English Dub Review: Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside: “The Guide”

Overview: Ruti (Tia Ballard) comes to her senses and makes a crucial decision regarding her life as Red (Aaron Campbell) and Rit (Dani Chambers) commit to their new lifestyle. 

Our Take: Red’s conflict with Ruti doesn’t take up much time of the season’s last entry with it acting as a quick final conflict. It’s nice that the sibling’s ending fight suddenly doesn’t frame Red as the strongest of the series and superior to that of Ruti, despite his combat prowess. Instead they opt to focus on one of Red’s greatest strengths, his tactical expertise and have that be the source of his victory. 

Theodara’s journey of self-discovery throughout the last half also reached a conclusion. Ruti’s pain acts as a strong catalyst for her to realize the error in her judgment in that everyone is beholden to their blessing, as well as the dishonor she felt in fighting against her friends. While it’s a bit silly that this realization wouldn’t just be second nature, the one sensible one to come out of it and for Theodara acting as a good conclusion is her choosing a different career if the one you’re in doesn’t suit you.  

Rit and Red continue to commit to their peaceful small town life. But it’s also a heartfelt reaffirmation to each other in relying upon and being vulnerable around each other. There are also little seeds planted for the future in how the first hero is seemingly indicated to be an asura demon with one sword missing taken by the last hero, which will undoubtedly come up yet again in a future conflict. One of many future conflicts that will inevitably bring the happy couple back to responsibilities of a hero. This is where the intrigue in the show continues to lie in how they balance their desires versus the moral obligations they have that have already been compromised once in taking on Shisandan again. 

As far as finales go, this is about as sweetly mundane as the series has advertised its characters and world to be in Ruti spending time with Red doing everyday activities and her and Tisse deciding to take it easy and live quietly with Red and Rit in Zoltan. It’s also an endearing last stop for Ruti in her finally making up her own mind to help people when she wants to. With Yarandala teased to be making a return and mysteries abound regarding Shisandan, should a new season be greenlit, then Red and Rit’s adventuring and/or hero days may not be as behind them as they once thought.