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

Ruins on the road spark hidden memories, and experimentation provides new abilities.

Overview (Spoilers)

The gang is on the road again, and Liza is using her considerable skill at cooking to make food for everyone. Unfortunately, Mia is an elf, and they’re strict vegetarians. Still, she can eat around the meat. Before the crew pack up and head out, there’s some chores to do, such as caring for the horses. Liza takes some of the leftovers to make pancakes for later, and Arisa stores them in her Item Box. That’s a special skill that uses your MP to store the item in an extra-dimensional space to be called out later. Another chore they all work on together is to upgrade the straw cushions they’ve all been sitting on. Some of the straw has been poking out the wrong way, which makes the cushions uncomfortable. A little adjustment and sewing fixes things up. Satou uses his newly acquired skills to add leather padding to the outside to further soften them, then takes some spare materials to make plushies for all the girls. Just as they are all about to head out, he takes quick stock of everyone. It seems that they are all having a good time, so he decides they should stay a bit and let the younger ones play on the stone ruins nearby. In the meantime, Mia teaches Lulu to use leaves to make music. Shortly after, the older members are all making beautiful music… Except Satou. He’s terrible. Even after dialing his skill in Musicianship to the max, he’s still painful to hear. Thankfully, Arisa pulls him away to the top of the ruins, sparing us further torment.

From atop the monument, he spots a series of stone torii (temple arches) that have all toppled down. They used to be a transfer gate, but they remind him of ones from his past. Or, is it his past? He remembers a girl with strange, shimmering hair talking to him under red, stone torii. Talking about how she will always know him. These were all elements not from his life in the real world, but from a game he made when he was younger. Curious. After their investigation, The two young demihumans arrive with fresh prey ready to be cleaned. Speaking of cleaning, the kids nead to get cleaned up, too. He remembers the cleaning spell he saw way back, but doesn’t actually know it. What he does have is a book of Shadow Magic he got from the boss at the end of the Cradle. By cutting and pasting parts of the code, he figures out a way to build it from scratch. Arisa is disturbed by the fact that he’s just staring into space, and snaps him out of it by putting his hand on Nana’s boobs. Because that’s logical. Snapped out of his reverie, he notices that there is a carriage up ahead with a large number of ratmen imprisoned inside. These were the same ones that helped rescue Mia way back, and they have ended up enslaved as a result. Satou sets them free, and they thank him, but they run off to build a grave for their fallen clansmen. That night as the girls sleep, Satou takes watch. Too bored to do nothing, but still needing to be alert, he takes this opportunity to compare his strange video game system of inventory against the Item Box skill he learned from Arisa. The difference is considerable. He must actually place the item within the magical sigil in the air with Item Box. It can only hold five items, and it uses his MP to do so. Further, time continues to pass for those items. His Inventory can grab items from up to three meters away, separating some into individual parts. Items are also suspended in time, so he can put burning items in, and they won’t burn up. But when he pulls them out again, they will still be on fire. It’s clearly the superior system, as evidenced by the fact that he could store the group’s stew, and it ended up being hot still after he pulled it out the next day. When they get on the road again, They are greeted by the Ratmen, who take the group to see the grave and grant Satou a token of their trust and esteem, the Silent Bell of Bolenan.

Skills Acquired: Item Box, Sewing, Leathercrafting, Dollmaking, Musicianship, Instrument Crafting, Gray-Ratman Language, Experiment, Inspect

Titles Acquired: Puppeteer, Instrumentalist of Nature, Researcher, Seeker, Friend of the Ratmen

Our Take

I am thoroughly frustrated. This is an episode that should have happened long ago. Remember that time they went on a camping trip? This should have been that episode. Not only does the content of this episode actually push the plot forward, it also deepens the universe by explaining its mechanics to us. We learn the basics of magic formulation, many of his abilities, and we get to see exactly how his skill levels affect his ability to act. His level 10 musicianship is still pretty terrible. In the English dub, it’s said that it sounds like a dying mouse caught in a trap. In the Japanese, we have a far more descriptive insult from Arisa: “It sounds like a master deliberately playing bad”. So, leveling up skills may allow him to control his body and mind more effectively, but if he has no knowledge of the subject, it doesn’t give him any understanding. So, skills like the various magics are useless to level up, since he actually has to know the spells and tenets behind them. My big issue is that he has waited until now to explore the mechanics of his inventory. Had he done this earlier, this could have been an entirely different show. Having the ability to swipe any item in three meters, time freeze it, and call it out later is a special magic all its own. Hammerspace is not something to be scoffed at, and he’s been ignoring it for weeks.

This episode isn’t terribly written, but it isn’t all that interesting either. Only when he started learning magic did it gain my interest. This is partly because of its attempts at being a relaxing anime. The other part is that we are just watching people do their chores with little to no conflict. We do, however, start to see hints as to why he is here in this fantasy world, even if it isn’t entirely spelled out. This clue is a bit too vague for being so late in the plot. Had this episode been three episodes ago, it probably would have felt right, and echoed nicely with the warnings of the Lich. Here, however, it feels like a tacked-on segue between story arcs. I also feel like Nene is entirely useless in the story. She has two character traits: robotic thoughts and speech, and big boobs. That’s it. Otherwise, I forget she’s even there. Since all of her role could have been taken by Liza, I maintain that the homonculus should have been left with her sisters and forgotten. The whole part of Satou finding his hand giving her breasts a squeeze was far-fetched and an obvious ploy to give us some fanservice. He would have noticed his arm and hand moving.

The art and animation are all pretty basic for the show, though I can see several points where the characters’ faces look distorted. The voice acting doesn’t have much to write home about either. in fact, all of the singing in the carriage as he does his research is straight from the Japanese. Not that that’s a problem, but it seems there could have been more done there and elsewhere to give us acting we could connect to.