English Dub Review: ISEKAI QUARTET “Tension! Introductions”

Class is back in session.

Overview

The KonoSuba, Overlord, The Saga of Tanya the Evil, and Re:Zero characters have settled into the classroom. At the head of the class, Roz from Re:Zero has inexplicably taken on the role of their teacher. After the characters have introduced themselves, Aqua from KonoSuba tries to fight (and kill) the Overlord characters, seeing them all as nothing but demons. Luckily, Kazuma stops her, scolds her, and drags her away. She is punished at school the next day, forced to do chores while the others take their place in the classroom.

Roz reports the students’ behavior to the principal (Kurt, from The Saga of Tanya the Evil) and they begin planning a method to get the characters to “open up.”

Our Take

Back at it again at this wacky high school. If anyone was confused before, they’re probably even more confused now.

Roz from Re:Zero has been revealed to be the teacher for the class — and while Subaru questions why everyone had been summoned to this school, he didn’t bother to question the answer. Beyond getting the cast to “experience school life,” it seems obvious that there’s more going on behind the scenes (even though no one bothered to ask about it.) Even more so, it seems weird that Subaru just accepted Roz as their teacher, instead of wondering how Roz got the position in the first place. Also, how did Tanya’s gang wind up in this world if they were nowhere near her when she pressed the button?

Obviously, fans aren’t going to be watching ISEKAI QUARTET for its common sense. Chibi anime is usually made as a caricature of all its characters — a cartoonier version of the cartoons themselves. There can be times, though, where exaggeration is too much.

For example it looks like Aqua’s voice is going to become a reoccurring problem. While the actress herself is talented, that talent becomes buried whenever Aqua gets upset or excited. To be specific, she has the tendency to run a marathon through her lines, making words indistinguishable from one another (plus, the screaming doesn’t help.) No digs here, though — it’d just be nice to see an improvement. Voice acting for everyone else doesn’t seem to be an issue so far — which is good, because as previously mentioned: it is the most entertaining aspect of the show thus far.

What was funny and entertaining was seeing Roz finally tell one of the overly hormonal girls in the class that their monster boners were TMI (but surprisingly, it wasn’t directed at Darkness. Any time now, Roz.)

Anyway, while the animation remains to be the same, now’s a good time to mention that the opening and ending themes are both really catchy (even though neither of them has subtitles or dubs for the speaking parts. Really, Funimation?)

There are more questions to be answered in upcoming episodes: Why did those Tanya characters decide to run this school with Roz? How did they get there? Will we ever get proper sub/dub treatment?

Stay tuned to find out.