English Dub Review: Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest “Dragon Slayer”

Overview

Hajime and the gang go to locate the missing adventuring party, only to find the lone surviving member of it badly injured in the mountains. The member, Will, had watched his entire party get slaughtered by a dragon they could not defeat. Hajime talks him out of his survivor’s guilt, and they leave the cavern. Once out, though, the same dragon who killed Will’s team appears before them.

The trio fights it, but it doesn’t go down easy, though. It takes quite a few strikes before Hajime realizes the dragon is intentionally going after Will for some reason. He gets its attention with a bigger gun, and Shea delivers the knock-out blow.

Hajime then decides it’s a non-sociopathic idea to ram a spear into its a**hole to wake it’s up. The dragon screams upon waking, and he continually molests her with it until she tells them the answer to their questions. She pleads with the group that she was mind-controlled by a mysterious hooded figure to kill Will’s adventuring group. She transforms into her human form, introducing herself as Tio Klarus. She informs the group that the same man intends to use a monster army to attack the city of Ore. Hajime doesn’t want anything to do with it, but seeing as how Tio was the group’s fastest transport to warn the city (and that she was too bruised over her newfound love of anal) he reluctantly agrees to help.

Our Take

Like, literally. The whole butthole was onscreen in 4k. If you stare into the void, it stares back.

There are certain times where something happens in a show that forces you to pause the episode and astral project. Not in the good, spiritual way, but in the that makes your ghost want to close your laptop for you.

How on earth did they get away with this?

Take away the comedy music from the spearing scene. All you get is someone pleading and begging for someone to stop violating them, for two literal, disturbing minutes straight. Hajime is a sociopath and has zero problems with sexual assault for sadistic enjoyment, apparently. All hope for this show was lost episodes ago, but all ye who have ventured this far, abandon hope here.

To top off the fact that there was a two minute sexual assault scene that was supposed to be funny, Tio conveniently decides after the fact that she liked it (which is something so problematic that it can’t even begin to be unpacked) and — just like 90% of female characters in this show who are introduced — she winds up fawning over Hajime. Hajime, who — just like 90% of all characters he meets on the show — treats her like absolute garbage, making a show of torturing her in front of his old classmates.

None of these characters are likable, except for maybe Ms. Aiko, who was a beloved voice of reason in this episode. The girls are all sexual objects and the main character is a rapey Shadow the Hedgehog. Oh, and that CGI in this episode? Especially with Tio’s dragon form? Hot garbage. They literally just made the mouth flap back and forth.

This episode was one butt hole shot away from violating review policies — among a list of things it already violated.