English Dub Review: Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?, “Didn’t I Say This Was the Crimson Vow’s First Step?!”

 

 

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Mile and her friends officially form their adventuring party, The Crimson Vow, and begin taking on their first assignments.

Our Take

This is the first episode that actually feels like an isekai show. It took three episodes of clumsy, slipshod jokes to get here, but here we are I guess.

The first few minutes are a little fetishistic sight gag typical of this show’s sense of humor. But then most of the rest of this episode is pretty by the isekai books.

Grouping up to find a quest on the quest board, the first quest going off easily, almost getting swindled by a conniving merchant. All of the classics are here and there’s not much else to say. You’d think given this show’s track record that they’d take every opportunity to cram a reference to another anime in there that they could. There are some, but only a few and they’re not too obtrusive. If anything, I’d say now they’re toning it down so much that they’re playing it too safe. I’m glad we’re past the sheer, painful stupidity of the previous episode, but now I feel like I’m watching any other isekai show.

One small thing I’ve noticed is that now Mile’s weapon of choice seems to be a typical-looking wooden slingshot. They don’t mention it at all, it just seems to be how she does things now. Her deliberately choosing a weak, puny weapon is probably go in line with her desire to be as average and unremarkable as possible. I actually kind of like it simply because it’s something subtle, which is very new for this show.

Though most of this episode is very vanilla, the atmosphere does liven up a bit near the end. They do bring back a couple of their characteristically dumb anime jokes. The scene where Mile gets punched by a rock golem actually got a laugh out of me, simply because we get to see her splayed out on the ground after the fact. They could’ve put a Yamcha reference in there, but they went with their own thing and just had her get completely decked. It was meant to turn into a somber moment, but I found it funny just because it was unexpected. 

And then right at the very end, we get a semblance of a plot along with some actual character development for Reina. Thus far she has been the most unremarkable and boring character, so maybe that’s why she’s getting the spotlight now. It’s a couple of shonen anime-style dramatic flashbacks and they probably have a cliche tragic backstory to go with them. 

They ended it on a very sudden cliffhanger, which is unexpected. The next episode will probably open up on a serious note as they confront Reina’s dark past. Honestly, I’m not expecting much from it, nor am I expecting it will last very long.