What They Say
Shinichi’s mission is to bring “otaku culture” to this new world in order to facilitate effective commerce between the two worlds. As an expert in anime, light novels, manga, and dating sims, Shinichi is revered and admired in the new world, and an unexpectedly fulfilling real life awaits him!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I wasn’t looking forward to a sports episode in a series ostensibly about otaku culture, but as it’s probably the best and funniest episode of Outbreak Company to date, I regret my misgivings. People who aren’t even following Outbreak Company might even give it a chance, as it stands alone pretty well, and is a great story of best intentions going awry.
Throughout the series we’ve noticed tension between the dwarves, with their brute strength and penchant for loli anime, and elves, with their ability to use magic and interest in BL and yaoi. Rather than bringing the people of Eldant together, otaku culture seems to have only opened up further rifts and avenues for misunderstandings. Seeing his students argue over his great passion brings Shinichi despair.
One day, however, a shipment comes to Minori from Japan including a limited edition golden soccer ball from a popular fujoshi series. Taken by its moon-like shape, werewolf Elvia takes the ball and runs off with it. The ball is ultimately ruined before it can be retrieved, and Minori decides to just give it to the wolf girl so she can get her animal urges out of her system. This inspires Shinichi to try a different method to get the elves and dwarves to work their aggression out: Through sports!
This of course sounds like a terrible idea to everyone but Shinichi, who only knows of sports through its romantic idealization in anime and manga. Through sports, he imagines, the elves and dwarves will learn friendship and mutual respect! And of course, when the game begins, pitting the elves and dwarves against each other in heated competition, things go wrong pretty quickly. The dwarves are way stronger than Shinichi could have imagined, and when elves are finally allowed use of magic as a handicap, the match escalates into an all-out war.
We might expect that it won’t serve to ease tensions between the two races, but it’s incredibly funny to see how quickly the game descends into brutal combat. There are also some fitting anime references thrown in for good measure. The episode even ends on a somewhat positive note with Myucel and Petralka working together to score a goal, and seeing a human and half-elf together challenges some long-held prejudices in the kingdom. It’s uncertain how all people will react to such a sight, but Shinichi naively assumes that it might help improve relations between humans and elves. We might hope in this instance he is correct.
In Summary
It’s hard to know whether Outbreak Company will ever return to the serious look at cultural politics the series had in episode 3, but this episode tops even that one in terms of social commentary. The episode takes all of the themes of the series, from Shinichi’s naivete in trying to introduce concepts of equality in Eldant, the inter-group strife, and cultural misunderstandings and distills it into a self-contained 24 minute show. Happy to be so pleasantly surprised by a series that so often seems to want to turn to cliches.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: Sony VAIO 17″ HD screen
