English Dub Review: Dances With The Dragons “And Yet, We…”

“Hey look! There’s garbage in the road. I thought it was dead already, but I guess it has one more episode…”

Overview (Spoilers)

Gaiyus cleans up his desk and finds an old photograph of the team he was in before he and Gigina struck out on their own. He loses himself in reminiscence about his old crew, and a special woman named Quaio…

He was a low-level mage back then. His then-team used him as a meat shield and dumped him on the side of the road. As he lay there, Gigina and his team found him. Though they initially teased him as a piece of garbage, they later took him in as a member of their team, replacing their recent casualties. Gaiyus lacked experience, and had next to no skill in team-combat. In fact, his stubborn arrogance often led to more collateral damage than was strictly necessary. He just didn’t understand the idea of his team having his back.

We focus on one mission that he took on alongside the team’s co-captain Quaio. Their target went by the name Mazlow: a high-level mage who robbed a jewel store, killing two guards, then borrowing money from a bail bondsman to post bail, only to escape the watchful eye of the Largonkin company. The bail bondsman hired their team to find Mazlow and bring him in, dead or alive. However, Quaio’s got her own rules: No unnecessary killing.

They tracked Mazlow down to his apartment. Quaio told Gaiyus that she is going to take point. His purpose was merely backup. He, however, charged in ahead. End result, Mazlow got away and heavily injured Gaiyus in the process. When Gaiyus woke up, Quaio revealed that she’d set up a new trap for Mazlow, posing as an identity forger. She also called in backup… Gigina. In the new battle, the three managed to outnumber their target and bring him down. Gigina, however, wanted to kill the guy as per his pride as a Drakken. Quiao stopped him, willingly sacrificing some of her blood to slake his sword’s thirst.

And, that’s the end of that flashback. Oh, and all the stuff that was the plot of the series? It resolved. Zu Lu was found decapitated and everything went back to the status quo of constant struggle and horror. Yay?

Our Take

Well, that episode was a waste. There was no point to it all. At all. The way they ended this series effectively meant that the whole plot was meaningless. No actions taken by the heroes had any effect on the events of the story, and we end the series without any answers to the last remaining questions. What happened to G&G’s old team? What happened to Zu Lu to see him decapitated? But, there was one last thread in this tapestry that was left untied: the Eye of the Cosmos.

Gaiyus received this from Muldine at the end of the first story arc. The Magatsushiki enemies all recognize it on sight, but nobody can really analyze it. This MacGuffin is set up throughout the series as an important plot point… and does nothing with it. It’s just a trinket he looks at occasionally. This was the episode to reveal its function. This is where you tell us what it is and where it came from… Nothing.

Beyond that, the story here has no function for the series. We get to see how he met the old team, but otherwise, this episode doesn’t tell us anything worth knowing. It even goes as far as to show Gaiyus as a womanizing, self-involved, and manipulative… well, I have words for it, but we’re in polite company. He actually attempts to seduce Quiao while thinking about how he was going to use her and drop her simply because she was an ice queen. He already was barely likable, now I want to just use him as a meat shield and leave him on the side of the road. Then, the ending of the episode wrapped everything up in a couple minutes. The entire plot of the series, resolved in a five-minute monologue. Oh, yes, we haven’t had enough monologues in this show.

The animation wasn’t all that bad, in fact, the final scene had some great animation. It just didn’t have enough action to get moving. Also, I’m noticing that every stream I’ve had of this show for the last four episodes were horribly laggy. I wasn’t having this problem with other shows, so even Funimation recognizes this is a bad show and doesn’t prioritize its stream. They certainly aren’t prioritizing the voice acting. Stale and monotone as ever.