English Dub Review: A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special “The Test”

Overview

Desir takes the test to enroll in Hebrion Academy, along with Romantica and Azest in Group D.


Our Take

Before Hebrion Academy’s entrance test begins, it proceeds to introduce one of Desir’s other comrades by the name of Azest Kingscrown, though at this time much like Romantica in the previous episode, they’re all understandably complete unknowns to each other except Desir who is determined to fix the past mistakes of his timeline. As the students proceed to focus on the test at hand, with all 3 of them going into a Shadow World,

And what does this objective entail? To be one of the first three to cross the goal using any tricks up their sleeves. As the test begins with Azest making her first run towards the goal, Desir and Romantica team up to take out one of the other three students after the applicant nearly hits Romantica with his attack, with Azest making quick work of the other two. Romantica then goes up against Desir in their magic battle. And Despite casing some decent wind spells, Desir seems to be two steps ahead with his inverse spells in unexpected and unique ways, with him even catapulting himself to Azest’s location. Desir uses inverse spells again to defeat Azest and cross the goal first with the other two being characters the audience can easily predict…

Overall, it’s clear that this entire episode was dedicated to this Magic school. And while it excelled in some areas animation-wise, some parts felt a bit lazy in places with a small few character designs in the show looking like cardboard cutouts standing around looking at a magical jumbotron. Of course, what irks me the most is their strange set of rules that “only three people are going to pass!” so why three people? What would happen if there was a war for humanity’s survival and you didn’t have enough troops? What happens to the people that don’t get selected? None of this is properly explained. As for the post-credits scene, it raised more questions than answers, and remain curious about where this goes next…