English Dub Review: The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World “The Girl Who Became the World’s Strongest Sorcerer Infiltrates a Sorcery Academy;The Boy Who Became the World’s Strongest Sorcerer Inspires the Rose”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The Girl Who Became the World’s Strongest Sorcerer Infiltrates a Sorcery Academy

In order to prepare for the Magic Chevalier’s rookie bracket, Amelia steels herself with the Ainsworth-style boot camp. Even though she moans that the training is too grueling, she somehow manages to complete it. Meanwhile, Ray infiltrates the Diom Academy of Sorcery to scope out the competition. He ends up having a training match with Ariane and gets to feel her strength. The next day, Ray takes his friends to meet his master Lydia, and they all enjoy a fun day with the great sorcerer. However, Lydia also takes the chance to take Amelia aside to have a personal talk with her…

The Boy Who Became the World’s Strongest Sorcerer Inspires the Rose

Aiming to get at the high nobles’ daughters, the assassin group, Grim Reapers, infiltrate the Magic Chevalier arena. Having caught wind of their plan, Abbie orders Ray to guard the arena. Meanwhile, after seeing Ariane’s overwhelming power, Amelia has completely lost her confidence. Ray then delves deeper into her heart and gently lifts her up. On the day of the final match, Amelia goes into the fight against Ariane, with her friends cheering her on. Ray watches over the match, but then unpleasant news reaches his ears…

Our Take:

The previous episode ended on a rather unusual note, with Ray disguising herself as a girl and sneaking into a different academy. It’s something that I honestly didn’t expect an Iceblade Sorcerer like him to do. It turns out that Ray is going undercover to see the ins and outs of the Arnold Academy’s opponents before the tournament. I would consider this cheating, but I can let it slide because the girls’ reactions to Ray’s disguise are the best parts of the episode.

The episode has Ray, identified as “Lily”, infiltrating Diom Academy and encountering a lost young girl. It’s later revealed that the girl is Ariane’s younger sister, Tiana. After meeting Ariane, Ray (Lily) has a practice duel with her and learns how much Ariane looks forward to seeing Amelia at the Magic Chevalier. It appears that despite being apart for so long due to complications, the bond between childhood friends is still hanging by a thread.

Then, Ray and his friends visit Lydia, where we learn additional details on what they’ll face in future episodes. The primary one, in particular, is another mysterious organization hellbent on causing trouble at the academy, the Grim Reapers. The Grim Reapers are an assassination squad from the Avil Empire plotting to infiltrate the tournament to gain access to the attending nobles. So I guess the Eugenics group has become the least of our problems as the tournament finally begins.

The eighth episode then continues the Magic Chevalier arc, with the Grim Reapers’ actual plot continuing to come to light. The Grim Reapers are targeting the nobles’ daughters at the tournament, and Lydia tasks Ray to protect them with Rex, the Environmental Research president, as his partner. We also discover that Rex is a member of the Hale Tribe, the Imperial intelligence gatherers, as well as Lydia’s maid Carla, who’s also Rex’s sister.

But, of course, the real meat of the episode’s plot is Amelia, who isolates herself before her big match with Ariane. She reveals to Ray the pressures of living up to the expectations of her noble family and her sense of inferiority compared to others. This led to Ray assuring her that her friends’ support was all she needed to fight her way to the top. This moment hearkens back to the fifth episode, with Ray opening up the truth about himself to his friends, and the previous episode involving Lydia advising Amelia to trust her friends with her own dark past.

While the show has its formulaic moments, they don’t overshadow its heartwarming reflection on friendship, with Ray and Amelia learning to let their friends support and inspire them in their darkest hours. Even though I enjoyed the fifth episode because of it, I liked the eighth episode a bit more due to how it expanded the relationship between Ray and Amelia in an emotional sense. Don’t be surprised if they wind up being a couple in later episodes.

Overall, both episodes are decent in continuing the season’s second half, which could wind up being a necessary improvement over the first half if it maintains its consistency. The seventh episode is mildly entertaining, mainly for the girls’ shocked reactions toward Ray’s feminine disguise and the girls meeting Lydia. However, I enjoyed the eighth episode more because of Amelia’s character growth and her enticing match with her childhood friend Ariane, who upgrades herself with her original power. With Amelia also at full strength with her evolved spell, Butterfly Effect, I can bet that next week’s episode will be intense.