English Dub Review: Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest “The Monsters’ Day Off”

 

Overview

Hajime, Yue, Shea, and Tio return the lost party member to the guild and get their adventurer’s plates. Shea points out that Hajime promised her that he’d show her the city if she got stronger, so he takes her around to see the sights. Tio and Yue go out themselves, getting tea and talking about Hajime’s relationship to Yue. When Hajime and Shea go to an aquarium, they encounter a talking fish, who tells them he was captured after an underground current pulled him away from the water. Realizing they had something to do with it, Hajime and Shea bust him out and return him to the river. They also discover a little merfolk girl was kidnapped by the aquarium too, and rescue her from child trafficking.

She tells them her name is Myu, and quickly attaches to Hajime — who, surprisingly, is very sweet to her. He turns her in to the city guards, though, who promise to get her home, but they’re attacked. The child traffickers kidnap the girl back, and Hajime gathers his team for some good ol’ fashioned pedo ass-kicking. They bust every child trafficking ring in the city, find Myu, and blow up the entire trafficking building — putting on a “fireworks” show for the little girl.

Myu mentions she doesn’t have a dad, and going from calling Hajime her “big brother,” to dubbing him her new dad. Yue then mentions she wants a child…as does Shea…as does Tio.

Our Take

This episode had better pacing and emotion than the vast majority of episodes in the season? Why? Because it slowed down, let itself feel, and stopped to smell the flowers. Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest has an obvious pacing issue, so to see an episode that was level-headed from start to finish was really refreshing.

Real talk? This is the most emotionally open Hajime has ever been. We all know him as a Shadow the Hedgehog wannabe with a tendency to berate and abuse people, but at least he draws the line at children. Watching him act so kind was great to see, and if Myu sticks around as a main cast member, she might give him back the humanity he needs.

Speaking of character development — Shea was a good focus for the episode, because it highlighted her transformation from an airhead to being a capable person. Her knowledge of the beast people came in handy, and Yue’s words about her with Tio were clearly meant to underline the subtle character development she’s gone through. Perhaps Tio will also get an upgrade, eventually.

Two minor critiques: first, if Myu never had a dad, why was she crying for her mom and dad during the kidnapping? Also, are Hajime and the gang just going to keep her? Does she have a mom? Secondly, that harem dialogue at the end knocked the quality down a few points. Even with that, though? This whole episode was still better than most of the season’s quality so far.