English Dub Review: Dances With The Dragons “Invitation to an Evening Party”

Really preferring King’s IT to these magatsushiki clowns.

Overview (Spoilers)

G&G are on the job, accompanying a hostage negotiation for a company’s weapons genius. The leader of the Aurora Hammer terrorists has been deposed for a some blonde dude in shades that calls himself Zu-Lu, the Sand Dragon. Using a Jushiki Wavelength ReaderTM, they ascertain that the hostage is, in fact, the dude they want. Just as the exchange takes place, however, he begins coughing up blood and all H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks breaks loose.

Zu-Lu runs off with the coughing fake, and uses a horrible curse to kill everyone in the room. Everyone but G&G and their client. She’s none to pleased by the loss of the dude, and says that G&G have to go get him back before they get paid. This is why you guys need contracts. No real bounty hunter/private investigator does any job without a clear contract stating what they are expected to do to get paid. Hence your money problems, Gaiyus, you don’t speak “legalese”.

But what about that genius dude, whose name I can’t even remember? Well, unless we’re dealing with flashbacks, he’s still back at the enemy camp. In fact, they love him! He’s been saving their lives by cleaning dirt out of the contacts on their magic swords. The girl in the camp that’s been feeding him tells the tale of their patron, the Sand Dragon Zu-Lu. Sounds familiar. Evil king screwed them all over, so this chick committed suicide by feeding herself to the dragon in exchange for him killing the king. The Dragon thinks this is a good deal, and offers it in perpetuity. Let me eat one of you, and I’ll kill whoever you want.

After another brief skit of G&G being idiots with each other (see above), they’re off to their other gig. They’re going to meet with the rest of the Largokin Company, a bunch of misfits with impressive powers that likely won’t survive this story arc. One is a super-speedy bipolar girl, the other is a dual-wielding red-mage type. As they discuss what the magatsushiki are (I’ll boil it down: Cthulhu), they receive a visitor. He transforms into a skeletal grim reaper priest and hacks down a bunch of mooks who hadn’t shown up at all in previous scenes.

By the power of teamwork, the five heroes beat the reaper, and meet with a pair of clowns. They introduce themselves by more word salad names, claiming to be Great Magatsushiki. Got it, these guys are like the Arrancar to the Magatsushiki’s Hollows. They also have an interest in Gaiyus’ ring, and start babbling on about a game before they leave. Joy.

Our Take

So, I’m watching a YouTuber play through that Super Metroid: A Link To The Past crossover randomizer. I like this guy because his voice just calms me, and he loves the games so much. I know, random thing to bring up, right? Nope. That calming voice playing two old games I’ve beaten and watch others beat a hundred times is more interesting than this garbage.

Literally every character is holding the stupid ball the whole episode. The lady in charge of the Razo Company didn’t have a contingency in case enemy reinforcements came in from outside the building. G&G didn’t have a “the kid is dead, but you’re still alive” clause in the contract for payment. The Aurora Hammer doesn’t believe in routine weapon maintenance, and will instantly fall in love with any prisoner who fixes up their junk for them. Largokin Company is used to dealing with magical threats, and doesn’t have a system in place for a creepy stranger with a mysterious box walks into the building. Just one big bucket of stupid, and that’s the plot of the episode.

So, how about the visuals? Sorry, kids. I’ve seen better on the old SatAM shows, and that’s bad. Characters were never drawn the same way twice, except in closeup, and many times lacked any form of humanoid proportions. Two action sequences, and neither were worth watching. Not much worth listening to either. The cast were stiff and emotionless, except for Gaiyus, who was smug 24/7 over there. The voice acting on this show is low grade bad. I say low grade because it isn’t bad enough to make me want to shut off the show. It’s just bad enough to make me not care.

One good thing about the episode, the sketch comedy in the middle. The scene between the two as Gigina jumps inside of his cabinet “son”, gets stuck inside, then breaks his arms out to attack Gaiyus was fun. It had the best cinematography of the episode. That isn’t saying much. My Problem: it interrupts the flow of the episode. We go from one serious scene, to “Hey look! These guys are weird and kookie and hate each other!”, to another serious scene. It didn’t fit, and most certainly didn’t have a logical reason to be there. But it was funny.