English Dub Review: The Unaware Atelier Meister “What Mining Means To Him”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
While Ophelia and the others discuss plans to uncover who cursed Lieselotte, Kurt takes a job as a porter.

Our Take:
So, as it turns out, the initially mysterious Lieselotte is the third princess of the kingdom of Homuross, who’s crucial to the peace between the powerful nations.  To make things even more complicated, a mysterious villain was responsible for placing a curse on her as a scheme to enact a war between the two kingdoms.  Of course, this is due to Kurt’s unawareness of the situation when he cured the princess’s curse with his cooking, much to everyone’s shock and amazement.  As a result, the ignorant former adventurer is now part of Ophelia’s strategy to lure out the suspect responsible for the assassination attempt on the princess by creating their own Atelier.  However, from his perspective, he has no work to accomplish from Ophelia’s old Atelier for now.
But, not all hope was lost for the useless handyman, as Kurt found himself returning to his porter roots thanks to another adventuring party, Sakura.  Led by the samurai Danzo, Sakura hires Kurt as their personal porter for a specific quest that leads them to the dangerous goblin cave.  You may think that Sakura might be just as awful as Flaming Dragon Fang or worse, especially with the highly critical ranger Sina.  However, that isn’t the case.  Despite Kurt’s uselessness regarding combat, the Sakura members actually treated Kurt equally as part of the team, whereas the Flaming Dragon Fang treated Kurt like shit for his “subpar” abilities.  Even Sina eventually came around to Kurt after witnessing him use his mining skills to dismantle a seemingly powerful iron dragon golem.  Mind you, this is the same guy who can’t defeat a simple slime.
The execution in this episode is a bit too manipulative for its own good, which doesn’t help in elevating most of its formulaic narrative elements.  Still, “What Mining Means To Him” represents Kurt developing a small hint of self-confidence through the support of those who offer kindness in return.  The difference between Sakura and Flaming Dragon Fang regarding their treatment of Kurt is an obvious example of this development, with the former supporting Kurt despite his misfortunes.  This is something that the Flaming Dragon Fang should’ve done long ago, and now they’re already facing the consequences of their actions, mainly Golnova.  It sucks to be them, am I right?