English Dub Review: Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest “Memories from the Bottom of the Sea”

Overview

Hajime and his party depart the city of the Mer-town Erisen to head towards the Sunken Ruins of Melusine. They solve multiple puzzles to reach the labyrinth and are confronted by a mysterious illusion…

Our Take

Long after returning Myu to her mother at Mer-Town, this episode attempts to explain why Kaori is following behind a nonchalant Hajime and his all women crew whom in different ways, seem to simp for him. However Kaori feels isolated from the rest of the harem partially because of other obstacles before her such as her inability to make offensive attacks while she can mostly do defense and healing magic which can arguably work depending on the situation.

And if that isn’t enough, Hajime’s party finally makes it to the underground labyrinth of Melusine. which lead me to ask, does this place even need monsters? You need a literal Magic-powered Submarine to even fucking get there. The monsters just feel redundant at that point since Hajime seems to be the only person creative enough to come up with magical weapons & vehicles for every possible scenario.

Overall, while the heart of this episode’s story was on Hajime & Kaori’s changed relationship dynamic, I’m mildly annoyed how the girls within Hajime’s circle always try to find time during a battle to get an intimate moment in even when it is completely inappropriate. Hajime also had to be brutally honest with Kaori views herself and is possibly trying to toughen her up and test her faith in herself if she wishes to be any use to his group. However the episode’s cliffhanger in regards to the teacher left me with more questions than answers on what’s going to happen next…