English Dub Review: ISEKAI QUARTET “Decision! Class Rep”

I-it’s not like we’re in some jokey slice-of-life world, or something…

Overview

Roswaal announces that the students are in need of a class rep (and vice rep), so naturally, certain characters jump at the opportunity. Albedo nominates Lord Ainz, while Aqua and Emilia also aim for the position. Emilia wins class rep, and Lord Ains is elected for vice rep. Albedo is also written as the additional vice rep, followed by the rest of the students and their class roles. Subaru, Aura, and Aqua are in charge of ‘Animal Care.’ Tanya, Demiurge, and Kazuma are in charge of ‘Disciplinary.’ Ram and Visha are in charge of lunch. Batrice and Mare are in charge of the library. Cocytus, Darkness, Weiss, Koenig, and Neumann are in charge of ‘Gym.’ Rem and Shalltear are nurses. Megumin is the Intercom.

While the students are split up into groups that feature characters they’d never interacted with before, Beatrice attempts to ask Roswaal what the point of all of this is. He deflects, of course, and no real answer is given.

Our Take

ISEKAI QUARTET sort of has a roller coaster-ish way of storytelling: there will be episodes that slowly build up to a theatrical event, and then when the said event happens, it’s a great episode. This was proven through all the episodes leading up to the talent show. However, with every rise comes a fall, and it looks like since the talent show arc is finished, we’re back on another dip into more casual episodes.

Granted, the sudden placement of the cast into their classroom roles is probably leading up to another big plot point — especially with the emphasis of Beatrice asking him what the meaning of it was. Considering that the purpose of the talent show was to bring the classmates closer together, it makes sense that these class roles probably serve the same purpose — especially since the characters placed together are ones that don’t usually interact. The show is one big, high school ice breaker game. AKA, Hell! It’s just hell!

Since this episode was basically just set-up for more shenanigans to come, it was a little boring. Also, it seemed like half of the time was spent watching the characters talk about some vague sexual thing like how “Lord Ainz has a harem” or seeing Darkness go on a hot-and-bothered rant (unprompted, of course) about how her teammates (specifically Cocytus) were going to violate her. We can have literally any other comedic bit in place of things like this. ISEKAI QUARTET has proved that it’s funny when it uses deadpan humor and other forms of “socially awkward” humor, so why do we need more out-of-place kink stuff? It’s not even awkward humor — it’s just plain awkward.

It could definitely do the show a lot of good to try to skim through as much of the expository/set-up stuff as possible when they want to lead up to something good. Instead: just give us the good! Otherwise, it might not feel like every episode is worth the ride.