English Dub Review: Skeleton Knight in Another World “Learning About the Darkness of This World at the Elf Village”

You’ve got to love anime episode titles. This has no bearing whatsoever on the actual review of “Learning About the Darkness of This World at the Elf Village”, but I just want to state something about the names of some of the episodes in modern anime before we get on with the review. I’m going to vibe for a sec about how ungodly long some anime episode titles are, and how unnecessary they are. Do I need an episode title as long as “Learning About the Darkness of This World at the Elf Village”? Not really. No episode title for any show should be this long, but alas, here we are.

Anyway, as for the episode itself, “Learning About the Darkness of This World at the Elf Village” isn’t a bad episode by any stretch of the means. The beginning of the episode, when Arc was sitting at the village gate waiting for Ariane to get permission from the elder to escort him in. However, when Arc is finally allowed in, we finally get our first look at Lalatoya, home of Ariane and her kin.

I want to stress this. I love action in my anime as much as the next, but later on in life, I’ve grown rather fond of world building and exposition. There’s so much we can get from actual story weaving that we can’t get from punch-fighting. Maybe it’s my time in watching some longer anime, but I can definitely get behind this. As much as I care about Arc, I want to know why elven children are getting kidnapped. And I feel like we’re going to get more of this in the coming episodes.

In between all of the political intrigue, I think that the biggest takeaway from “Learning About the Darkness of This World at the Elf Village” is an arc getting absolutely bodied from Ariane’s mother, Glenys. For the entirety of this series to this point, Arc has been an omnipotent force of nature. And the second he gets into Lalatoya, we see that he isn’t the most battle intelligent in the world. I was waiting to see Arc getting punked out by the season’s big bad end boss, but this was something else. I’m glad to see his omnipotence does have a limit for now, and that there’s at least one person who can reign him in.

Of course, this wouldn’t be an Isekai anime without some weird vibes about a woman liking the main character, with the mom throwing out the vibe, as well as Ariane getting naked because she didn’t know Arc was in the bath. We get our next destination, where Arc has to visit the Lord Crown for the possibility to lift the curse that has stricken him to be a skeleton. He gets this info from Ariane’s father, Dillan, in exchange for Arc’sThe episode ends, however, with Arc realizing he may be able to life the curse himself. So why are we going to the Lord Crown, again?

The end of “Learning About the Darkness of This World at the Elf Village” left me scratching my head a bit, only because it doesn’t make sense to give Arc a possibility to lift the curse, when there’s a sturdier possibility with his own abilities. I think “Learning About the Darkness of This World at the Elf Village” is possibly a start to a journey of self-discovery, but I think this was the first misstep that Skelton Knight… has made so far.

Overall, I think the ending of “Learning About the Darkness of This World at the Elf Village” didn’t detract too hard from the rest of the episode. However, my head tilted so hard at the ending, I think I cracked my neck in ways it shouldn’t have.