English Dub Review: Skeleton Knight in Another World “Hope for the Future Found in the Desert”

I was expecting a lot of exposition coming into “Hope for the Future Found in the Desert”. Especially since we’re gearing up for the final arc of the story. But me cut to the chase. Skeleton Knight… fumbled hard.

We get a new secondary character interjected into the mix, coming in in the final third of the story. Carcy is a monster biologist, who’s trying to collect samples for a book he’s writing. And just like every other person giving a mission to our dynamic duo, and plays right into Arc’s need for powerful foes, knowledge of the land, and the like. So of course, Arc and Ariane agree to do this.

There’s a juxtaposition of views between the Holy Revlon Empire and the slightly less narrow-minded Rhodan Empire. Elves are shown to be tolerated in the Rhodan Empire, where they’re viewed as vermin only good for slavery in the Revlon Empire. Ariane is on high alert because of this, and it kind of takes away from moving the plot along. This doesn’t work well for me, at all. This is just an excuse to get the characters into a trope filled drinking scene, and seems like lazy writing. For instance, why does Ariane need to be drunk and want more booze? I’m just going to leave this alone, because there’s nothing that pushes the episode along. It’s a trope. You’ve seen this play out before.

At least things got on the move…slightly. Carcy is the catalyst to get the mission on track. This quick mission was a wonderful way to showcase how truly strong Arc is. This absolute demon was able to pick up a gargantuan sand worm and just toss it. Then, we get a small info dump where Carcy tells Ariane that a lord on the west of Revlon that is to wed an elf. Something here isn’t right.

To end the episode, we got some more from Foomba, who’s just as much of a dick as I thought from last week, who just dropped one of his escorts into a pit. Yeah, this dude is evil, and I can’t wait for the clash between him and Arc. I’m expecting the last two episodes to be bangers with how much Foomba is getting pumped up to be.

All in all, “Hope for the Future Found in the Desert” didn’t fill me with a whole lot of hope for a great episode. “Hope for the Future Found in the Desert” was a bit of a let down. I know we were in a transition to get us to the big bad of the season. Yet, we got next to nowhere, with a trope filled drinking scene that did nothing to help Ariane or Arc. I get that it was to break the tension, but there are better, less lazy ways to get the job done. This was not it.

“Hope for the Future Found in the Desert” had the same feel as the first few episodes, where this was a monster of the week episode, complete with controlling rings for the sand worm. I was expecting a better execution based on the great run episodes one through nine had, and got pretty let down.