English Dub Review: Radiant “True Courage -Bravery-“

“The real secret of magic lies in the performance.” -David Copperfield

 

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Seth and the villagers stare in awe at the new arriving sorcerers, the Bravery Quartet and their leader with the striped pajamas and starry underwear. They detain the Nemesis and tell everyone to evacuate while Seth acts as a decoy. Seth is overjoyed to be getting a chance to prove himself and work alongside others like him. Just like before, fighting the Nemesis is tough for Seth, but he manages to lure it away and chain it up.

Unfortunately, it turns out the Bravery Quartet are actually thieves who use confusion and panic during Nemesis attacks in order to rob them. Seth walks in on them tying up some of the villagers and his heartbroken to find this out, but they see it as the right thing, considering regular humans only hate sorcerers and blame them no matter what. Seth just wants to protect others because it’s right, but is it worth it to protect those who will only see you as a nuisance or a threat? The leader decides to pay him a cut for helping out and starts to leave.

Seth responds by punching the money right back in his face, refusing to become anything like them. But he’s no match for four experienced sorcerers, swindlers or not, and things only get worse when the Nemesis breaks free and comes charging in the bank. The Quartet gets away, but Seth defends the villagers, releasing the unexpected power that even shocks the leader.

OUR TAKE

Once again, if you’re gonna follow a formula, you should at least follow it well. Radiant continues to do just that as Seth is given a hard test of character from people he admired and a tough lesson he’d have to face sooner or later. We learned last episode that sorcerers aren’t exactly the most well-liked profession, especially with the associations to the monsters they fight. The ironically named Bravery Quartet to give us a look from the sorcerer side of that situation. Just as victims of Nemesis attacks can’t help but view people who are part-Nemesis and only show up to fight Nemeses as just as bad, not every sorcerer is going to be as noble and altruistic as Alma. It’s only natural that some of them would eventually see little point in saving people who only fear and hate their kind just out of a sake of duty and want something out of it.

Going back and watching the beginnings of some typical shonen shows, it almost always seems to start by highlighting the corruption of the world at the start. The special job that heroes begin the story wanting, such as being a ninja or a hunter or a pirate, is initially seen as ways of combating what’s wrong with the world. Then it turns out that it’s really just a job people take for any number of reasons, and very rarely is it just for a good cause. That’s where the hero character tends to come in, usually down on their luck even worse than most and thus understands feeling powerless better than most, in order to be this potential ray of hope for the restoring the former glory of that job and bettering the world as a result.

Whether we’re headed that route here is hard to say, but we’re not wasting any time putting Seth’s idealism through its paces. He’s gotten a taste of how gray both the regular and magical world can be right out of the gate, meaning he’s going to be less naïve as things go on. This isn’t anything revolutionary or even exceptional in this genre, but it’s a sign this one knows how to read the manual at least. Given the notable examples of stories that fall on their face trying to mimic this, it’s nice to see this has the right mindset. Definitely going to make this a smoother watch than I expected.

Score
7/10