English Dub Review: Smile of the Arsnotoria “Ding Dong”

Overview

Today is the day for the special night lessons. Arsnotoria and her friends enjoy the campus at night while making their way over to headmaster Solow for a hands-on session of magical botany. When they get to the moonlit greenhouse, they see something they’ve never seen before!

Our Take

A night lesson for the Pentagram schoolgirls with Solow involving botany, and the deep depths of Ashlam Academy can feel like a ghostly nightmare session instead. Picatrix and Abramelin’s dance scene looked low-key majestic, there’s that, and when the other girls (Arsnotoria, Mell, Little Al) join in, they create a ruckus, but all’s in happy favor. In a nutshell, the night botany class has that Harry Potter feel if only enhanced by magic along with the magical feels.

For one, Mell isn’t a night person, and also, making flower tea can have adverse effects by literally using the entire flower, but since this is fiction, let this be a moment of rest between the 5 girls. We’re already 4 episodes in, and these random tonal shifts with a “Warning” sign still can’t tell me where this is going at all. It’s like the show can’t pick a side on what it wants to be.

Overall, in regards to the darker elements and action, I’d guess they want to show bits and pieces before it converges with Arsnotoria (if implied by the intro). It also doesn’t help that they are teasing at darker elements while simultaneously focusing on the everyday lives of the girls, so we ultimately end up having more questions than what we started with. I’m okay with slower buildup but when will we have any story part/episode connecting this soon in such a way that it makes sense?