English Dub Review: I Shall Survive Using Potions! “I’m Going into Angel Mode to Fight Back!”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kaoru continues her underground medicine delivery network, but when offered meetings with royalty and the clergy, she turns them down and instead ends up holding a meeting with them both in public to make clear she’s a friend of a goddess.

OUR TAKE

Kaoru as a character is honestly kind of confusing, and I don’t know how much of that is the odd tone of the show or simply how she’s written. She seems pretty comfortable with her old life on Earth but almost seems so ready to adapt to a new fantasy life that it practically feels like she planned this. She says she wants a comfortable life on her own so she can make her own decisions and stay in the shadows but makes as big of a stink as possible amongst the nobles and aristocrats. She then also wants to keep her abilities a secret but also loudly professes that she is friends with a goddess in public to a big group of people, among whom are the royal family and clergy. I guess what I’m saying is that I just don’t understand the motivations of this character and it makes it hard to connect with her on her journey. I do understand that Isekai protagonists are in so small part an author insert for these sorts of situations, and a LOOOOOT of this story seems to be the author giving a rant about their opinions and takes on your typical fantasy world disguised as a plot, but do I have to watch it for you to make that point?

Like seriously, last episode she was making a big deal about hiding her appearance while putting together an independent organization made up of kids who distribute her potions, but she’s also going to big parties where she’s showing off these potions to rich folk who are definitely going to notice if commoners are getting these as well, and no magic hair dye or weird mask are gonna hide her after that. Even odder is that she is directly invoking the goddess who gave her this ability but then saying things like “well I swore to the goddess that I would never enter the castle” and then acting like no one can touch her…and for I know, maybe everyone is just dumb enough to believe that, but it also feels like she’s putting a big target on her back for those who might want to kidnap her and make her use the potions for their ends? Who knows if that would work or if she could just easily get away, but it seems like something someone might think up! Oh well, guess we’ll see if that happens next week.