English Dub Season Review: Don’t Hurt Me, My Healer! Season One

Overview:

The world is overrun with monsters and there are a plethora of heroes to battle them. Alvin is one of those heroes, but unfortunately, he’s a weakling. He meets a rude and insensitive healer named Carla during one of his monster fights. She accidentally casts a spell on him that will kill him if they are ever more than 300 meters apart. The two are now stuck together, so Carla joins Alvin on his adventure. The two come in contact with monsters, thieves, and new allies all while increasing their ranks.

Our Take:

Even though this isn’t an isekai series, there is still no shortage of fantasy anime out there. Does this one at least offer something new to the genre? Kind of, but it’s not exactly a welcome addition.

Carla is the main focus of the anime and that’s my main issue with it. Carla is a healer who thinks very highly of herself, but her magic usually doesn’t wind up being helpful. She’s also rude, selfish, greedy, insensitive, and just annoying in general. She always talks to down to Alvin and others. Not to mention, she’s barely ever honest about her feelings towards Alvin. The worst thing about Carla is even though she’s the one who usually acts terrible, everyone becomes friends with her and chastises Alvin. I can’t stand the trope of the character who does nothing wrong getting punished for the actions of another, while that character gets let off the hook. This show relies on that trope in many episodes and it never improves.

I give Carla a lot of flack, but Alvin isn’t that great either. He’s extremely weak and that’s basically his only character trait. He’s pathetic and self-aware, but being self-aware doesn’t automatically make a character good. I occasionally feel bad for him, but not too often because he doesn’t help his own case.

There are other characters that these two encounter, but most of them aren’t worth mentioning. I like some of the characters they come across, but they don’t get much screen time.

I mentioned one trope the show relies on earlier, but another it relies on is spending way too much time on a joke. I wish this only happened once, but it happens in almost every episode. In fact, it happens more than once in some episodes. Considering a lot of the jokes in this show aren’t funny to begin with, dragging them out just makes them even more unbearable. That’s not to say there aren’t funny moments, but they’re few and far between in comparison.

The visuals are pretty solid. I like a lot of the character designs, even if I don’t like most of the characters they belong to. There are some decent visual gags as well. The art style is good and one of the highlights of the show. I can say the same for the voice acting. Even though I don’t like a lot of the characters, I can say that most of them are portrayed well. There are some choices that I don’t like, such as the character who speaks with a stereotypical Minnesota accent. That voice is distratcing and it doesn’t fit, but most of the others are fine.

As for story, there isn’t much of one. There’s a little bit of a plot towards the end and some build up in episodes prior, but it’s not really that significant. For the most part, it’s an episodic comedic fantasy anime that doesn’t really worry about plot.

Unfortunately, this anime isn’t my cup of tea. I don’t like most of the characters or the jokes and I get annoyed during just about every episode. There are some boring moments too, but not enough that I would call it a boring show. I kind of wish I could though because at least then, it might get a slightly higher score. I’m sure there are people who like Carla and/or the humor, but I’m not one of them. Maybe I’m taking the show too seriously, but it annoyed me too much for me to consider it enjoyable.