English Dub Review: The Drops of God “Episode 8”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
Shizuku and Tomine compete to solve the riddle of the Second Apostle.

Our Take:
After three episodes of sidetracking and small wine contests, the show finally returned to the Twelve Apostles, the main focus of its plot.  However, it seems that the competition could get more enticing later on, mainly because Tomine may have found a new strategy for enjoying wine.  It’s hard to say whether this new approach would work in his favor, since he may have been repeating Shizuku’s way of describing a wine’s taste.  If so, then Shizuku may be in for a rude awakening, more so than his journey to solve the Second Apostle riddle, which sends Tomine on his own adventure in the Taklamakan Desert.  Meanwhile, Shizuku and Miyabi must assist a famous author named Maiko, who’s seemingly challenged by the God of Wine, Bacchus, to solve his own riddle.
As expected, the eighth episode puts the show back on track with the second round of the Apostle competition.  In addition to an engaging mystery that springs from page to real life, the episode offers another outlook on some wine terms I didn’t even know about until now.  In this case, the episode highlights Second wines, which were made from grapes inferior to the Grand Vin, the first wine that Maiko prefers.  At least until there was one Second wine in her collection that happened to match the bottle Maiko received from Bacchus.  However, that happens to be the least of our concerns, as the author is also facing a fate worse than the God of wine’s challenge.