English Dub Review: Death March to the Parallel Word Rhapsody “Exploring a City That Started with a Death March”

Now, he’s starting to get the idea…

Overview (Spoilers)

Satou just saved a soldier from a city’s guard from falling to her death. Her name is Zena, and no, she isn’t a princess. She does seem a bit smitten with Satou, though. That’s helpful, since her friends aren’t so trusting of this newcomer. After leveling up his deception skill to its max, he’s able to convince them he’s a merchant that lost his wares and papers in the recent meteor shower. Satisfied with his story, they take him back to the city. First order of business while Zena is off for her debriefing, he needs new papers. Apparently, the cities in this world have documentation based off your character stats. His are a bit out of date, since the system still thinks he’s level 1. He pays off the clerk, and discovers the city’s extremely severe visa policy. If your visa expires and you can’t pay the fine, lifetime of slavery for you. Good to note. He’s advised to a particular inn, but doesn’t get far before the daughter of the owners drags him in. The kitchen’s closed, but at least he can get a quick quiche and a talking head explanation of stuff around town. The daughter, Martha, offers to take him on a tour of the city as he buys some new supplies with the metric sphincter-load of cash he got from dropping meteors on an army of lizardmen last episode. While about, he sees a citizen mistreating a couple of demihuman slaves. There’s some serious racism against them, since their ancestors used to raid and plunder in the area. For a couple souvenirs after, he gets a mask and wig representing the city’s mythology. Dinner is another treat. Perhaps too good of a treat. He suddenly realizes that nothing he’s seen is like what he knows from stories or games. This isn’t his imagination, or a dream. This is some kind of parallel world. But what to do about it? Well, he’s gonna explore and have fun! Speaking of fun, Zena arrives the next morning, dressed for a date and ready to take him on a tour of the city. Looks like he’s got a date!

Skills Learned: Trickery, Persuasion, Negotiation, Trading, Listening, Poker Face, Haggling, Alcohol Tolerance

Our Take

Well, two episodes in, and I’m seeing a pattern. There is a ton of exposition and not much action. I get what they’re going for here, the writers are trying to push hard that this is a big universe with lots of tiny details. They want this to feel rich and deep. Unfortunately, they are doing so by having characters talk endlessly about details that have nothing obvious to do with the plot. I’m big on deep universes, but talking heads get really boring after a while. On top of that, this setting doesn’t have that original of concepts. When they talked about the hero fighting the demon king, that image looked like it was lifted straight from the instruction manual of Legend of Zelda. On the plus side, they have put a good amount of thought into the economy of the area, and it comes across as mildly charming. This episode spends a good amount of time describing the flavor of the food. It’s almost as if I’m watching Restaurant to Another World all over again. While I enjoyed that show for similar reasons to this one, it had the same issue. All talk.

The animation and art in this show are quite good. It’s part of why it feels so charming. Though it’s similar in theme and feels to In Another World With My Smartphone, and fanservice is a major portion of the show, it isn’t as overt about it. Yeah, we get shots of straight down a girl’s cleavage. However, there’s always more going on in the shot. Typically, he’s looking at a dialogue box with information as to what is going on. Unfortunately, most of these boxes are left untranslated. We are given a few of them when it actually seems pertinent, but the rest are left a mystery of moon runes. There is a subtle use of CG in the cart at the beginning. Though the characters in the shot are traditionally animated, the cart and horse are CG. Since your focus is elsewhere in the shot, you barely notice. The voice acting wasn’t bad, and I like what Justin Briner is doing with Satou. The character isn’t flat and seems believable.