English Dub Review: Hell Mode: The Hardcore Gamer Dominates in Another World With Garbage Balancing “Onward to Rohzenheim”
Overview:
As the Demon Lord’s army lays waste to the Elven Kingdom of Rozenheim, Allen and his friends must find a way to repel the invasion before it’s too late.
Our Take(Spoilers):
Allen and his friends are attempting to save the day for Sophialohne. We just got introduced to her and Meruru in the last couple of episodes. But already, the crew is ride-or-die for them because they’re going to Sophialohne’s homeland to help, and help they do. Allen, of course, has a herb that makes a potion that helps all the elves cure the plague affecting them. But sickness is a fairly minor problem when your city is surrounded by monsters of the demon king’s army.
I’d like to go on a little bit of a side tangent about something I’ve noticed in anime. Most times, when they want there to be a big bad group, it’s almost always called “the demon king”. I suppose there isn’t that big a difference between calling the villain the evil emperor or something. Perhaps in the West it’s hard to use the term demon because of how much it’s associated with Christianity. I’ve just noticed that almost all anime use the demon king as the villain and the general term of “hero” for the well… hero. Almost more like it’s a class than anything.
I started forming a silly theory during this episode. We basically haven’t talked about Allen from before the game since the first episode. We know next to nothing about his previous life or if there was even a previous life, because, for all we know, he’s plugged into a game console somewhere. My theory is that the purpose of this “game” for him is to show him the value in counting on and interacting with others. I assume that he was a loner in his past life, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an underlying lesson.
Then again, I could be looking way too much into this. It’s an isekai show about someone who’s not overpowered in a traditional sense. Maybe there isn’t supposed to be more to it than that, just a mindless fun power fantasy of sorts. I was also excited to see that Allen has another summon that’s a sentient ghost type. His summons are becoming more and more complicated, and I would like to see more like that. Even his dragons can talk now, which is something.
