English Dub Review: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom “Sacrifice the Plum Tree to Preserve the Peach Tree”

Overview:

Souma and his entourage confront Vargas in his castle before hurrying off to Randel to regroup with the Forbidden Army. A stunning truth about Georg is revealed by Glaive, leading to a dramatic turn of events with Gaius and his forces at Altomura…

Our Take(Spoilers):

It’s going to be a little bit difficult to talk about what makes this episode so great without going into spoilers so if you want to avoid those then go watch the episode and come back. If you’re still here I imagine you’ve seen it or are cool with spoilers so let’s go!

Seriously last warning…

I had a feeling Georg was a good guy the whole time. He just seemed so noble and loved Elfrieden with all his heart I couldn’t see him betraying it. Taking advantage of Souma’s summoning he gathered all the corrupt nobles together so when the time came he could just “surrender” and they would no longer be a problem. Would have been cool if he clued Castor in on his plan though…

I feel bad for Castor, he followed Georg because he respected him and technically committed treason because of it. I understand keeping a plan like that tight-lipped but maybe tell the guy that’s committing treason and possibly getting executed so he can make an informed decision? Speaking of Castor, the fight with him was interesting but ultimately lackluster. It was over really quick and the animation wasn’t really that great. Good thing this show is more known for its characters and story than fights.

We still got one more episode left to finish this arc I think and then one more after that. But there is a second part coming in January and I imagine that will get a dub too. This show has been going at a nice clip it seems to have covered most of the first two volumes of the light novel. So I am excited for part two! Also big shout out to Juna for being a part of some ninja special forces team. That was pretty dope and honestly not surprising after seeing her work with a knife.