English Dub Season Review: Combatants Will Be Dispatched! Season One

Overview:

As a chief operative of the villainous Kisaragi Corporation, Agent Six receives orders to help the organization conquer the entire known universe. Tasked with infiltrating the kingdom of Grace—a mission that could change the fate of the world—Six mistakenly believes that his skills as a combatant are superb, fuelling his arrogant attitude. To ensure the success of the mission, Alice Kisaragi, an exceptional android with a youthful appearance named after the company itself, is assigned to be Six’s, travel companion.

Our Take:

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way. Some of the humor in this is super perverted (and in one episode borderline offensive) but unlike some shows, it’s few and far between. But I felt it was necessary to at least warn people as to what they were getting into. Without further ado let’s get to the review!

Combatants Will Be Dispatched! is written by the same author as Konosuba. So if you’ve seen that you might think you know what you’re in for. And to a certain extent, you would be right but let me tell you this is a little different. I mean that in a good way of course. I really enjoyed this show and thought the comedy was great.

When it comes to the characters this show really shines. Six is a combat agent of the Kisaragi Corporation and is tasked with going to this new world. What sets Six apart from other dense protagonists is that he knows he’s a piece of shit. Make no mistake he works for an evil organization and he does his job well. His organization gives him points to buy things, appropriately named “evil points” so he is even incentivized to do bad things. This plays into the comedy of the show really well and gave me a lot of laughs.

It wouldn’t be an anime worthy of anything without cute girls though right? First, we have Six’s android partner, Alice Kisaragi. Her deadpan reaction to events is great and she even goes on a character journey of sorts that is pretty interesting. She and Six play off each other really well. Next, we have Snow, the first person from this world our characters meet. She is obsessed with money and swords. In fact, she is usually paying off the latter because she doesn’t have enough of the former. It’s a vicious cycle but she and Six develop an interesting relationship, to say the least.

Then there’s Grimm and Rose, Grimm is an arch-priest of Zenarith and Rose is an Artificial Battle Chimera. Grimm uses curses but unfortunately for her they constantly backfire. She can no longer wear shoes because of one and that is the reason she is wheelchair-bound because walking barefoot hurts too much. Rose is constantly hungry because she can attain the powers of what she eats. I will be honest that as far as development goes these two get the least. They both have their moments sure, but they are rare and that’s being generous.

These characters wouldn’t mean anything without some awesome voice actors to bring them to life right? This show is the voice acting debut (for anime at least) of Brendan Blaber. To say he knocks it out of the park is an understatement. I was impressed with each episode with his comedic timing and delivery. I know some of it is a credit to the writers but some of the line changes for the dub were absolutely hilarious. Playing his partner in crime Alice Kisaragi was Monica Rial. By no means is this her first role but it might be one of my favorites. I just loved her deadpan voice in this, and her chemistry with Brendan was really good.

Brittney Karbowski played Grimm and while I love her as a voice actress the character didn’t get much time to shine. Having said that what moments she was given were absolutely fantastic. It wasn’t a role I thought she was good for but she absolutely proved me wrong. Rose was played by Kristi Rothrock and similar to Grimm’s character there just wasn’t enough screentime to go around. But I really enjoyed what she did with the role.

Rounding out the main cast is Amber Lee Connors as Snow. I really love her as a voice actress and the role of Snow was definitely an interesting one. She is a stereotypical tsundere with some occasional yandere tendencies and trust me Amber has played plenty of those. She does a great job as Snow and how her character interacts with Six is a joy to behold.

I understand that this show is not for everyone but I would definitely recommend at least giving this the three-episode try. If you are in the market for a comedy and enjoy shows like Konosuba I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. It is not for everyone and there were cringey parts but I am glad I watched it. I enjoyed it so much I started reading the light novels they are based on because I want to see what happens to Six and his team!