English Dub Review: How NOT to Summon A Demon Lord “Hero’s Charge”

Huh, that was actually pretty cool. Maybe this’ll work ou-GOD DAMMIT.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The Force Hydra turns out to be more powerful than expected, having four heads each with a different elemental attack and the ability to regenerate. Although, really, you should expect regenerating heads from a hydra. But this is apparently yet another thing that was not found in Cross Reverie, leaving Diablo briefly at a loss on how to defeat it. Luckily, Shera informs him that the beast has a core that acts as a weak point, so he uses an all encompassing electrical attack to put it down for good. With his last trump card defeated, Keera is defeated. Diablo goes for the killing blow, but Shera stops him, saying that she still cares for her brother despite what he’s done. Keera uses this chance to make a break for it. Looks like we won’t be seeing again for a long time…

…because a sudden attack comes out of the blue and decapitates him! Lord Galford has arrived with his army to piggyback off of Diablo’s work and declare a lopsided war against the elf troops so he can seize Greenwood. Diablo objects, so he’s sealed in a magic barrier, while Alicia is told that even if she reports this, the king will side with Galford. Diablo makes use of the magic sensing skills he learned in the slave market to dispel the barrier and challenges Galford one on one. He proves to be Diablo’s greatest challenge yet, requiring even some of his Level 120 spells, but he still manages to use his gamer knowledge, find an opening, and defeat the lord in the end.

Hoping to dissuade fighting further, Diablo tries intimidating Galford into surrendering. It works, but the group ends up getting stiffed on the reward since Galford was the client in all of this. Still, they do decide to heal up the injured elf troops, and while Shera mourns her brother’s death, she’s safe now. To celebrate, Sylvie comes by Diablo’s room the next day to have a light drink. Unfortunately, even his muscly Demon Lord body is lush, and he ends up mistaking Slyvie for a body pillow, throwing her on the bed, and passing out on her. Let me remind you that Slyvie LOOKS LIKE A CHILD.

OUR TAKE

Well, aside from…that last part, this episode picked things up considerably in terms of pacing and action. I totally expected the Force Hydra fight to be just a one two punch like the first episode, and even said so in the last review. However, despite it still taking not even a full five minutes, the episode still managed to make a rather intense clash out of the whole thing, using Diablo’s knowledge and lack thereof of the game to keep him on his toes. Likewise with the Galford fight, which was very different by being more close quarters and requiring different tactics, as you would between two regular sized human fighters compared to defeating a giant monster.

In terms of wrapping up the story arc, this was definitely a strong finish, resolving all plot threads set up in Episode 5, and setting the stage further for the greater mystery of how much this world does and does not resemble the world Diablo knows from his game. The magic sensing skill also from Episode 6 unexpectedly came back into play this soon, even if it was for a rather small point. I still can’t help by roll my eyes on Shera’s entire plot with her brother, but at least we got to get some interesting development out of Diablo out of it, as well as a much more threatening end boss. This all wraps up Shera’s big character arc in the show, and it seems Alicia will be taking on her role of tritagonist behind Diablo and Rem in the final four episodes.

And I know this is a fanservice show and fanservice is gonna happen, and feel like I’m gonna be coming off as a prude here, but I just have to say it: Can we PLEASE NOT have the girl character who unambiguously looks like a MINOR involved in the fanservice moments? Her regular outfit is barely enough material to act as a placemat. So do we REALLY need to see it being taken off in the ED? She wasn’t even in the episode until the end and now she’s placed right next to the OTHER virtually nude little girl character in the credits! The levels of uncomfortability are achieving heights never thought possible! There are some things I can tolerate in anime, but this is becoming harder and harder to…WAIT NOT LIKE THAT.

Aside from that very sour last few minutes, this is probably the most solid episode this show has had yet. Hopefully, we can carry that into the last arc of the season.

Score
7/10