English Dub Review: Dies Irae “Reunion”

Wow, creepy dead girl is surprisingly funny.

Overview (Spoilers)

Ren is given a dream. Contained in this dream is the complete backstory of the mysterious girl from the beach visions he’s been having. She was born during the French Revolution, literally as a priest’s neck became a convertible. This seemed to saddle her with a curse: the only words she could say were the Guillotine Song, and anyone who touched her spontaneously popped their head right off. Since this sort of thing tends to weird out the superstitious townsfolk, they executed her as a witch. Why is this important? Because Ren wakes up to her, naked, in bed with him. In an attempt to get her to open up about who she is, Ren and Kasumi take Marie all over town for fun. Strangely, her curse is no longer in effect. She can touch people without killing them, and, as we see later, she can talk normally. After putting Kasumi to bed Ren and Marie are summoned to a nightclub… by Shirou. You know, Ren’s friend from episode two? Since then, he got in metaphorical bed with a gang that is connected with a particular bounty hunter. He and his new friend have had run-ins with the Longinus order before, and want a piece of the action. Ren turns them down, but when the Krazy Krauts come calling, Shirou jumps in on his motorcycle, ready to take them on. Because a handcannon is all you need against an army of super-powered Nazis fueled by thousands of dead souls.

Thank you, ladies. Your pose perfectly illustrates how I feel right now.

Our Take

What was that? A bunch of the dots connected by my overview wasn’t overly apparent in the show? You must be new to Dies Irae. Welcome. If you haven’t played the video game, you are likely horrendously lost. I know I am. The only way I made these connections is because a kind soul by the name of Phendrous puts a comment on every video explaining all the stuff the writing staff felt didn’t belong in an anime. We’ve only got so much time in an episode, people. We need as much of it as possible for Ren to poke women’s boobs. Some exposition is bound to go by the wayside. I would say it was a case of greedy television studios meddling in the creative work, but this show was made via Kickstarter, and was written by the folks who made the source material. No excuse now, folks. Oh, and since they said it, but didn’t really say it, Marie is a physical manifestation of his powers. She’s also a lot more than that since she’s a person from the past living again through him and his ability to cut things to ribbons. Like Shinigami in Bleach manifesting their Zanpakuto.

So, I would like to take this opportunity to express my disappointment in this episode. Why? NOTHING HAPPENED. Half of the episode is traipsing the newcomer around town for no reason. The other half is prattling on with Shirou about how he’s in over his head, even though he actually knows what’s going on. The actual content of the episode was the beginning and the ending. We could have had those two scenes by themselves, and had about twenty minutes of whatever fight scene was saved for the next episode. Maybe even had more explanation added to those scenes. So yeah, the writers have dumb priorities and waste a ton of time on stuff we don’t need. You know, like a ten-second clip of Valeria talking to his boss’ chair, with no audible response.

Voice acting was… not bad. The translation seemed pretty clear and fit the video well. Our time with the Germans is limited, and Marie’s French accent is only slightly like their running game of chubby bunny. So, all in all, it feels like the ADR crew came in, put their serious pants on, and did their job. I didn’t hear any deep emotion or exceptional acting going on here, but there wasn’t much to go off of. The animation was pretty average. No errors of note, but the shots weren’t all that complicated or interesting either. The direction of the animation seemed like it took the path of least effort when it saw the script.