English Dub Review: ENDRO! “Quest Practical!”

Quests can be really fun, especially when there are cats involved.

Overview (Spoilers Below):

It’s time for our heroes to take on their practical quests! After getting assigned a quest from the local adventurer’s guild, they’re excited (or not) to learn that they have to.. find a cat. Things go pretty well, and they learn some new cat finding techniques. Unfortunately, they keep getting assigned cats to find, and it gets old quick. But when they finally do get assigned a different job, they run into a little girl who needs someone…to find her missing cat.

Our Take:

We open with another intro skit, where the girls are sitting around in their room and chatting. This time, they’re discussing the upcoming practical quests that they hope to be assigned during the next school session. Their wishes include quests involving food, rare loot, and horned gorillas. (Okay, the horned gorilla thing is just Seria… something is definitely up with that girl and her gorilla obsession. Time for an intervention?) Her gorilla fantasy is just over-the-top enough to be funny, and couldn’t help but chuckle at the lengths she goes through to concoct a story that has all the key ingredients in a classic adventure – with a former king’s illegitimate son and all.

The rest of the episode keeps up the intro scene’s dedication to passable comedy. I think that this episode was probably my favorite one yet, due to the fact that we get decent jokes and even a bit of actual plot, especially towards the end of the episode. The ‘practical quests’ assignment process is funny, but also a bit sad. It seems like at first that the guy handing them out might be giving them the worst, most mundane tasks just because they’re all girls. While others are hunting for valuable loot or rare creatures, our band of heroes gets to find lost cats and… more lost cats. It makes for a fun setup where they imagine becoming friends with all the cats in the realm, and enlisting them in their fight against the demon lord. (He’s charmed by all the cuteness, and vows to give up his evil ways.)

Things get a lot more interesting once they finally get a real quest, and set off for adventure. Of course, the real quest gets quickly derailed by a small child’s request for them to help her discover her missing cat Michael, but still. This is a nice little illustration of what makes them heroes. Sure, a couple of them may be overly-obsessed with food, their mage would rather collect rare cards than use them to prevent her friends from starving, and their elf doesn’t want to wield a bow because she’s nearsighted and refuses to wear glasses… but they will always stop to help those in need. And that’s what makes a hero, right?

The English dub this week is a mixed bag. There were some nice lines, but also a number of awkwardly-phrased ones, too, like this one: “Heck yeah – put that grub in my belly!” I think it’s supposed to be funny, but it comes across as just plain weird. I do have to appreciate the fact that they embrace their cat finding skills: “We’re professional cat finders.” Finally, I think this line cemented Mei as my favorite: “You guys are such nerds.”

Episode three of ENDRO! puts our heroes through some frustrating quests, but managed to not frustrate me. Mostly this is due to having jokes that are kind of funny most of the time, and the addition of a plot thread that had me intrigued. (What is up with that tower, anyway?) ENDRO! still has a lot of issues, like how unmemorable the characters are. I still don’t have all the main party’s names memorized, and I’ve watched over an hour of their banter. I hope the show can keep up this streak of good stuff, and add to it.

Score
7/10