English Dub Season Review: The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter Season One

Based on the Japanese fantasy light novel series written by Meguru Seto and illustrated by Note Takehana. The story follows Noir Starga, who despite his noble title, is at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Because of this, his fellow nobles oppress him and treat him like garbage. However, he possesses a rare yet powerful ability to communicate with the Great Sage, an oracle who grants Noir the answer to absolutely anything.

After failing to secure a job as a librarian, Noir decides to join the Hero Academy. He knows he must become stronger to enter the institution. The Great Sage advises him to explore a hidden dungeon deep within the mountains. There, Noir meets Olivia Servant, a beautiful yet enchained maiden trapped within the labyrinth. Olivia bestows upon Noir a set of ridiculously powerful skills that grants him virtually total control over reality. Naturally, there is a catch—every time Noir attempts to use his powers, his life points decrease, putting his life at risk. To replenish his energy, he must give in to worldly pleasures such as kissing his childhood friend! With his newfound powers, Noir begins his journey as a student in the Hero Academy, meeting new acquaintances and helping them through the dire situations ahead…

On the technical side, the art is really nice in the show which seems too standard and nothing inventive. The character designs by Yuya Uetake look distinguishable and well-drawn while some of the action sequence animated setpieces were ok. One of the moments that caught me off guard was Tongue animation movements during kissing which were surprisingly life-like which is something I haven’t seen since the Kakyoin/Cherry” scene in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. There are also hand-animated backgrounds that were well done, but never get too excessive with color saturation which is rare these days considering their immense difficulty to animate. For the audio department, Kenta Ihara does composition throughout the show, while the opening theme song is “Pyramid Great Reversal” performed by Spira Spica, while the ending theme song is “Nemophila” is performed by COALAMODE.

You can make the argument that the show itself is yet another generic by-the-numbers fantasy anime with an ecchi harem plot, and you’ll be right because it never pretends to be anything else outside of the fantasy/adventure stuff which I’m surprised this isn’t another Anime within the “Isekai” genre at this point. Another problem aside from the excessive amount of Sex Jokes and almost a lack of an ongoing plot is that Noir as a character often never makes a good decision by himself, everything is always a suggestion from someone else.

Overall, it’s not bad for the audience it’s catering to as it knows it’s an entertaining yet ridiculous kind of stupid. Although it doesn’t help that most of the so-called female leads fall victim to underage pedo-jokes or feel cliche or stolen from another anime with no actual stakes given to the plot at least until the last 2-3 episodes. At the very least, it can feel nostalgic for those who grew up with classic 90’s anime shows, but It’s definitely not for kids. Anime has evolved and progressed long after the ’90s, but sometimes we need something that reminds us that our entertainment doesn’t always have to be serious or overly dramatic. And if it pisses off “Woke/SJW” people, that’s good enough for me.