English Dub Review: Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody “Camping Lessons That Started with a Death March”

He thinks everyone is eleven, doesn’t he?

Overview (Spoilers)

Last we left off, Satou rescued a wererat knight and an elvish princess from some shadow creatures. While the knight was beaten within an inch of his life, the elf only suffered from extreme mana deprivation. It isn’t life-threatening, but it is difficult to treat. Her best bet is to go to a ley line, such as the one in her hometown. He lets Arisa in on all this information, and she’s none too pleased. After all, the whole thing started because he went to a brothel, and she wanted to fill that need for him. Protip: That loli is all kinds of illegal, best not touch that. In the meantime, Lulu seems to be improving. Now that everyone is up and running, Satou takes them to see the princess. While the younger girls talk to her, he purchases a wagon and learns that Lulu can drive one. Now with a ride available, the gang goes out on a camping trip to prepare for life on the road. Everyone learns the necessary skills, and sweet little fun scenes abound.

Lulu takes him out on a drive, alone since he wants to learn to drive it himself. This being our first episode spending any time with her, we get to see that she is… not sociable. Unless she’s fawning over her sister, she doesn’t really want to ta-wait. Wait a minute, last episode she and Arisa were prepared to… Oh, no. Forget that realization. Anyways, Satou learns to drive. On their way back, however, he spots the shadow owl that he saw shortly before he ran in to save Mia. He returns to the Oddjobs Office, and just in time. The wererat is awake and is willing to talk to Satou and the manager  Princess Misanalia “Mia” Boruenan was kidnapped by a bunch of wizards and drained of her mana. She managed to escape and ran into the wererat, who attempted to get her to the manager here to help her. The Wizards weren’t too happy about all this and sent the swarm of giant ants that attacked the city in the last episode. The manager seems to have a clue as to what is going on but isn’t talking much. Things change when thunder crashes, and the girls all scream. The guys come down to protect them.

Thunder isn’t the only thing worth being scared of, though. That evil lich-like dude seems pretty spoop-worthy, too.

Skills Acquired: Elvish Language, Decryption, Games, Education, Painting, Penmanship, Camping, Cultivation, Farming, Weeding, Gathering, Masonry, Woodworking, Driving.

Titles Acquired: Coachman

Our Take

I’m starting to have a problem with the pacing of this show. The last few episodes have had a pattern of little to no real content in the first half. Then, the second half focuses on some new character, and we get a plot point near the end. Part of the problems with this show is actually its genre. It may appear to be a fantasy alternate-world show, but it’s not as easy as all that. If you see how often they talk about cultural things and food, we can see that this is what the Japanese call a iyashikei, or Healing, slice-of-life. It isn’t about action or plot, though it does contain those things. It’s really about being relaxed. Iyashikei shows are calm and emphasize small pleasures. If you remember my reviews of Restaurant to Another World, that was of the same genre. When we watch Death March with this in mind, we have a different criteria to judge it by.

There are a handful of scenes in this episode that are intended to be calming. In one, he teaches the girls to read. In the other, we get a montage of camping scenes. These scenes feel less calming as they are boring. We could be spending this time getting to know the characters. Let the characters truly develop and make decisions in this world. It doesn’t have to be a dire situation or a bunch of tension. These scenes don’t actually do anything to grow the characters. They simply try to paint Satou as a great guy, but as we’ve seen in previous episodes, he’s only as good as the writers can conceive. That isn’t good. These scenes are also barely animated.  Just montages and talking. It’s just a time filler, and no show needs that.