English Dub Review: Hanaori-san Still Wants to Fight In The Next Life “Much Ado About Nothing”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Ryusei solves a bunch of small problems that are more interconnected than expected, and later goes on a monster hunting not-date with Hanaori.
OUR TAKE
Another same ol, same ol for Hanaori-San Still Wants to Fight In The Next Life. Yep, we’ve gotten to the point where I’m typing out the show’s egregiously long title in order to help me reach the minimum word count faster. That’s simply how much this week’s episode covers so much of the already trodden ground of the previous four. We’ve got two segments, one focusing on Ryusei helping out the girls at the school with small problems, assisted partially by his still present, albeit significantly reduced, magical powers. Also, we learn a bit of backstory from Ryusei, from even before he was an undead Demon Lord. He was apparently a bright magical scholar in his youth, but had few social connections and stayed shut in on his research all the time, so I guess it makes sense that, upon being reincarnated into his next life, he would continue that trend but instead be more focused on video games. Actually, I wonder if he was reborn here as a baby or just kinda dropped in as an adult and retconned into the world. It’s not really delved into in detail and I hazard a guess it probably never will, since this show is not very interested in anything beyond what makes for okay comedy. Case in point, we do learn that the Returner hero left a lot of portals open, through which someone from a rival magical agency appears and plots a grand evil plan, but Ryusei snipes them pretty quickly, so we don’t have to worry about that.
No, we have much more interesting stuff to focus on, such as whether or not a mission of looking for monsters with your homeroom teacher becomes a date if no monsters show up! The answer SHOULD be no, but it’s clear that the second segment wants it to lean more into yes. Or more specifically, Hanaori seems to want it to be a yes but is worried about it, even when certain moments seem out of step from when she thinks it’s about to become a date. Or maybe I’m just not on that many dates and I don’t know either way. And even worse, Ryusei seems to be warming up to the idea of liking her back the way she clearly likes him, which again, they’re both way older than their current physical bodies so at least no one’s taking advantage of anyone here, and they do have a common experience they are able to bond over, but the fact that the story made her A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT and him HER TEACHER just makes it too weird and gross. Goddamn, I cannot stress enough how much that bothers me…but we’re not even half way through the season so I’m probably gonna have to reduce how much I mention it or else these reviews will seem like a broken record.
