English Dub Review: The Silver Guardian “The Door to Zero/ A Reunion Through the Mirror”

When Suigin met Rei… the first time.

Overview (Spoilers)

Suigin has finally beaten the raid boss on level sixteen, Aslan. The boss is now just a mask and a mass of blood, while Suigin holds his core in his hand. That core contains all of Suigin’s sealed memories, which can be unsealed in level zero. Before he can make his way there, however, our hero finds himself ambushed by the Silverback gang, a bunch of stuck up punks who are also a million players. These guys are definitely up to no good, and start making trouble in the neighborhood, flopping their asset graphs (bars that show how much money you have) like elephant trunks. They assume that Suigin just got lucky since he’s got no real equipment on. He must not have much money. He doesn’t even know how to display his asset graph and when he does… It pierces the heavens… Well, that’s not good for them. Their field leader calls them to action. Just one little fight, Nishikaze says no quiero: “you’re jumping in my mirror and we’re going to level zero”.

Okay, seriously, no more Fresh Prince jokes.

Only Suigin and the mask of Aslan can go through. After all, the level isn’t open to the public for another seven days. Once inside, there is nothing but a withered tree, with a top that curls around itself in the form of an oval… or a zero. The leaves have all fallen off, but they are in the shape of the Grave Buster Logo. Aslan tells him, as we all kinda guessed before, that to recover his memories, he has but to eat the fruit. I mean, that’s kind of explicit with a fruit. You don’t unlock a fruit. You don’t wind it up. You eat i- I’m getting off track. As soon as Suigin takes a bite, his memories come flooding back. Memories of this place. The tree was alive then, and more full. In the trunk was a fluid-filled sack, which itself contained a girl. A young girl with pink hair. Suigin remembered being there as a little boy, escorted by his grandfather. The girl was being drained of her magical power in order to protect the secrets of the place, and in exchange, she would get to live a normal life. The tree releases her, and she shares a moment with young Suigin, before passing out from exhaustion. With that, his grandfather sealed his memories to protect him and encapsulated them in Aslan’s core.

Oh, but things aren’t done. No, no. The leader of the Silverbacks isn’t too happy that this guy Suigin took all the glory. He uses his relic to fire a beam directly at the door to zero. It’s a superpowerful attack that can only be used if there are over a thousand players in the stage. With that size, its bound to take out Nishikaze and Farin as well! Then, Suigin steps out and catches the blast with one hand. He’s got new duds, courtesy of the loot from beating Aslan. The Bloody Armor sends his HP through the roof, and this attack only brought it down by one fifth. Still, he can’t get cocky. The enemy is headed his way.

Our Take

This episode was the one where we were supposed to learn all of the important stuff. Suigin’s memories would be unfurled and everything was going to make sense. Nope. Nope on a rope, pope of nope, down the slope of nope. Literally, everything in Suigin’s revealed memories is bits of story that have already been revealed, it’s just that Suigin is too oblivious to piece it all together. We already knew Yuuki Riku was his grandfather. We understood that Rei was the key to incredible power. Why else would the bad guys have kidnapped her in the first place, but still be willing to lead Suigin to his memories? It was also stated that she was of guardian lineage. Almost nothing is revealed by the episode… Almost.

You see, while the episode looked like it was intended to draw back the curtain, the real point was to deepen what was already there. If you hadn’t put things together, this would have cemented it. If you had, the episode would provide an emotional context for the actions of the characters. From moment one, Suigin has been concerned for Rei. Though neither remembers it, that meeting has been on hold for most of their lives. They’ve tried time and again, subconsciously, to reconnect, but it has been cut short each time. Cut short by their lives as guardians. On the other side of the equation, we have Farin. The more he obsesses about Rei, the more depressed she gets. Most of the time we see this, the director has kept it to the edge or corner of the screen, while important action and dialogue happens elsewhere, so it’s easy to miss. She’s obviously become smitten with Suigin, probably impressed with a guy that doesn’t put her up on a pedestal or fall for her illusions. A guy that, despite his tunnel vision, treats her like a person and not a doll. This was not the focus of the episode. It was just present. Characters developing from a plot that isn’t theirs. I like that.

The animation and art were inconsistent. At some points, the art was brilliant. Bad guys were creepy, good guys were cute and cool when needed. Suigin had real gravitas in his new gear. So, what happened when we weren’t looking at a major character being awesome? Garbage. The “extras” were low-fi, simplistic doodles that barely looked like the same show. The Silverbacks were inconsistent in their art and were even incongruous in number. At one point, hundreds. Others, barely a dozen. The field leader was consistently inconsistent in how he was drawn. As he bounced from being an extra or a threatening villain, the amount of detail in his art would plummet and soar. Also, extras almost never moved. Ever. They just stood still. Maybe one of them would move their mouths. It was as if they saved the episode’s budget for the more important scenes, which I guess is wise management. However, it drives the episode all over the place visually.

The voice acting was… okay. Nobody gave an excellent performance here, except for the leader of the Silverbacks. The character’s name has been a bit hard for me to track down, so I can’t tell you about his voice actor. He sounds so familiar, I’ll likely kick myself later for not picking it out. He was legitimately creepy and threatening, so that was worth it. Unfortunately, the “extras” brought the episode down in this department yet again. Some of them were so forced or campy, it couldn’t be believable. Every time the Silverbacks talked in perfect unison, I cringed. It was… in need of work. Nobody is going to have an unruly gang learn a complicated mantra and repeat it as one on command. It… no.