English Dub Review: A Returner’s Magic Should Be Special “Final Round”

Overview

The final round of the ranking tournament begins! Desir, Pram, and Romantica must finish in top place to be promoted to the alpha class, but the alpha team Blue Moon is determined to stop them.

Our Take

After helping Pram get his sword back, Desir and his party proceeds to the final round of the ranking tournament in dominating fashion. Its team’s popularity is not without its haters as Professor Fergman calls Blue Moon, the top-ranked party at Hebrion led by Azest and advised by Fergman, in for a meeting, instructing them to get ruthless and eliminate Desir’s team. After the meeting, fellow party members Doneta and Percival approach Azest demanding that they be permitted to take on Romantica and Pram, respectively which Azest agrees with the only condition that she defeats Desir. In preparation for the final round, Desir’s party studies at the school’s library, and Azest approaches Desir to declare taking him on when they enter the tournament.

Desir is no fool and responds to this by motivating her to get as strong as possible which later cuts to the day of the final round with the parties battling each other to clear the artificial Shadow World. Predictably, it begins with Desir fighting a female ice mage and making quick work by using an inversion spell to defeat her with her magic to make her the first of 30 students to be eliminated.

Overall, while I sometimes dislike tournament arcs due to how long they can drag the plot with almost no payoff, At the very least, the soundtrack makes it feel like an epic story being told. I also like how this episode further demonstrates Desir’s ruthlessness in any form of bout as he uses his knowledge of the future as an edge in combat mixed with his inverse magic. I have no clue how he’s supposed to help the other two in the long run with this tournament, or if it’ll lead somewhere, but since we’re at the halfway point of these episodes, I hope we get something good out of this later on…