English Dub Review: The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash “To a Dangerous Town”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Ivy continues her journeys with the Blazing Sword, but still keeps Sora and his abilities secret. They meet another party, the Green Gale, with another tamer named Meela who tells Ivy her disintegrating slime is pretty valuable, but this gives Ivy a sudden disturbing chill. She later feels that same chill again, as does Sora, thinking it may be Meela causing this. She is unsure how to explain this to the rest of the party without revealing Sora, which may complicate things, so she decides to just tell them she has a weird feeling. The next day, it turns out that Meela and the Green Gale were in fact suspicious after having a sound proof conversation with an out of town merchant. The rest of the Blazing Sword reconfirm that they trust Ivy’s judgment so she decides to reveal Sora.

OUR TAKE

Is this show just…allergic to conflict or something? Maybe that’s it, maybe the author just saw so many Isekais and fantasy anime that they felt needed to force a conflict that they decided to write a story where all conflicts are very easily overcome and the rest of the time is just relaxed vibes. Or maybe these conflicts were forced in by editorial and the author decided to rush through them to get them out of the way! Because I’m not OPPOSED to a show that’s just trying to enjoy the scenery and appreciate the calming air of a fantasy world. I’ve heard Frieren is like that and it sounds pretty good! What I KEEP GETTING ANNOYED BY is the fact that this show keeps SETTING UP conflict that could POTENTIALLY be interesting, only for it to dump it out or let it deflate in the most disappointing ways possible. We had a lot of potentially interesting plots and conflicts that all could have gone off in their own way back in Episodes 5 and 6, but they all either were ignored or just given the bare minimum of resolution, basically giving me the literary equivalent of blue balls!

Then we have what happened in this episode, which basically boils down to “Ivy gets a weird feeling from another tamer, confirms that weird feeling because Sora has it too, tells her party, and then the weird vibe turns out to be justified”. No learning more about Meela and her group’s motivations, how she handles taming compared to Ivy, or even any potential pointers Ivy could’ve maybe learned. And I’m not gonna say Meela should’ve necessarily been a sympathetic or more complex character if that’s not what the story called for, but it just SEEMS like that was a good opportunity for Ivy to talk shop with the first tamer she’s actually gotten to speak to since she started being an adventurer. Or heck, even putting the Green Gale aside altogether, maybe we could get to know more about the Blazing Sword and its individual members? No? Okay, then. We’re two thirds through this series now and the biggest takeaway I’ve been able to get is that it seems to be very conflicted about what the hell kind of show it wants to be, and I don’t see that changing before the end. But hey, four more episodes to go, anything’s possible I suppose.