English Dub Review: Plunderer “Ace of Flashing Strikes”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

While being attacked by soldiers of war, the school’s power was cut, putting Licht’s surgery in jeopardy. The rest of the class came to his rescue, with Jail leading the charge to restore the power in order to finish out Licht’s procedure successfully. Schmerman gives Licht a special sword to compliment his new super powers. With his upgraded abilities, he takes on the rest of the soldiers by himself, but ends up breaking his vow against killing people. They may have been enemies, but Licht is devastated. Then it’s time for the time travelers to return home, but first, Hina gives Licht a, er, pep talk.

Our Take:

Plunderer has always been a strange show with clashing tonalities. Rihito is a lovable goofball who harrasses ladies, a pacifist who’s also a killing machine. And this week, the show drifts into even wilder territory with one of the dumbest, most groan worthy scenes of all time. Hina’s little farewell speech to Rihito is so bad that I think my laptop almost died just displaying it. Without this scene, Ace of Flashing Strikes is a fairly boring episode that adds almost nothing to the overall plot of the show.

But let’s start with the less interesting part of the episode: the scenes leading up to Hina’s goodbye. Schmerman gives Rihito a sword with instructions to tell it a vow, and then it will be linked to him and his powers. With blade in hand, he takes the fight to the invading soldiers and rescues his friends from certain doom. The battling escalates and eventually, a gang of beefy dudes with explosives wired to them come onto the scene and say that since they’ve lost the fight, they might as well take some kids with them. Pissed off, Rihito loses his cool and unleashes a fury that leaves every one of them dead on the ground.

In the aftermath of the carnage, Rihito puts on an act, then goes off alone and breaks down. Hina goes after him, and witnesses his breakdown, realizing that he’s taking all of the guilt and shame of killing upon himself in order to spare his friends the pain. Suddenly, glowing bubbles are surrounding the time travelers and they are returning to the future. Before she leaves, Hina strips off her shirt, runs up to Rihito, and places his hand on her chest. She gives a speech that seems like it’s supposed to come across as heartwarming, but instead, is just so aggressively dumb. She tells him that if he wants more than just a kiss, he has to survive and remember this moment until they meet in the future. Finally, she concludes the spiel with: “What I mean is, I want to have children with you!” 

For most of Ace of Flashing Strikes, Plunderer is its usual mediocre self. It’s got some relatively engaging fight scenes, unique characters who time travel, and animation that gets worse with every episode. But the addition of the ending scene just tanked the episode for me, and I’m still going to be giggling about how silly it was for weeks to come. At least we got to see the moment Rihito makes his vow, which was probably the coolest moment of the week.