English Dub Season Review: Wonder Egg Priority Season One

Overview (Spoilers Below):

When her only friend dies under mysterious circumstances, Ai Ohto can’t take it. She stays home from school, roaming the streets at night to try and find something that makes everything make sense. What she finds is a passage to another world—a world where eggs have power, monsters are real, and you can bring a suicidal person back from the dead.

Ai begins a quest to save her friend Koito. Along the way she encounters three new friends: Neiru, Rika, and Momoe. All of the girls are going through troubles of their own and have someone they want to save. But the egg world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and the girls soon find themselves in a struggle for their lives and their sanity when a mistreated AI named Frill sends her minions after them. The ensuing chaos causes the girls to split apart. In the end, one of the girls goes missing, causing Ai to decide to return to the egg world and go after her friend.

Our Take:

Wonder Egg Priority is one of the most unique shows in recent history. It’s combination of flashy animation, believable characters, and engaging storyline made it one of the most hyped up shows back at the start of 2021, and a lot of people were sure it would go down as one of the all-time greats. Then things started to fall apart, with reports of production troubles galore. There was an unexpected recap episode, and then a final episode that failed to resolve the main plot points. Fans had to wait months for a special 45 minute 13th episode that turned out to be half filled with recapped animation from previous episodes. Long story short, the show takes a big nosedive about halfway through. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not worth a watch.

The basic premise of the show is an intriguing one, especially for those interested in more psychological drama. Ai is trying to figure out why Koito killed herself. There’s only one real suspect, and he happens to be a teacher at Ai’s school. Combine this real life tension with a magical world where Ai is a super powered monster slayer and you have the recipe for a really special show. The first six episodes set up an intriguing world layer by layer, doing a great job with slowly revealing more info. But the info just keeps coming and eventually the show collapses under the weight of too many threads and characters to properly follow.

Ai is a great main character: lacking confidence at the start but finishing out the season in a more solid place. Her arc is really the one thing that the show does a fairly good job developing consistently throughout the 13 episodes. She begins the season as a meek girl who’s lost in her grief, and she finishes as a seasoned warrior who’s ready to fight for her new friends and do whatever it takes to recover them. Neiru, Rika, and Momoe are all great as well. Rika is definitely the standout supporting character with her bombastic exterior hiding a more fragile inner life.

Funimation’s English dub is a big win here. Mikaela Krantz’s casting as Ai is one of my favorite performances of all time, I think I have to say. She imbues Ai with the perfect balance of insecurity and passion depending on the scene, and it makes for a very natural sounding performance that fits the character to a tee. The supporting cast is a step down—none of them really sound quite at home in their roles. They still turn in fine performances, though, and with the main character’s dub being so good, the dub as a whole is a great way to experience the show.

If I was only looking at the first half of the season, I’d probably say Wonder Egg was one of my favorite shows in the past couple years. But we can only dream about what might have been if the show had continued without trouble. As it stands, the back half of the season really brings the show down. The show staff just didn’t have enough time to properly bring everything to a conclusion, and that makes everything after the recap episode feel rushed and undercooked. Wonder Egg Priority is still a lovely show, and I would definitely recommend people check it out—just keep in mind that you may want to drop it after five or six episodes.