English Dub Review: The Silver Guardian “First Ally / The Conquest Begins”

Crypto-currencies are all the rage.

Overview (Spoilers)

Ring, ring! Phone for you, Suigin! It’s Totem, the organization within Grave Buster that kidnapped Rei, and they’ve got instructions to recover her. He is to come to the festival, where he will get taken to a raid on level 18. There, he is to meet with a player named Nishikaze (West Wind, if you want the translation), who will escort him to level 0. Though these instructions are complex, they are his only lead. Now back in the real world, Suigin looks out his window to find a bunch of the male students mobbing a girl who looks… familia-FARIN? Even in the real world, she’s adorable, and every guy wants her. Interesting that she intends to move in with him. So, they go to lunch and it’s a horror show. Remember, despite being worth several billion in Grave Busters, he’s been around dirt with more money than him in the real world. Also, Farin can pack away a buttload (that’s 384 gallons) of food. It’s a nice student restaurant, so the bill for HER food comes to over 20,000 yen ($188). Yikes! A bunch of the more wealthy students come to bully him. Since their understanding of him is that of the poorest entity in existence, they keep saying that he can’t even pay the bill. One of them lets it slip, however, that the in-game currency of Grave Busters is now usable as a crypto-currency, and the restaurant accepts it. So, with just a scan of his console, the bill is paid. The waitress freaks out. Her reader can’t handle the number of zeroes in his account!

The two of them retire to his room to take on the festival, but along the way, they discuss Suigin’s reasons behind this challenge. She doesn’t fully understand his relationship with Rei, but he’s her team leader, and she’s gonna follow him. After another feast in-game, they walk outside to find flying penguins dropping diamond rings. These rings are used to teleport players to level 18, where the raid begins. So many monsters appear, and the multitude of players can’t handle them. So, the organizers of the event, Precious, step in. The second in command launches an attack that wipes out the minion enemies in one shot, bringing out the raid boss. This dude is powerful, and he keeps on regenerating as long as he is in his fountain of blood. However, Suigin has another problem. Nishikaze has arrived!

Our Take

To be honest, I found this episode wasted a lot of time. The first half of the episode was all about how much money he had in game, and it is a lot. However, a bunch of time is wasted in the process. For no understandable reason, holograms transfer between his console and the register system, and it goes on for three seconds. Follow that up with a loading screen, and everyone looking tensely at the camera. I felt like I was waiting for a verdict on a cooking competition show, and the MC pauses after every… single… word… I mean, we all know he’s got oodles of cash. You don’t need to waste all this time on it. The good thing about the episode is that it gives us a bunch of lore. Apparently, beating a level clears it out and makes it alterable by players. Empty levels become player towns. That’s a cool mechanic for the game, but as it seems that more difficult levels have lower numbers, it makes it less likely that this game can expand beyond its current point. Is this a clue as to the true nature of Grave Busters?

Also, can we address the fact that every image we have of Rei is of her laying on a bed, looking devastated, and wearing nothing but a shirt that is oversized for her? This is extremely suggestive imagery as if she has been raped by the leader of Totem. Fans of the show, what other explanations you think up for this? It bothers me.

So, that leaves us to discuss the more technical aspects of the show. The level of the animation I see here is equal to the previous episode. It isn’t quite as good as the way it was in season one, but it’s still on par with some of the really solid shows. They’re running with their budget well, and haven’t degraded the quality over the course of the series thus far. The voice acting ain’t all that bad. To be honest, though, I’m not all that inspired by it either. It’s merely there. It conveys information. There isn’t much emoting going on, except Kyle Phillips (Suigin) during his conversation at the beginning.