English Dub Season Review: Skeleton Knight in Another World Season One

There’s a lot I can say about Skeleton Knight in Another World. The most difficult decision is where to start. Let’s start with this. For an Isekai, this anime was almost great. But that’s the key word. “Almost”.

There was a lot of good to come out of Skeleton Knight… for its first season. For starters, let’s talk about Arc, and his writing. Arc as a personality was god damn hilarious. The dichotomy between Arc the Skeleton Knight, and Arc the human who is inhabiting the skeleton and armor, is amazingly fun to watch. Watching how the straight laced skeleton knight handles a situation versus how the horny teenager human behind the skeleton was different from what is your normal Isekai anime.

That leads me to Arc’s supposed foil, Ariane. This dark elf is great. The one awful design choice I have is that Ariane looks like she went to Blizzard Entertainment’s headquarters, and stole armor from Sylvanas Windrunner’s closet, and had her tits exploding everywhere. I’m all for making characters sexy, especially in anime, because I know what the target demographic. But Ariane is supposed to be a elven Wonder Woman of sorts; this bad ass warrior woman.  But she has armor that doesn’t even seems the slightest practical. It’s the design tropes like this that made me walk away from anime for years. Hopefully she gets more of a design change in season two.

That said, her relationship and interactions with Arc were a welcome diversion from the norm, especially since it didn’t fit the norm for an Isekai anime. Ariane wasn’t falling head over heels in love with Arc, nor did she act like a complete asshole to him either. This was a relationship that grew over the season, and definitely could go anywhere the writers wanted during the second season…whenever that happens. The plot and narrative feels like more of a subversion to the tropes of the normal Isekai anime, and it gives a fresh point of view instead of feeding into the tropes we’re used to.

Speaking of, there’s so many times where the stereotypical “dumbass outsider human teenage boy” trope just makes you feel lost. Or, there’s the “oh look, there’s another hyperactive/moody loner teenage boy who gets dumped into another universe/game world/ ‘other world’ accidentally” trope where the kid can travel freely between the two worlds. The best way to think of this is almost like Inuyasha, except Kagome almost seems intelligent. And Arc really doesn’t show too much idiocy, so it bucks the trend more than normal. I could go for more Isekai that does exactly what happened in Skeleton Knight…, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Formulas make sense. And that’s why I am sick and tired of your stereotypical Isekai. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Where Skeleton Knight… unexpectedly excelled was with the ancillary characters, like Goemon and Chiyome. Goemon was a treasure that needs to be protected for the entire series. The interactions between him and Arc was comical and fantastic, even though it was only in one episode. I wish there was more of Goemon, but I think we’re going to get more in season two. Granted, I wasn’t reading the novel or manga, but I may while I’m waiting.

Chiyome was your oddball companion for a few episodes at a time, ultimately leading to the death of one of the outlier characters to the season, Dakares, and throwing the Rhodan kingdom into enough chaos to make it look like Westeros from Game of Thrones. Sekt subverted expectations for the kingdom, and took his innocent demeanor, and really turned up the political espionage for control of the Rhodan Kingdom. I enjoyed the intrigue coming from the Rhodan Kingdom, because it added a dimension of interest not seen often from anime in this form. A lot of world building was done in a short amount of time, and given that it was 12 episodes, it worked fantastic.

Unfortunately, Skeleton Knight… fumbled during the last few episodes. Two of the final three episodes, “Hope for the Future Found in the Desert” and “I Shall Cut Through the World’s Evils!” were easily the most disappointing of the dozen episodes. “Hope for the Future Found in the Desert” did nothing except be filler. There was a slight plot where Ariane was shown that elves can live amongst humans, free of prejudice and hate, close to the extremely hateful Holy Revlon Empire. With this setup, and the constant reminders that the Revlon Empire is as close to the Third Reich this universe has shown thus far. Unfortunately, not a lot of this was built upon going into the final stretch. It was a tremendously large missed opportunity that I hope is revisited.

And then, there’s the biggest swing and miss from the entire season, and that’s the season’s final boss (and I use that term very loosely), Fumba. Screw what the writers did to Fumba. This man was built up to be the absolute big bad of the season, and amounted to a wet diarrhea fart. This guy was supposed to be a badass, and started off the final battle with Arc and Ariane as one. He managed to control Ariane temporarily through an imp, and make her attack Arc. And then, the finale came out, and Fumba was made to be the absolute most useless character this side of Naruto‘s Sakura.

Fumba unleashes the hydra he’s been feeding elves and his female companions. But when Arc unleashes one of his most powerful techniques and summons Ifrit like he’s in Final Fantasy VII, and completely eviscerates the hydra. As for Fumba? Well, he was completely emasculated by Ariane. Like I said in the episode review, I’m okay with Ariane getting her revenge on Fumba for her kin. But the flashback that opened the finale of Fumba getting verbally beat down by the elders was nothing more than foreshadowing to him being utterly useless.

The absolute worst thing a writer can do is make the main characters so powerful that they have zero resistance from any villain. And guess what? Arc is as close to all powerful as he can be, and Ariane can fill in what little flaws Arc has in his arsenal. Arc’s power was impressive, but in reality, the story doesn’t garner any extra interest if Arc has no conflict that creates the belief that Arc can lose. There’s a lot of work season two needs to do if Skeleton Knight… is to regain the momentum from the first eight episodes.

Overall, the first season of Skeleton Knight from Another World had a great foundation laid that could have been an amazing first season. Unfortunately, this foundation was not used properly during the final few episodes when it mattered. The missed opportunities of the final three episodes really hurt the overall enjoyment of the season as a whole. Like I said before, season two has a lot of work to do to get Skeleton Knight… back on track.