English Dub Review: I Shall Survive Using Potions! “I’m Gonna Go Speak My Mind at the Castle!”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kaoru accepts the invitation to a fancy noble party, though only so she can humiliate Prince Ferdinand, who invited her, by making a big public scene about why marrying into nobility actually really sucks…in front of a bunch of nobility. She then tries to register for a job that leaves her a lot of free time, in hopes of opening her own business, which leads her to a workshop with high turnaround, where she uses her potion generation to make glass bottles for them. In the evenings, she has also started using her power to heal families in poverty under the guise of being a “friend of Celes”.

OUR TAKE

You ever get the feeling that a character exists just so the writer can have a sock puppet in which to vent out their feelings on specific tropes or aspects of society? Well, that is most certainly what it feels like is the case with Kaoru and her big ol rant at Ferdinand about all the bullshit that comes with being a noble. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of the aristocracy or super rich in our world any more than I would be of rich fucks in fantasy realms. I have no qualms having the fantasy of that being taken down a peg or two. The problem is that, as already discussed last week, Ferdinand is not really a character, so much so that I didn’t even bother looking up his name because he was so paper thin (and also the wikipedia article is not really that well filled out). We get it, the author doesn’t want to just marry into a rich family and, in fact, probably hates everyone who does, but even then it feels like this guy’s motivation is barely filled out here, especially for someone who is a major possessive creep and apparently going to be making a recurring role if the the opening and ending are to be relieved.

So is he going to have an arc of learning the value of hard work? Or stay the same and be even more of a nuisance and waste of time? Either way, not really looking forward to seeing more of him. And where the story seems to be headed doesn’t seem all that much more interesting either, with Kaoru on the hunt to get an easy going job while I guess becoming an underground helper of the impoverished? Great intentions and all, but all this seems kinda…boring? I mean, it was already pretty boring on its own, but it doesn’t really seem clear where this story is headed or what it’s trying to say. Well, other than “nobles suck” and “start your own business with your literally god-given power to create any type of potion or bottle”, you know, VERY RELATABLE STUFF LIKE THAT. We’ve still got nine more episodes of this to just spin its wheels and make us see what the hell this is even all about, but I gotta tell ya, I am not looking forward to that one bit.