English Dub Review: From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman “The Old Country Bumpkin is Astounded by a Wizard”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Allucia reminisces about her training with Beryl, and her resolve to have him instruct the knights hardens.  While taking in the city sights with Curuni, Beryl meets up with Ficelle, another former student.  She surprises him with her magic, but another wizard gives him even more of a surprise!

Our Take: 

With Beryl settling down at the capital, his new quest as the knights’ instructor has begun, with a few students by his side, of course.  It’s pretty typical for a show to feature a male protagonist with a group of former female students, meaning I’ll be expecting nothing less than what the plot suggests regarding the genre.  However, I found myself having a tolerable time with its introduction to the concept we’ve seen multiple times, especially when the protagonist is a middle-aged teacher instead of a younger man.  So now it has the challenge of maintaining my interest through its characters and plot for the remaining season, much like how Beryl is tasked with keeping his status as a master swordsman.  With the episode introducing magic into the mix, it seems likely that that might be the case.

Beforehand, the episode delves deep into Allucia’s relationship with Beryl via a flashback.  Its first half explores how Allucia became acquainted with Beryl when she’s dropped off to train her swordsman skills.  More importantly, it showcased how Beryl’s skills and generous personality helped shape Allucia’s determination to help him retain his teaching status by hiring Beryl to train her knights.  This moment gives viewers a clear understanding of Allucia’s deeper feelings toward Beryl despite his abundance of kindness, which I Left My A-Rank Party has issues with.  That show showed a brief flashback to one of Yuke’s early days training his students, but as of now, that hasn’t been brought up again to expand more on its characters.  It’s unclear whether Old Country Bumpkin may reuse this structure for Beryl’s other students in later episodes, but until then, it’s a suitable source of character development for the knights’ tough yet vulnerable commander.

Of course, given Allucia’s “love” for Beryl, she may have some tough competition for Beryl’s attention, especially when he and Curuni run into another former pupil he trained with: Ficelle Harbeller.  However, Ficelle is no ordinary swordsman like Beryl.  She also trained in the art of wizardry at the capital’s magic corp, combining it with her swordsman abilities to make her a seemingly formidable ally.  Unfortunately, Ficelle isn’t the only wizard that Beryl has come across in this episode, as he also encounters the magic corp’s commander, Lucy Diamond, a short yet intimidating wizard looking to test her skills on him.  In short, we’re looking at a double dose of magic that Beryl would have to overcome in this episode and the next.  Regarding Allucia’s flashback and the show’s enjoyable introduction to magic, the second episode marks a minor improvement over its series premiere, setting up Beryl’s first confrontation with wizardry during his stay at the capital.