English Dub Review: Pass the Monster Meat, Milady! “Sweet or Sour Fruit”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Melphie and the Blanche Corps finish preparing the Screamwood Fruit, and Aristide brings home a surprise. Later, Melphie prepares for her debut as the Duchess of Galbraith.

OUR TAKE

Okay, after much delay, we can finally discuss the final two episodes of this show and…wait, there’s only one. But…it says both are dubbed? Then why is only one dubbed while the finale has every language BUT English, and going onto the English audio option just plays Japanese? Uh…alright, I guess we just talk about this penultimate episode until that gets sorted out. Unfortunately, despite BEING the second to last episode of the season, this one isn’t especially eventful, pretty much entirely focusing on Melphie and the Blanche Corps making the fruit that Aristide got into something edible and not the recipe for a late night toilet disaster…if this world had any indoor plumbing to speak of. And look, I’m not saying that figuring out how to de-toxify magic laden fruit is not an important accomplishment, especially when this is basically an extension of what Melphie has been doing and trying to learn throughout the whole show. However, for a second to last episode of the season, it feels like a bit of a lesser accomplishment, especially compared to how she managed to de-magic the beast meat earlier on. And yeah, apparently doing this for magic filled plants is a bit more complicated, but it still felt too simple.

We also get some hints at other characters like Blanche’s husband Galeo, who Melphie will have to impress if she wants him to make a sword for her, and the ending of the episode skips ahead a few days for her to debut as Galbraith’s new Duchess, though in my opinion, this episode should have been about her learning how to win those people over. Or even give her some much more complicated or intricate challenge in removing magic from a beast. Something that would feel more like a culmination of this stretch of her journey, or HECK, something more involved with Aristide, her fiance, but maybe that one is what the finale is about. Or rather, if this were a longer show, give her more time to do that so this ending wouldn’t feel so abrupt. It’s a bit of a shame, but again, we still have this last episode, which hopefully will have its English Dub released soon, that will hopefully bring all of this together in an at least somewhat satisfying way. Though either way, I will just be glad to finally have this all be done with, since we’ve been dragging out talking about the end of this for far too long.