English Dub Review: Sorcerous Stabber Orphen “The City That Rejects Sorcerers”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Orphen and friends team up with the bandit they found last time to enter the city of Kimluck, which is heavily religious and rejects sorcerers.

OUR TAKE
Moving on from the story arc presented in the first two episodes, we now get to further expanding the worldbuilding, this time with what will likely be the main focus of the season. Seeing as this season is titled “The Battle of Kimluck”, it seems that a lot will be happening in this city, which will be interesting as it seems to culturally shun the concept of magic in favor of its own organized religion. Intriguing that these are things that don’t overlap in this fantasy world, but also not something without precedent. It could be a bit of a parallel between the common conflict between those in scientific fields and those who are heavily fundamentalist, where magic in this allegory is just what is used to move forward in understanding the world around them. It does also seem that this religion, revolving around the “Weird Sisters”, is a bit of a cult, focusing more on keeping people in obedience and servitude than being much of a real religion. Whatever may be the case here, it looks like it will be the central conflict of the season, which still has ten episodes to flesh this matter out, so I expect it will get a lot more layers to it as the season goes on.

And it’s not like it will just be Orphen and his allies that are the only ones involved here, as we also see Azaile Cait Sith and the two dwarf boys Dortin and Volkan. The latter two are easily considered to just be comic relief, so I don’t expect much from them in terms of major plot involvement, but Azaile is a different story. Through my cursory watch of the first few episodes of the first season of this remake, Azaile is the first major antagonist, having a major connection to Orphen’s past and upbringing as they grew up at the same magic school. Azaile went rogue after an experiment turned her into a giant dragon and then had her take over another character’s body, but since Orphen defeated her, she’s been a bit of wild card since. It’s very likely she has her own motivations for being here that will more than likely bump into Orphen’s, and their tense history is going to create some drama, but I assume eventually things will mellow out between them once they identify the true enemy involved in all of this.