English Dub Review: Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World “Encounter: The Enemy You and I Met Was…”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The cold open features a love struck Iska who’s also struck by insomnia, which for those of us waiting on election results, is highly relatable (though I’m envious that his character’s sleeplessness is for more romantic reasons.) From here we’re treated to an enhanced intro sequence, which features scenes from our protagonists’ first showdown in the forest, as well as the empire’s war room (complete with a mysterious ruler), and finally a variety of contrasts between battles scenes and more romantic encounters, all to the tune of “Against.” by Kaori Ishihara, which brilliantly balances lovely upbeat melodies with bitingly intense interludes, to mirror the visuals. Back to the episode itself though, Mismis is concerned with Iska’s well-being. He admits that he hasn’t been sleeping well, but she pushes to get him to reveal the heart of the matter. He says the last battle has been haunting his thoughts, which Mismis believes could be the result of emotional scarring from facing such a fierce opponent. She recommends he get a change of scenery, and sends him off to Neutral City to relax with a ticket to the opera, which is performing her favorite show, the “Tragic Love of Female Knight Beatrix”, and orders him to have fun as his captain. On the drive there, he falls asleep while Nene is driving, and dreams of his Master’s words as he’s bequeathed the astral swords: “Keep them safe. Those swords are the only hope we have of restoring this fractured world.” Nene comments that she though he didn’t have dreams like that in forever, and he agrees, assuming it’s because he hasn’t used the astral swords in some time. The next scene is the final scene from the first episode, but from Iska’s point of view. After Alice offers to repay him for his handkerchief, which she ruined, and the lights go up revealing each other’s identities, Alice accuses him of following her, and (after making a bit of a fuss) is convinced by Rin to leave and get food at a nearby restaurant. There, the waitress informs them that all the tables are reserved, but she can seat them at a booked spot if they don’t mind sharing. And who else could be joining them to dine today other than, you guessed it: Iska. Alice protests again, but eventually the two order the exact same dish, down to how the pasta is cooked, and enjoy their meal despite their enemy status. The rest of the episode mostly focuses on their second accidental encounter, when they both attend a gallery showing of Imperial landscape artist, Salil Viblanc. Iska was gifted the ticket by Risya, special counsel to HQ, and their unit’s new commander. Alice attends the exhibition after a meeting with her mother, Millavair Lou Nebulis VIII, reveals that The Founder, twin sister to their noble ancestor, is awakening due to a change in astral power following Alice’s showdown in the Nelka forest. Her mother forbids her from going into battle, so she chooses a change of scenery in Ein again. Despite accusing him of stalking her, and angrily refusing to go to the museum with him the first time, Iska and Alice eventually attend the show together, then fall asleep side by side on a park bench. The final scene before the credits ends with Iska’s head falling (conveniently) onto Alice’s chest mid-nap, while she muses that she could end him (but clearly chooses not to.)

Our take

This episode is the perfect chance to me to complain about one of my major qualms with this series so far: Mismis. Despite being captain, and one of the older members of Defense for Humankind Third Division Unit N07 (it was mentioned in the first episode she’s 22) her character is written to come off as obnoxiously young and goofy. Her clumsiness, short stature, and ESPECIALLY her stuffed animal collection seem like traits that would make more sense for the “younger sibling” character in the group, or something that would be revealed later to soften up a battle-hardened character. This is not to say you can’t have a highly competent character also be a source of comic relief (Milly in Trigun is an excellent example) but Mismis seems less like a mindfully designed character and more like a randomly selected assortment of tropes. Maybe she’s meant to buck some stereotypes and show that hyper-femininity is not mutually exclusive to leadership roles, but it kind of seems like they just wrote a cute, silly, anime girl character and then were like “…uh…and she’s the…captain! Yeah, she’s the captain. Feminism’s so easy, what’re these broads always complaining about?” Lindsay Seidel, for her part, manages to voice this (as she described the character on Twitter) “goober” with an impressive soprano that matches the blue-haired captain’s appearance, though I’m hoping we’ll get a bit more depth in regards to pitch as well as personality development as the series progresses.

Though there’s unfortunately no new action scenes in this episode, we do get a decent amount of plot development, despite the vast majority of time being spent on “what are YOU doing here?” encounters in Neutral City. New characters are introduced, most notably Millavair Lou Nebulis VIII (voiced by Anastasia Munoz, of .hack//Quantum fame) for The Nebulis Sovereignty and Risya (who’s brought to life by Dani Chambers, aka Molly in Epithet Erased) for The Empire. There’s a bit of explanation as to the Nebulis family line, and an indication that astral power is far more intense than simply a source of usable magic, which may indicate a slight environmental angle to the overall plot (like if it powers or protects the world as a whole, or is non-renewable but currently be harvested by The Empire or something? We’ll see!)

While we’re no closer to learning Iska’s motivation for freeing the witch in his first episode flashback, the post-credits scene gives a hint to a tangle for his romantic pursuit of Alice vs. his desire to stay free: he’ll be reinstated as a Saint Disciple if he can capture the Ice Calamity Witch.