English Dub Review: ENDRO! “My Hero!”

Yusha’s not just a hero, she’s her own unique self!

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Yusha’s having trouble being recognized as the real hero. But luckily, that’s about to change! Rona, the princess of Lapanesta, has arrived on the scene to find the true hero, and she quickly verifies Yusha as being the one she’s searching for. After meeting, the princess rapidly takes action to get Yusha the respect she deserves, like planning a Hero’s Festival complete with Yusha cakes and a raging monster.

Everything would be fine, except Mao accidentally mistakes the monster’s tail for a napkin, and sets it loose on a rampage. Thankfully, the situation is easily handled, and the festival is a success. The next day back at school, Rona transfers into the class, and Mao becomes suspicious of who she really is.

Our Take:

The fifth episode of ENDRO! opens with something new. Or someone, actually. We’re introduced to a brand new character: the (very fluffy) princess Rona of Lapanesta kingdom. Rona commands much of the episode, and she’s a pretty interesting person to get to know.

Princess Rona has been waiting and longing to meet her hero and even though Yusha is a girl, Rona only hesitates for a moment before throwing herself into dedicated service to perform her every whim and take care of her every need. There’s a lot of cute scenes between the two of them. They definitely have some nice chemistry, but it’s still too early to tell if there’s any romance going on. ENDRO! doesn’t seem like the kind of show that will lean into any romantic aspects at all, but we’ll see. Even without any romantic notions, I’ve got a lot of questions about Rona and her motivations. She comes across as being bright, but almost single-mindedly focused on courting the hero and being their ‘hype man’. Are there any further reasons for this than what Rona explained? Mao seems to be getting suspicious of her true nature and based on some oddly-phrased comments that only the former demon lord can hear, I’m a little quizzical myself. It would be super cool if Rona somehow took a turn and became the main villain since Mao probably is not going to fill that role anytime soon.

This is definitely a Yusha episode, and it’s nice to see her get some recognition as the true hero of the realm. (Or, as Rona says, of “this era”.) In fact, the whole party gets some additional attention from their classmates that they’ve never experienced before. It’s kind of nice, as Mei points out: “I personally enjoy the sound of their praise.” To be fair, though, who wouldn’t enjoy getting the day off of school and going to a festival complete with delicious Yusha cakes and a very strange theatre act. The cast in the reenactment representing our hero and her party are all very tall and have photorealistic masks of each girl fastened over their faces.

My Hero! had a lot of solid humor going on. The gag about barnacles growing on the legendary sword because Yusha got it covered in beach sand is hilarious and wonderfully in-character for her. Also, Mei’s random comment about knowing a guy who had barnacles growing out of knees is a great summation of her character, which is still probably my favorite of the bunch. One of my favorite jokes this week was when Princess Rona tells the girls that she eavesdropped on their plans for lunch. “Nice work,” Fie responds. “that’ll save us time explaining.” It was an all-around funny episode this time!

The dub was good, with whoever voiced Rona doing a nice job coming into the cast and holding her own. Some fun lines include Fie’s dissertation on the nature of their royal government: “We’re all just convenient servants of bureaucratic politicians in the end.” Seyra’s relief at being recognized as the true hero’s party is pretty great, too: “Now people won’t give those weird fake smiles anymore!” 

Episode five of ENDRO! came through by being pretty darn good. The addition of Princess Rona adds a new shot of energy into the series, and her introduction includes plenty of new mysteries to unravel. I’m especially interested to find out if she’s connected to Mao in any way. It will be fun to see how her relationship with Yusha develops as well. Now, I’m off to find a Hero Festival near me and get some Yusha cakes!