughter, and also because bandits, Reina gets mad and goes off to find him herself. 

She finds a group of bandits and is quickly overwhelmed. The rest of the party comes and rescues her, but Reina scorns them for it, saying they should’ve helped her stop them in the first place and that she’s fine on her own. Then, Mile gives her a big slap across the face and chides her, saying they’re a team and should stick together.

This may seem familiar, and that is because this is literally just Reina’s backstory from the last episode. It’s the exact same thing, down to the melodramatic arguing and the same flashbacks we’ve seen three or so times already. The crux of this episode was copied and pasted. I am in disbelief of how lazy this is. 

There’s a little hint of intrigue in this whole bandit mess though. It turns out the bandits are soldiers from the neighboring empire in disguise, sent to disrupt trade. This little covert operation might’ve been a decent attempt at some world-building. However, as expected, it is quickly disregarded because breaking the fourth wall is more important than actual story development. 

There isn’t much else to say that the show hasn’t already spent a lot of effort in saying twice. Up until now, it was just an inane comedy, obnoxious at best. And I’ve no doubt we’ll probably get back to that in the next episode. But this one was a true waste of time, in every sense of the phrase.