English Dub Review: The Silver Guardian “Aslan’s Trial / The Final Countdown”

What does Europe have to do with all this?

Overview (Spoilers)

Here we are, at the entrance of Level 0. Suigin gets a facefull of Nishikaze. She lands knees first on his face! However, with quick confirmation of his identity, she grants him a gift. She opens up her Evil Mirror, and allows him to speak with Rei. She seems like she’s alright, but the conversation is cut short. If he wants more, he’s got to get into Level 0. To get there, he has to beat the guardian, Aslan. This bruiser has been building up his power the whole time, summoning giant mosquitoes to kill the peon players in droves and suck out their blood. With that blood, he gets more powerful, and his regeneration is fueled up. Finally, he spots Suigin, and charges. As the two meet face-to-face, Aslan points his maul at Suigin. Eyes open up all over its surface, and it transforms into a key. The key to Level 0! However, before he can head over, Aslan presents him with a test. If he can beat the boss, he regains his lost memories in the form of a fruit.

Oh, you’re a big boy, aren’t you? Aslan transforms into a giant ogre, a form called Bloody Buddha. In response, Suigin uses his Tomb Item, the Raven Scarf. In the past, we’ve seen one of its powers, but here he explains it in more detail. There are seven jewels, each with their own abilities. Which one he gets is a bit of a crapshoot, however. This time, he gets the Raven Sword, which is not only a weapon, but it grants him a huge boost to his speed. This matters little, however, as he knocks Aslan off the platform and into the blood that fuels him. Now at full power, the ogre summons an armored mask. Not only is he no longer vulnerable to the sword, but the blade of the sword shatters! Where the blade ends, a clear mist flows out and fills the battlefield. At the same time, he realizes that he has a flower floating over his head. This is a timer. If he can’t beat Aslan, the boy will die in 80 seconds. Suigin challenges Aslan to give him his best attack. He summons a giant dragon, which flies up into the sky. As the summons takes place, Suigin jumps in to tear Aslan in half. Due to Aslan’s regeneration, that does no lasting damage. Realizing that Suigin is in trouble, the peon players rush in to distract the monster. It isn’t very effective, and Suigin gets tossed like a rag doll. The ogre proclaims his victory, but a little too early. He begins to dissolve into a puddle of blood and a mask. Time for a lengthy exposition! Apparently, the sword is made of pure oxygen, which is the source of its speed boost. When the sword broke, it left a hypercharge in the air, but that worked a bit differently for Aslan. As a being of pure blood, which is iron, being in a hyper-oxygenated environment caused his body to rust. Then, when he summoned the dragon, its electricity turned the oxygen into ozone, which destroyed the cells that made Aslan up. With that, Suigin is free to conquer Level 0. Well, all except for this gang of evil-lookin’ dudes.

Our Take

I take an issue with that whole thing. Blood cannot be harmed by rusting. In fact, the entire point of blood is to take advantage of the interaction between iron and oxygen to transport the oxygen in the form of hemoglobin. You can’t expose blood to iron to make it rust up. In fact, this whole scenario would far more believable if he just used the lightning from the blood dragon attack to ignite the oxygen in the air and blow Aslan to kingdom come. Before you ask, yes oxygen can be solidified, and it turns into a black metal. It’s pretty brittle, but it makes an excellent superconductor. Did the anime play with any of these properties? No. Instead, it ran to rust and failed hard. Good job, guys. Not only that, but the writing focused a huge chunk of time where the characters did nothing but explain this effect. Totally unnecessary. Let’s also compound this stupidity with a great gem of intelligence here from Suigin. His lost memories are in the form of a fruit. He asks Aslan how to use it, and Aslan tells him that only the dude at the end of Level 0 can tell him how. You mean to tell me that Suigin can wax poetic for five minutes on false physics related to iron oxide, but doesn’t know how to use fruit? Here’s a hint. IT’S A FRUIT! YOU EAT IT! Open your pie-hole, shove it in, and begin mastication.

So, the writing sucks. How about the audio? I’m not hearing anything that inspires me. The voice acting was middle of the road: not bad, but I didn’t care, either. That’s rather important for a scene where the hero is reunited with his kidnapped maiden. I should feel some emotion. Ain’t there. The animation, similarly, feels like it was lukewarm. This show has given us much better animation in the past. In fact, the scene introducing Nishikaze, copy-pasted from the previous episode, had better animation and cinematography than what is going on in this episode. I’m all around not impressed with the technicals of this episode. Are they running out of budget for this show? That doesn’t explain the voice acting.