English Dub Review: Date A Live “Despair Comes Crashing Down”

In the end, despair is only a stepping stone to hope!

Overview (Spoilers Below!)

Shido worries that they went too far, but Reine points out that Natsumi’s happiness levels are much healthier now. Kotori believes that Natsumi just needs to feel accepted.

Kotori approaches the other Spirits, ranting about how ugly and gross Natsumi is, but they all contradict her. Kotori is really Natsumi in disguise, testing the girls to see if they would go behind her back, and she’s overwhelmed by their kindness. Shido suggests that they let Natsumi out of her room to share meals with everyone, and Natsumi/Kotori cries. She runs out of the facility, and Shido can’t find her anywhere, but he pockets a green lollipop that Kotori left behind. He goes home as a last-ditch effort—and Ellen is waiting for him. She asks for Natsumi’s location, threatening the other Spirits.

The gang detects an explosive satellite planted by DEM, which will soon crash into Tengu City. Ellen gets a phone call and leaves Shido alone. Kotori urges Shido to move underground to avoid debris while they blow the satellite up. People run for shelters as Shido races around the city, calling out for Natsumi. Kotori fires a missile at the satellite, but it reflects the attack easily.

Kotori transforms into her Spirit form and fires her own weapon at the satellite. She successfully destroys it—but another satellite appears. Despite Kotori’s pleas to get to safety, Shido summons his own weapon and shoots a blast at the satellite, but it’s deflected. The other Spirits transform as well. Isaac summons Origami. The Yamai blow the satellite farther away into the atmosphere so it won’t explode close to Earth. Robots appear, firing on the Spirits; one nearly gets Yoshino, but Tohka saves her.

Just as a robot is about to slice Shido in half, the green lollipop appears between them, comically destroying the robot. The lollipop transforms into Natsumi, who turns the satellite into a giant stuffed pig. Natsumi decimates it, raining lollipops down on the city. Natsumi apologizes for her behavior when they’ve all been nothing but kind to her. The Spirits promise to be Natsumi’s friends. Natsumi agrees to be sealed, and she and Shido kiss.

Natsumi is furious that Shido didn’t tell her her armor would fly off. Another bomb heads for the city, but it’s stopped by—Origami?!

Our Take

This episode is one long battle, but it’s a pretty exciting one. My heart was racing to watch Kotori transform and take her shot at the satellite, and it’s great to finally see all the Spirits in their true forms. The action goes on so long that it begins to lose my attention towards the end, but the eventual arrival of Natsumi is the perfect way to tie this standalone plot into the main storyline of season three.

When it comes to Natsumi, I’m just glad that Kotori finally understood what she really needs. After Shido worries that they went too far with prescribing beauty tips, Kotori replies, “Her beauty isn’t the real issue here. I think in general, Natsumi just needs to feel accepted for who she is.” Kotori hit my complaints about the last episode right on the head—if Natsumi’s problem is that she doesn’t like her true self and feels the need to hide behind a mask, switching up the magical mask for beauty products isn’t going to solve anything. As Kotori suggests, Natsumi has some serious self-worth issues, and I was excited to see the episode dive into those. Self-esteem issues are extremely common, after all, and it’s rare to see a TV series that addresses them in a serious way.

But alas, instead of a nuanced exploration of Natsumi’s mental state and a gradual, realistic building up of her self-worth (such as in Yuri!!! On Ice), Natsumi comes around after a few kind comments from her friends. It’s a bit disappointingly over-simplified, but at the same time, I could see how this scene could be helpful for viewers struggling with their own self-esteem. If you feel like your friends are secretly talking smack about you when you’re not there, that you’re a burden on them and they’re just too polite to say so, it’s much more likely that your friends are like Natsumi’s friends—that they would defend you fiercely against such accusations, and your worries about their intentions are simply a symptom of negative self-image.

A few moments in this episodes feature some wonky animation. The CGI environments don’t always blend naturally with the 2D elements, and the scene where Shido runs all over Tengu isn’t animated at all, instead presented as a series of boring still frames. And maybe I missed something, but I’m not sure why Kotori and Shido hold up their hands like they’re on the phone whenever they talk to each other, but there are no phones to be seen. It’s a really bizarre visual effect that makes it look like the animators just plum forgot to draw some phones.

Speaking of phones—I’m dying to know who called Ellen, and why she left Shido’s house with no followthrough immediately after threatening him. It’s a twist reminiscent of the season two opening of Sherlock, which wasn’t super satisfying either. The whole scene is tonally so intense compared with the rest of the series that it doesn’t quite seem to fit.

On a different note, I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but does Shido really have to kiss this child? Is no one going to acknowledge that Natsumi is a child? Is pedophilia not a crime in this fantasy world?!

But overall, this episode is pretty fun. Kaguya comically breaks the fourth wall as the season’s opening song begins to play during their battle, exclaiming, “Man, I knew I liked this song! I’m about to get crazy pumped up!” This remark sets the tone for Date A Live—it’s fluff, but fun, clever fluff nonetheless.