English Dub Review: My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1 “This Dungeon Battle Is a Vortex of Schemes”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Ryota and Emily encounter and save a fire mage overworking herself to burn the amount of trash before they turn into strays. Then, Ryota is hired to participate in a new dungeon, where he competes against a new batch of adventurers to receive the most drops. 

Our Take:

This week’s episode has Ryota and Emily encountering a magic user needing assistance. The magic user is a fire mage named Celeste who overworks herself in burning a massive amount of trash without any breaks. This is why it pays to take breaks every once in a while, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks to Ryota’s healing bullets, the level-oner managed to save her from sharing the same fate as his, resulting in her getting enough rest to regenerate her magic. The episode represents Ryota hoping that other people wouldn’t wind up like him in his previous life, where he became so overworked at his job that he died from exhaustion. Even though the series isn’t going to get any points for storytelling, I would credit it for emphasizing Ryota’s compassionate desire to help others.

Then, the episode shifts to Ryota exploring a new dungeon called Selen, which consists of ten floors full of dangerous monsters. The good news is that these monsters can drop rare items like soybean sprouts from a regenerative spiky creature. However, the bad news is that Ryota has to compete against Harvard and his adventurers, including Yuji, who seek to get the drops before he does. After several episodes of Ryota and Emily exploring dungeons by themselves, I’m surprised that the show took this long to have the characters face stiff competition from the other guilds. It may not be enough to improve this by-the-numbers isekai series, but it does keep it from being immensely tedious.

Amid this misadventure, the episode offers another heartfelt moment between Ryota and Emily. Ryota used the money he earned to buy Emily a ring they spotted at the market as a friendship gift. Fortunately, the ring Emily got increases her drop rate and skills by one, which she uses to receive a chicken breast from the Selen dungeon monster. Thankfully, the ring is not also meant to be a proposal between the two, or else the series would’ve become more unwatchable, and I’m saying that based on the characters’ age difference.

Even though the episode is another bare-bones dungeon-exploring chapter in My Unique Skill, it’s hard to ignore that Ryota and Emily’s friendship is the only reason I kept watching. Additionally, the addition of Celeste expands on Ryota’s desire to help people from danger, especially being overworked. At least it left those things intact despite the series’s fundamental formula.