English Dub Review: Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? III “(Knossos) A Man-made Labyrinth”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

After an incident in which a group of hunters battled with members of the Xenos, word of the talking monsters has leaked out. A group has been dispatched to determine the origin of the rumors, and Bell Cranel has been sent along as well. He uncovers a vast labyrinth built by Daedalus many years in the past.

At the end of the tunnel he finds a group of captured Xenos, as well as the mastermind hunter behind the whole slavery trade deal. Dix Perdix has been running the entire underground operation in order to finance his machinations. He casts a hex on the group of Xenos, but that gives Bell an opening that might allow him to end Dix’s evil once and for all.

After a rather lackluster episode of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? III last week, things pick up this time around with a little more excitement and a lot more answered questions. Bell Cranel goes on the hunt for the Xenos in order to find out exactly what’s going on with the supposed attacks. And what he finds is a whole lot of trouble.

Trouble, and labyrinth passages, that is. The system devised to let others into the tunnels by altering an eyeball to make it appear more like a member of the Daedalus family is a neat trick, but it doesn’t really work to keep the place secret when Dix gives them out like candy.

Bell is able to pick up a bit of new information from Lyd on the battlefield where he meets Lyd. He’s dismayed to learn that the Xenos did ransack a city, but I never really felt as conflicted as it made Bell seem. Lyd and the other monsters are only retaliating for what the humans have done to them, but even so, it makes them behave like the exact things that they’re feared for: being crazed monsters with a lust for blood.

Things get really interesting once Bell and Fels are able to follow the Xenos inside the hidden gate, where they find a passage that leads up to the surface. It’s the reason why Dix and his ancestors have been able to smuggle captured Xenos to be sold on the black market without being detected before, but the discovery won’t do much good if Bell can’t defeat the level five fighter. He casts a hex on the freed Xenos, so they won’t be much of a challenge, but Bell is the one person who could turn the tide now that, as Fels points out, Dix has been weakened.

Hermes tracks down Ikelos, but nothing really comes of it except for the fact that Ikelos grants his fellow god permission to ask him any questions he wants. It doesn’t really serve any real purpose, as Hermes learns the truth from Ikelos and reiterates what we already know is taking place inside the labyrinth.

Is It Wrong got back on track a bit with (Knossos) A Man-made Labyrinth, allowing more action to take place that complements the story rather than gets in the way. And while there’s a lot of information dispensed throughout the episode, it never reached the point of exposition overload that have occurred in previous weeks. And after such a big cliffhanger, the next episode promises to be even more of a nail biter.