English Dub Review: Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?, “Didn’t I Say Arrogance Leads to Trouble?!”

 

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Relying on Mile’s powers perhaps too much, the Crimson Vow takes on a rescue mission within a mysterious forest.

Our Take

The episode opens with Reina, Mavis, and Pauline lazing around at their campsite during a quest without a care in the world. Acting derelict in their duties, Mile silently chides them for being overdependent on her. 

This scene presents a very fair point: since Mile is unconscionably overpowered, the other three girls feel they have no reason to fear mortal danger in their travels. When the show started, the three girls were understandably dubious of Mile’s seemingly infinite source of power and resourcefulness along with her eccentric referential outbursts. But over time they have grown acclimated to Mile’s erratically strange behavior and have found the sweet spot where they’re can just coast along on Mile’s coattails. If Mile wasn’t so oddly obsessed with trying to be discreet about her powers, we surely would’ve reached this point much sooner. 

But while there is a certain logic to the three girls’ adopting this lazy behavior, I find myself questioning it as it does seem a little too sudden. If this were just played for quick laughs like many other similar instances in this show, I’d be fine writing it off. But this particular point is what kickstarts the plot of this episode and remains persistent throughout. There should have been character development for them in the previous episodes that would lead up to them sinking into complacency. Said progression would’ve made the train wrecks that were the last two episodes just a little more tolerable. 

Their lazy behavior escalates further as they decide to take on a notoriously difficult quest to bolster their fame, confident that Mile will protect them. But just as soon as they set out for this quest, Mile is quick to set them straight, warning them of the potential dangers of relying on her too much and that she cannot stop everything. The girls are subsequently very quick in relenting and resolve to take on some of the future burden themselves. 

The speed at which the girls acquiesce to Mile’s advice ends this point on a rather anticlimactic note. Though throughout the rest of the episode the girls successfully prove their point and show strides in self-improvement, this hasty conclusion is a bit too clean, shaving off some of the detail that would’ve made it interesting. 

Despite realizing their selfish reasons for taking on the difficult quest, the girls stay determined to see it through so they don’t lose face. The quest entails rescuing a group of researchers and their bodyguards who entered a forest to investigate the strange, devastating phenomenon within it. 

As they enter the forest, they are ambushed by a group of beast people. They later find them deep within the forest excavating some ancient ruins. The party doesn’t refer to these beast people in the most positive light. It isn’t outright hatred, but rather a general disdain and distrust for them, denoting some cultural history that forces them to live apart from each other. I doubt we’ll receive the full story behind this, but a little more information would be appreciated.

When they enter the ruins to find the scholar of the missing group, they find something incredibly intriguing. Within the ruins is a temple or shrine of some sort, the walls of which have carved upon them images of modern Earth cities with vehicles and skyscrapers. As they gaze at the walls, the trapped scholar mentions that these are memories from someone who lived another life. This revelation is by far the biggest yet, hinting that someone else may have been reincarnated into this world like Mile was. Unfortunately, the scholar doesn’t go into more detail as she is cut off by the party commenting on her height and the fact that she’s an elf. 

The group is then cut off themselves by the appearance of an elder dragon, who has been calling all the shots in these ruins. All attacks against this poorly animated dragon prove completely worthless, even Mile’s overpowered, explosive magic spells. The dragon then visits retribution on Mile, grievously wounding her. We’ve seen Mile harshly attacked like this before, landing in a pool of her own blood. But this time it’s obviously serious as she loses all life in her face and does not spryly bounce back immediately afterward. 

The situation seems hopeless for the Crimson Vow as they end up in their most perilous situation yet. If the sharply increased effort to challenge and expand the character dynamics didn’t already establish this as the penultimate episode, the dire straits the characters are left in certainly would.