English Dub Season Review: Otherside Picnic Season One

Overview:

The “Otherworld” is a vast and dangerous realm hidden from the knowledge of the common folk. It is also home to many creatures that threaten any human who dare visit it. To witness its desolate yet oddly absorbing environment, one must search for portals that could reside anywhere, from secret elevators to shrine entrances.

Our Take:

I have been wanting to watch Otherside Picnic for a while. So when I heard it was getting a full season dub drop I was super excited. It’s got a lot of my favorite genres like Isekai and Yuri. Though if you’re a big Yuri fan it doesn’t really go much anywhere just to warn you. It’s based on light novels so that might be where you want to go to get to that stuff if there are any bigger developments.

I also like this type of Isekai where they go back to the real world as well. There are secret ways to enter the “Otherside”, and some of them they come across on accident. The “Otherside” is an unforgiving and scary place where you don’t want to find yourself unprepared.

Japanese folklore fascinates me and this show uses a lot of it for some of the things they run into. One of my favorites “Lady Hasshaku” makes an appearance early on and they even use her signature hat in some cool ways. If you like supernatural things and girls shooting guns this is definitely the show for you.

LIDENFILMS handles the animation and it’s… passable. There really isn’t anything special here and there is some bad and noticeable CGI. Which coming from the studio that handled the 2016 version of Berserk that isn’t exactly surprising. Some of the fight scenes were really good and I think they handled the creature design especially well and brought the novel to life well.

The main characters Sorawo Kamikoshi and Toriko Nishina are voiced by Madeline Morris and Emily Neves respectively. They do a really good job and I am starting to really be on the lookout for roles with Madeline Morris. She voices young boys really well like Rudeus in Mushoku Tensei. This is one of the first times I have heard her as a girl and she does well though she sometimes sounds “boyish” but given the character that might have been on purpose. Emily Neves puts in a solid performance as per usual. I don’t like typecasting but Toriko is such an Emily Neves character that I would have been surprised if anyone else would have gotten the role.

Otherside Picnic was a fun show that I think we all expected to get dubbed eventually. I wasn’t expecting a full season at once but it was fun to binge. The characters and stories being told were a lot of fun and enjoyable. There really wasn’t a big plot other than one thing involving some marines but it was still fun. The biggest knock against it is that there isn’t really an ending. Like most anime, it seems that is based on source material we don’t know if we will get the full story. I will say recently the light novels have come to the US in omnibus form. So if you liked the anime check out the light novel, I know I will.