English Dub Review: Miss Kuroitsu from the Monster Development Department “She Cried Inside When the Monster to Strike Fear into the Hearts of Men Was Born into the Evil Secret Society Plotting World Domination”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Touka Kuroitsu, an assistant in evil secret society Agastia’s monster development department, must do whatever she can to push a project proposal through.

Our Take:

We’ve seen many superheroes grace the small screen for years, even in anime. But we rarely see their arch-enemies get a chance to be in the spotlight in their own show. That is until this series came around.

The anime adaptation of Hiroaki Mizusaki’s manga happens to have one of the strangest concepts I’ve ever heard. It centers on an evil organization known as Agastia attempting to create a monster powerful enough to defeat its superhero enemies for good. The catch? The organization has to survive the struggles of making one. It’s no wonder the bad guys always lose.

A series centering on villains bent on world domination is nothing entirely new since it’s already done in other shows like Evil Con Carne and Netflix’s Super Crooks. However, its corporation-like setting managed to capture my interest in it and not just the characters. The big question is whether or not the execution is perfect enough to achieve world domination.

Based on its first episode, the show didn’t slow down on providing some weird elements. You have superheroes that look like Power Rangers rip-offs and a monster that resembles an older man wearing a Nessie-like mascot outfit. There’s also a moment where a ferocious wolfman named Wolf Bete is changed to a wolf-girl by Agastia’s leader Akashic due to her wanting a “cute” monster. Again, it’s no wonder why they struggle to win.

With enough bizarre moments like these, this could’ve been a pretty idiotic series that’s begging to be ripped apart. However, given my love for Power Rangers and superhero shows, I found myself enjoying some of its bizarreness. It offers some decent first impressions from the concept and the characters themselves, particularly Kuroitsu, who attempts to create the perfect monster to defeat Divine Swordsman Blader. Not only that, but it also provides a good amount of humor into their heroic and villainous personas, especially during the episode’s conclusion.

Overall, this is surprisingly a suitable start for Crunchyroll’s latest offering. Once I got past its overly long episode title and the Power Rangers knock-offs, I became invested in this bizarre world of superheroes and supervillains. Like Kuroitsu, the show has a long way to go to create something worthy enough to take over the world or impress anime fans, including me. Whichever comes first.