English Dub Review: Plunderer “Promise”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

As we begin the 22nd episode of Plunderer, Doan is on a rampage. After seeing an original ballot slip from their bag, the big bully couldn’t let the group go. After a scuffle, Lynn escapes to where Licht has fallen, but she’s got a deadly wound. Hina is left with Doan, and manages to make a bet with the villain banking on her friends’ return. But can Licht survive with Lynn’s help?

Maybe alone he couldn’t but the green grocer lady and more of Lynn’s town friends arrive to help her and urge her to reveal her true feelings to Licht. With their pleading, she ends up revealing to Licht that she’s in love with him, but she knows that his feelings lie elsewhere. Just when everyone has about given up on him, Licht recovers and carries Lynn back to the others. Pele and Nana go off to give her first aid, while Licht and Hina work out their issues. He promises to return for her. But can he face the full force of both Doan and Sonohara?

Our Take:

Plunderer is starting to work toward the endgame. Promises finds our cast beaten down to their last hopes, and only being saved from the brink by Licht’s remarkable recovery. He seems to be a changed man after his death-defying return, and he even confesses to Hina his true feelings for her. There’s confessions all around in this episode! It doesn’t always land perfectly, and I definitely don’t feel as drawn into the story tension as I should, but at least we’re getting some forward progress and advancing some relationships as we enter into the final stretch.

The biggest highlight of the episode for me wasn’t Hina and Licht’s relationship, but Lynn’s confession. After so many episodes of her getting close to Licht but never quite getting over her fears of telling him her true thoughts, all it takes to push her over the edge is a near-death experience. Oh, and some prompting from her town friends, who randomly show up at the scene of Licht’s death. It’s a very strange occurrence, and they explain it by saying the grocer lady had a feeling Lynn was in trouble. Sure, it’s obviously a bit of fan service just because it’d be a cute scene, but once you get past the improbability of it, it is rather touching. Lynn has gone through so much in the past little bit, and she’s always been one of the most abused characters in the show, so it’s nice to see her get some appreciation from her townsfolk times.

Once Licht returns to the scene where Doan is holding Pele, Nana, and Hina captive, things go a little more off the rails. When Licht lands, he asks Doan for a moment to talk to Hina, and the big guy actually lets this happen. With what we know of Doan, his allowing this is completely laughable. And when you realize that he is standing by the entire time while the two of them discuss their love and relationship, it gets even more hilariously silly.

It’s nice to see him finally admit to Hina that he likes her, I guess. But I can’t help but feel like it’s not earned very well. Hina even admits to Doan earlier in the episode that she supports Licht even though she doesn’t know what he’s trying to accomplish. This is the same Licht who snuck into the wrong dressing room multiple times. Hina giving him the benefit of the doubt is a very Hina thing to do, but to a removed observer, it’s dumb. It’s interesting though that Hina is the one ready to rush forward in their relationship while Licht is very reticent due to his guilt over killing her dad. Just an awkward situation all-around.

Overall, Promises is a solid episode of Plunderer. It’s an episode all about feelings, and while the show doesn’t normally do this very well due to it’s scattershot tone, this episode is played pretty straight for the most part. There’s still question marks at the end, like how did Rihito come back from the dead, or why does Hina still not know what Licht is fighting for, but hey, this is a show about flashy battles, not intelligent plotting. We’ve only got a few more episodes until the end now, and this is about as good of a start to the end as Plunderer could’ve delivered.