English Dub Review: Infinite Dendrogram “The Beginning of Possibility”
Taking place in the highly-advanced future of 2043, Reiji Mukudori buys a copy of the titular game “Infinite Dendrogram”, which is said to be the world’s first full virtual reality MMORPG. Upon entering the game, he is greeted by a talking cat-person named “Cheshire”, one of the A.I.-beings in charge of overseeing the game, who tells Reiji he must choose an online alias. So Reiji chooses the name “Ray Starling”.
As Reiji/Ray arrives at the Kingdom of Altar, Ray encounters Liliana Grandria, an NPC who asks for his help in looking for her missing sister Milianne. Shu, Ray’s brother, offers to help in the quest, but after finding Milianne in an abandoned orchard, they’re under attack by giant demi-drag-worms.
With Shu dragged underground and Liliana fighting elsewhere, only Ray is left to bring Milliane to safety. Fortunately, Ray awakens his “Embryo/Summon” ability reminiscent of a final fantasy Summon power and calls forth his personal Embryo called “Nemesis” who manifests as a sword with a freakishly large design that’s reminiscent of Siegfried’s sword from Soul Calibur 3 and 4 and ends the episode making quick work of this worm-monstrosity thereby, finishing his first quest.
Our Take
Along the lines of shows such as Sword Art Online, Rising of the Shield Hero, and Overlord this falls under the “Isekai” sub-genre of the anime spectrum as it has many of the familiar story cliches and tropes we’ve seen in those stories where the main character is sucked into a videogame/fantasy-type world that he/she is stuck in and embarks on a quest to either attain freedom or to find themselves.
The dialogue in this show is a bit cringy at times and I hope they further elaborate more on the “in-game mechanics” which was properly explained and utilized in Shield Hero because the concept of Dentrodram’s game-world is pretty silly but It’s not every day you see a bear wielding a mini-gun like he’s Rambo, or a talking cat in those worlds either.
Overall, I’m not gonna say this isekai show is gonna be mind-blowing but who knows at this point since this is a new series that needs more time to further set itself apart and hopefully gives the protagonist and by-extension other characters the proper investment, growth, and progression they deserve.
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