English Dub Review: The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me? “Political Marriage? Are You Kidding Me?”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Well meets with Cardinal Hoenheim for a baptism, but the conversation then takes a turn into meeting his granddaughter Elise, who has Holy Magic just like Well. The cardinal wants to marry her off, so Well jokingly offers to get engaged to her, which gets taken seriously and the two are engaged, much to his shock. He then tries to go on a walk through town in disguise as a clown, but people somehow immediately recognize him and accost him for a number of reasons, mostly to try and become his retainer. Erwin jokes about getting the job so Well gives it to him. I guess jokingly asking is the most convincing argument in this world. Louise and Iina get word of this and decide to become Well’s concubines instead.

Well then goes to see Elise in order to get to know his new fiancé, so the two spend some quality time. He’s a bit hesitant to get married to someone he barely knows, but she quickly wins him over. They later have dinner and go pick an engagement ring. Well picks one for Elise that she at first thinks was picked because it would help her magic, though really he just thought it looked pretty. The two bond over their shared cumbersome reputations.

OUR TAKE

Downtime episodes are to be expected around this time a series, but I don’t think that really warrants them needing to be so incredibly dull like this one was. The main focus is pretty much on Well getting engaged by accident to Elise, being hesitant about it because he’s the audience surrogate due to his knowledge of our world, then getting over it because she’s…okay, I guess. I dunno, there just wasn’t really anything that felt like it moved things forward. Well gets engaged not without an active decision on his own for his own reasons, but because he joked about it and it was taken seriously. Similarly, Erwin doesn’t become Well’s retainer by proving his worth as one, he just jokes about it and that’s taken too seriously. Why are we just having these things be stumbled into instead of being used to DEVELOP THESE CHARACTERS.

And I dare say this episode didn’t do any favors for the female cast. Elise’s whole schtick seems to be just being dull and pleasant, which I guess goes for good wife material here. I don’t think we would need to force much drama in this, but it would have been potentially interesting if, say, she had conflicting feelings about being married off and being around Well helped her realize they have the same goals and dreams so their relationship could be bonded by more than “well, we’re both famous and powerful, but you treat me like a human being which is apparently rare!” And then there’s Louise and Iila’s plan to become concubines, which I’m sure is going to end with a “oh you want it that badly? Okay, go ahead.” Because that’s what this show seems to think counts as payoff.

We’re not even half way through this series and I am scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to say positively about it. Not even the veteran voice cast can really save the material that feels so derivative. I wish I could say I see some inkling of hope going forward into the second half, which we’re not even at yet, but I can already tell that this is probably not going to be a fun series to review. Whether it’s due to the clear cheapness of the animation or the writing being obviously asleep at the wheel, I’ve been given pretty much every reason imaginable to be the opposite of hopeful for the remainder.