English Dub Review: Ulysses-Jeanne d’Arc and the Alchemist Knight “To the Scheming Palace”

Howl’s Scheming Castle

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

During the years Montmorency was mixing elixirs and lost track of time, Charlotte lost her brothers in the war and became the next ruler of France, but her lack of experience leaves her in crippling depression. Montmorency and company head to her castle to ask for help and start spreading rumors about Jeanne being a saint in order to keep her from being targeted and drudge up a fire in the French army, but they’ll go get Charlotte to verify it just to be safe. Though Jeanne’s been really fidgety all day and that’s because…she needs more elixir. Very desperately. Seems she needs a bit of a recharge of it whenever she uses her “Ulysses” power, and the only way she can is through Montmorency giving her a saliva swap. And once enemy troops start attacking them, they don’t really have a choice but to make out right there.

So, after a very thorough and graphic display of a grown man tongue-kissing a twelve-year-old (KILLLLLL MEEEEEEEE), Jeanne swiftly defeats the enemies. They soon reach the palace and request an audience with Charlotte, but his message gets intercepted by Grand Chamberlain La Tremoille, who is apparently his step-brother and has him captured and thrown in the dungeon. There, he is reunited with Richemont, who apparently ended up serving the French army until she reported higher ups trying to assault her and got imprisoned for it. But what she is most hurt by is that Montmorency seemingly abandoned her due to his alchemy work.

Jeanne makes her way to Charlotte and passes a test (with Astaroth’s help) to verify her sainthood. They go to talk in Charlotte’s bedroom and it seems she also felt abandoned by him, but their discussion is interrupted by the same troops from before attacking them. Their leader observed Jeanne’s time limit of three minutes and uses that to wear her out in order to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone. Meanwhile, Astaroth is also captured by La Tremoille.

OUR TAKE

Putting aside the expected creep factor of Montmorency and Jeanne’s relationship (and that is a LOT to put aside), it seems we’re getting some idea of where this plot is going now. Montmorency’s goals are apparently getting the French army fired up enough to fight off the English and he’s using Jeanne to do that. I didn’t really get a sense he was much of patriot for his home country, so this is probably more about his wanting no more people to die…which he has to realize will happen in a war no matter what, but I guess that works as a motivator. He didn’t really come off like he had much of a goal in mind for obtaining the Philosopher’s Stone besides making sure Richemont didn’t die in battle, but that seems out considering he only has half of it left.

The major development this week is checking in on the rest of the old school chums now that they’re older too and have their own ridiculously sexual designs that are in these types of shows. We’d seen hints at where they would be headed at the end of the first episode, like Richemont disappearing on the battlefield and Charlotte being next in line to rule, as well as Phillip’s family siding with the English. Phillip only gets a short cameo here, but we’ll be seeing more of her next episode. She seems more understanding of how complicated things have gotten for her friends, unlike Richemont and Charlotte who are really stuck on being angry at Montmorency, though I imagine that won’t last for much longer. Once they get a common enemy to fight against, they can get back to being friends with harem-y shenanigans.

As for who that common enemy might be, it’ll probably be of some connection to the English, since they seem to be the big bads here. We do see a demonic looking lady in the Opening who has quite the “antagonist-y” vibe to her, and I doubt this show is clever enough to try and mess with expectations about that. I just wish they would hurry up and get here, because this plot is trotting along at a snail’s pace, and I’m not going to be patient with that much longer just because French people like to eat snails. At least we can take comfort in the fact that we’ve survived the first quarter.