English Dub Review: Radiant “Proof of Strength -Progress-”

The gloves come off! And back on. And then off. And then on again.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

During training, Seth ruins his gloves, making him especially distraught because it was a gift from Alma. Yaga takes this opportunity to give him gauntlets made up of Black Silver, a substance that blocks Fantasia. He tells Seth that he’s lost sight of what this training is for, so he’ll be wearing those until he figures it out, or he’s expelled. To make matters worse, his, Melie’s, and Doc’s collective debt has reached astronomical levels, forcing King Majestic to have them do manual labor to start paying some of it off, but with the gauntlets on him, things are way harder to do for Seth.

The plot kicks in as the members of the Bravery Quartet land in nothing but their undies, having apparently given Alma the slip…somehow. Seth and Melie catch them planning their next heist, leading to a fight. Their boss tries appealing to Seth’s sympathies again but to no avail. However, when he starts to slip over the edge, Seth leaps over to catch him with a broom, even if it means getting rid of the gauntlets to properly do it. Seth goes back to Yaga, expecting punishment, but he’s left off the hook for using his magic for saving someone, which was the point all along. He even gets new gloves which better help to harness Fantasia, meaning his training’s about to get harder.

OUR TAKE

As the saying goes, “there’s nothing new under the sun”. Having watched a number of shonen shows and read a ton of shonen manga, I know a lot of the beats pretty well. My growing irritation with Radiant is how safe it’s continued to play things (at least in anime only material), and we have another example of it here with the “main character is depowered to learn a lesson” episode. On the bright side, this is far better structured than the last two have been, having it set up a problem (Seth needing a reminder of using his magic for a greater purpose than just becoming stronger) that is naturally developed and concluded by the end.

The main problem I have with their use of it is the way the Bravery Quartet is brought back into the story. I’m already disappointed that we didn’t get to see Alma again, so that didn’t help, but this sort of revisiting of early chapter baddies is both premature and half-assed. For one, Seth hasn’t changed nearly enough since his first encounter with these guys for this to not be just a watered-down repeat of their far better interaction from only a few weeks ago. The next major appearance these guys have should be after the next significant story arc is over to show how far Seth has come, but also how much farther he still has to go.

Second, the thing (or at least one of the main things) that made the Quartet’s con job so effective was that their reasons for BEING con artists were based in an understandable logic: regular humans hate us sorcerers anyway no matter what we do, so why NOT take advantage of them while they’re running for their lives? If we’re going to be bringing them back, it should be in a situation that, like last time, proves they have reason to only look for the worst in people while Seth is given a chance to prove that notion wrong, and maybe he doesn’t succeed this time, but at least he learns more about the world and himself.

Third…the Bravery Quartet is just not that interesting. Like Launch is a pretty blatant reference to Launch, these guys are very clearly an homage to the Ginyu Force, but without just about ANY of the charm, personality, or even remotely interesting character designs. I was surprised they managed to be compelling foils for Seth at all, so that’s what I’d like them to pursue, not just dig up and rehash them while they pad out the show.

It looks like we still have a couple weeks left before we finally move onto the next proper part of the story from the comic, but I guess it’s a bit of a relief to see that not all of these are just packing peanuts. I’d put this one in the “good idea done terribly” pile, which is certainly better than I can say for the last two. And next week takes an interesting turn as we get to see a Villain Episode!