English Dub Review: Million Arthur “Captain Dancho”

Fun-fact: soccer in anime is called “boring.”

Overview

Dancho and the crew run into a literal team of Arthurs — a soccer team, that is. In order to destroy their Excalibur, they agree to defeat them in a soccer match. The fairies take their places in a mock stadium as announcers and cheerleaders, while the Arthur Hunters suit up as players. Dancho deems herself captain, and immediately places everyone in positions that are only offense-friendly. Dancho then proceeds to yell out all her directions as the team plays, making sure nothing is kept a secret from the other team (who would want that?) The plays are all terrible and Renkin — named as the goalie — immediately starts to get her skull beat in from all the goals she is unable to block.

Things are looking grim for the gang (who promised their loyal servitude to the Arthurs if they lose.) They kick out Dancho as team captain and start to make their own plans — which (surprise surprise) actually work. Renkin starts using tai chi techniques to block the ball, while everyone else makes strategic plays. The Arthurs decide to whip out their Excalibur (some kleets) and use it to cheat. Dancho — who reappears and takes credit for the team’s progress — convinces everyone to use their powers, too. They do, and win — the Arthurs respectfully concede to them.

Our Take

The thing about Million Arthur is that because Excaliburs can be anything, it wields a lot of possibility for different kinds of villains and episode themes. It also provides the show with a wide range of tonal mismatch, where it’s no longer readable as to whether the show takes its own narrative seriously or not.

This isn’t a show that had to have the obligatory “sports” episode, but Million Arthur’s goal seems to be hitting every base of episodic anime trope. At least there was only one fan-service scene where someone spontaneously burst out of their clothes. It really can’t be stressed enough: the bar is on the ground!

The voice acting was lower quality than normal, to boot — it seemed that Maza, Kazu, and Zora were very uncaringly voiced, with their voices being unfitting for their character designs (and too similar to one another.) A YouTuber with good mic quality probably could have done a better job. Side characters may be side characters, but when enough sound similarly bad, it’s noticeable.

Finally, once again: Dancho remains to be terrible, unlikable, and the canon even recognizes how terrible and unlikable she is. Once again, it makes way more sense for Renkin to be the leader. The team even kicked Dancho out in this episode, which is enough to make anyone wonder why they put up with her at all. In the very least, it was fun to have an episode (mostly) without her.

Other genuinely good things were the meta “20 characters is too many,” line, and the “storyboard artist does not know the reference,” bit. Speaking of which — what was the reference, anyway?

While this was yet another filler, it was more tolerable than others — but who in their right mind turns on an anime to watch sports?