English Dub Review: Isekai Cheat Magician “Battle of Marwalt”

Overview:

The two armies start to clash.

Our Take:

I feel like I say a variant of this every week now, but this is a problem that keeps happening.

Shows can’t just say things and expect their audience to believe it. Sometimes, informed facts are necessary to progress the plot, of course, but when it comes to things that will drastically effect the gravity of the situation, the tone of the story actually has to show it. In this, by comparison, the goblin invasion has handled a lot better, because at least the protagonists (relatively) struggle with that. They’re set up to be a threat, and then they’re shown to be a threat, which makes the action scene make sense.

Here we have a war that’s been brewing for several episodes, a large army that could cause a huge conflict, and talented generals on the other side. These are all told to us to be significant threats. Well, guess what, they’re all defeated within an episode. The bad magic is the real villain actually, not the conflict between kings. You can’t just say a threat is a threat and then have all the characters blast through their hurdles with no real struggle at all. Why should we be worried if the main characters aren’t even going to break a sweat? Why is this something we should be concerned about? To be blunt– it’s not.

Maybe the rival king has a point and his subjects are loyal to him for a reason- nope, they’re all blatantly evil and are completely loyal to this mysterious lady. Maybe Taichi and Rin should be a little wary before picking a side- nope, the king they are loyal to is good actually. Maybe the impressive army is can cause real harm- nope, they get dispatched with almost laughable ease. Maybe the new generals will be worthwhile enemies to the protags- nope, they’re defeated within an episode.

It’s disappointing because there could have been some interesting philosophy that gets explored here. The rival king doesn’t dislike Taichi, but he is right that Taichi, who has no stake in the conflict, doesn’t really have any desire to fight. The king is fighting for his place in society, but Taichi is fighting for nothing. That could be something worth exploring, but nah, apparently the king’s subjects don’t even believe in him! What a conflict to care about.