English Dub Review: The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World “The Boy Who Became the World’s Strongest Sorcerer Dons a Mask”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
After the battle with Gray, Ray returns to his peaceful academy life. But then, they meet their new homeroom teacher, who is none other than Carol Caroline. Being uneasy with her from his past experiences, Ray even asks Abbie to fire her… Meanwhile, Amelia makes it through the qualifiers in first place and secures her spot for the Magic Chevalier tournament. However, she quickly loses confidence after she compares herself to her rival from Diom Academy, Ariane Algren. Seeing her like this, Ray goes ahead and says…!?

Our Take:
Ray successfully saved the academy from one of Eugenics’ schemes and put Miss Gray in her place. More importantly, his relationship with his classmates has grown tremendously when he finally reveals himself as the missing Iceblade Sorcerer. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any more issues for them to deal with. After all, we’ve only reached the tail end of the season’s first half.
One of them is the academy’s replacement, who happens to be another Grand Sorcerer and Lydia’s ally, Carol Caroline. As seen in the previous episode, Carol helped Lydia raise Ray like she was his aunt during the Far East War. Unfortunately, based on Ray’s reaction to this news, Carol’s doting personality was too much for him to bear. Of course, it doesn’t help that Carol is now his homeroom teacher, but whether he likes it or not, it’s something that he has to get used to since he’s responsible for Miss Gray’s demise.
But that’s nothing compared to the other issue involving Amelia. Amelia is struggling with guilt mere days before the Magic Chevalier. It’s not just because of Ray, who experienced a more painful childhood than hers. Instead, it’s due to the expectations she’s expected to meet because of her heritage and who she’ll be up against in the competition. Since Amelia comes from a top-ranked noble family, she’s expected to win against Ariane Algren of Diom Academy, who’s also competing in the tournament.
Ariane is the daughter of the second-ranked family, who’s also Amelia’s childhood friend. Amelia should be happy she gets to see her friend at the tournament, but that’s not the case. Instead, she felt devastated over her jealousy of Ariane’s skills that drove them apart. These elements, combined with a brief flashback depicting Amelia’s friendship with Ariane, help develop Amelia as someone who’s internally pressured by living up to the family name.
Fortunately for Ray, he has the perfect solution to help Amelia regain her confidence so she can focus on the tournament. However, his solution becomes a nightmare for Amelia when she discovers that it’s actually a boot camp that Lydia used to teach Ray years ago. The remaining episode sees Amelia undergo grueling physical training, with Ray going all Lee Ermey on her.
The episode offers a decent, albeit cliched, start to the events occurring in the second half, with Ray training Amelia for the tournament and infiltrating Diom Academy disguised as a girl. Unfortunately, we don’t know why Ray is wearing that disguise, as if being an abusive drill sergeant or being agitated over Carol being his homeroom teacher wasn’t enough. Hopefully, we’ll get an answer in next week’s episode, as we’re already heading into the second half of this harmless yet admittedly formulaic fantasy series.