English Dub Review: Chronos Ruler “Beyond Good and Evil”

Wow… Blaze is a whole new kind of idiot…

Overview (Spoilers)

The fight between Kiri and Blaze continues, as the two compare their traumas. Ultimately, Blaze surrenders because he isn’t such a bad guy after all. He’s just dumb. In the meantime, Victo’s battle with Aisrehdar kicks into higher gear. He starts experimenting with new techniques using his cards, ultimately defeating her short-range control over everything, even herself. She yields the Unique to him and welcomes him home.

I’m gonna call BS on this whole thing. We’ve been dealing with Aisrehdar’s plot for three episodes now. Your ultimate goal is to get him to the top of the tower, fix the Unique, and test to see if he’s worthy of it by fighting him. Wouldn’t the fastest way to get him to do that be to have the Chronos Rulers just say, “Oh, hey Victo! Long time no see! Boss is waiting for you!” and escort him upstairs? Especially since he was heading that direction anyway. Not only that, you attack him so you can get close enough to fix the Unique instead of just telling him it’s broke and you have to fix it? All this while your lackeys are legitimately trying to kill his son. Oh, and you sent your sister to bring them back but didn’t tell her anything about your convoluted plan so she thinks you’re trying to kill her husband and hurts herself trying to protect him. Does anybody but me see that this plot is contrived and idiotic? What I see happening here is a writer who thought it’d be a great idea to have the organization turn out to be evil, but didn’t know how to keep the heroes moving after they beat the Rulers, so he changed his mind at the last minute and made them all really be good guys. That sentence is long, and it’s unnecessarily complicated. Just like this story arc.

Need a better example of this? Just look at Blaze. Hey, you’ve got a fire user. Whatcha’ gonna call him? Uh… what’s another word for fire… Blaze. Not even a last name. Just Blaze. Okay, so everyone in the organization is evil, how does he fit into that? He’s a self-proclaimed villain! His goal is to be the world’s best villain! Oh, but we’ve flip-flopped the story and the organization is really good. No problem! He isn’t really evil, he’s just a good boy who listened to too much Linkin Park. Too soon? That joke was too soon. Anyways, now that we’ve uncovered his secret goodness, he’s our friend and he’ll travel with us forever, right? Right. After getting five episodes in, I feel like only the Putin Family is even worth watching. The other characters are so busy revealing all the different sides they are on, so they end up being on one of them. This episode is beyond the concepts of good and evil. After all, stupid isn’t really either one.

While we’re also talking about names, let’s talk about the big boss of Chronos Ruler HQ. I’m spelling it Aisrehdar. You listen in, it sounds like they’re saying Ice Radar. Wikipedia backs this up. So, other than the Putins, the characters we’ve been introduced to so far are Snake, Blaze, and Ice Radar. Really? Sounds like Jea Pon (the creator) spent too much time playing Metal Gear Solid. Those names sound like they’re straight out of that game. Now, on the other hand, MyAnimeList also shows some Kanji-like symbols for “Ice Radar”. When fed into a translator, it comes out as gibberish. However, when you treat it as Chinese, which seems to be a theme in her design, it translates as Ashtide. Now, that’s marginally better, but we had to go the long way around to get there. It probably isn’t right. I’m going to go on calling her Aisrehdar because it doesn’t sound dumb.

Our Take

Is there something I do like about this show? Yes! The action and animation are really great. I find this kind of action far more interesting than martial arts shows like Dragon Ball Z. Here, everything is a duel of wits and tricks. You have a limited set of abilities that have to be used in ever more creative ways. It’s much more compelling than two dudes punching and throwing energy blasts ad nauseam. Even if the physics of what they’re doing is dubious to outright illogically, it at least keeps you glued to the tube, wondering what’s going to happen next.

The voice acting we hear in this episode was just fine. Probably because Mina kept her high-pitched trap shut. On the other hand, Austin Tindle (Blaze) actually did a good job portraying just how ridiculous this idiot really is. He’s playing it straight, and not intentionally giving him a goofy demeanor, which only makes all the stupid stuff that he says sound even more asinine. Blaze honestly believes his own propaganda, and we can hear it in how Austin made him sound. Jerry Jewell voiced Victo, as well as directed the ADR for the series. While we can thank him for giving Victo a cool, charismatic sound, I waggle my finger at all these poker puns. I kid. These lines seem perfectly in line with the character’s actions thus far. They aren’t funny or original, but they are in character.

So, while the plot is dumber than a bag of stale donuts and more complicated than it has any right being, this episode has fun action, good animation, and voice acting that makes you believe the stupidity going on. As much as I rail against the story, though, I watched it and was entertained. It may not be great, but it held my attention and gave me a modicum of enjoyment. In the end, isn’t that all we ask for? I give it seven royal flush puns out of ten.