English Dub Review: Mashle: Magic and Muscles “Mash Burnedead and the Puppet Master”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
Mash beats Silva, defeats the giant forest scorpion, and completes the joint extracurricular activity. The five silver coins collected become one gold coin, and Mash learns about the existence of Lang Dorm’s core students who hunt coins—the seven students of the Magia Lupus. But later, Mash, searching for his next classroom, wanders into the Magia Lupus stronghold. Although he makes it out alive, a black shadow approaches Mash and his friends while cleaning out the owl huts…

Our Take:
The season’s first half concluded with Mash unintentionally confronting the Magia Lupus while looking for his next class. Following its unannounced three-week delay, we finally get to see how Mash gets out of this dangerous predicament without his magic. Spoiler alert: it’s as amusing as I’d expect from the magic-less student.
Amid the confrontation between Mash and Abel, the episode showcased the Magia Lupus leader’s plan to bring back the “survival of the fittest” mentality to the Magic Realm. The reason is that Abel believes people with magic being treated equally won’t allow those with more potent magic to advance. In other words, it’s another usual world-domination plot formed by a power-hungry student. Unsurprisingly, Mash couldn’t care less, as he used his muscles to free Silva from Abel’s puppet curse.
But, of course, Abel isn’t the only opponent Mash and his allies face in this episode. Instead, it goes straight off the bat (or wand) by having them battle a few Magia Lupus members straight on while protecting their coins. The first battle consists of Mash and Lance confronting Sixth Magic Fang Olore, who sends Mash to an underwater dimension and can turn into a shark, and Seventh Magic Fang Anser, who possesses a magic shuriken. They eventually won, but their victory was short-lived when Second Magic Fang Abyss retrieved their coins at blazing speed. Abyss can negate people’s magic and move as fast as Sonic the Hedgehog. He managed to escape, but not before Mash was able to crack his mask.
It’s easy to say that the start of the season’s second half was worth the agonizing wait regarding its humor and enticing battles, mainly how Mash defeats Olore underwater. However, I will also mention that having it be delayed without any update or reason from Crunchyroll is inexcusable. The website’s great for many things, but it’s also a pain to endure when it comes to customer service. Hopefully, it won’t take another three weeks to see how Team Adler will regain their coins.