English Dub Review: Helck “Smile”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Helck manages to save Alicia from execution, but is too late to stop the kingdom wide awakening that turns every human but him into monsters. Even at her request, Helck refuses to kill Alicia before she transforms, and so agrees to face her on the battlefield with a smile.

OUR TAKE

Oh shit, an episode that actually made me feel something! I genuinely thought after the last episode, it would basically just be another episode of Helck finding out his friends were dead, vowing his hate for all humans as they mocked their deaths, and then him heading to the Demon Kingdom, with the rest being history. But in fact, it turns out the humans involved in this are even more vile than expected, instead turning the entire kingdom into awakened heroes, meaning that the army that the demons are facing (that we still haven’t gotten back to in about a dozen episodes) isn’t just some select group of humans who were willing to be experimented on, but in fact the entire human population that has been forcibly changed into an army. As mentioned, we still have a little bit of flashback left to go in the next episode, and I still say that this whole arc was WAY TOO LONG, but in terms of an ending that fully illustrates the magnitude of the threat at hand with the humans and their king, I would say they definitely nailed it. Really makes me wish that there wasn’t just six more episodes because there is absolutely no way they’re going to resolve it that quickly.

I guess that’s what ultimately sours this rare meaningful moment in the series; we’ve wasted so much time on pointless side quests and overly bloated exposition that the actually compelling parts that we manage to filter out are still over-shadowed by the fact there are so few. Like I wish I could be fully positive about it and just go with that feeling but I kinda ran out of nice things to say and am only reminded that we could’ve been having this sort of thing most of if not the whole dang time. With us still having a quarter of the season left to go, I’m sure we’ll get a good moment like this again before the end, but holy shit did we have no reason to wait this long to even get this. Seriously, how much do you think they can actually get done in just six more episodes? The vast majority of this show has been just Helck and Vermillio either wandering around aimlessly or sitting on their asses while telling this flashback. We’re in the fourth quarter, let’s get some shit done for god’s sake!