It’s about time Bell is truly adventurous.
What They Say:
Argonaut | Wanting To Be A Hero
Based off of a light novel of the same name written by Fujino Omori and illustrated by Suzuhito Yasuda, Is It Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is set in the world of Orario, where adventurers band together and look for treasures in an underground labyrinth known as Dungeon. However, for Bell Cranel, fame and riches are secondary to what he wants to find the most: girls. He soon finds out though, that anything can happen in Dungeon, and winds up being the damsel in distress instead!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As hints of more serious underpinnings have come up now and then throughout this series, the question has come up of whether or not this was a series that could really sustain serious content on the same level of its sillier fare. This is the first episode to bring that question to the forefront, as it’s – surprisingly enough – almost entirely serious. If there’s one problem with this it’s that the transition does seem a tad abrupt, but the series turns out to be quite capable of handling such material with as much finesse as its usual delivery.
What happens in this episode really isn’t a whole lot. Bell fights a Minotaur, and that’s about it. Considering how much of the series has been framed around Bell repeatedly unable to combat Minotaurs, it is a major event for him to have a one-on-one battle and come out the victor, but even that’s not quite the point. More than anything, the episode deals with Bell’s insecurities and inferiority, with the looming threat of yet another Minotaur and Aiz coming to save him from it once again shaking him out of his rosy outlook and realizing that he’s never truly lived up to the title of an adventurer that he’s claimed all this time, especially seeing the Loki Familia, full of far more capable fighters than he’s ever been. The battle is intense, not only consistently but increasingly, but it’s doubly so for the emotional intensity that Bell exudes throughout his passionate struggle. The series isn’t exactly new to this kind of emotional resonance, but never has it been such a powerful driving force for almost every second of an entire episode.
Although that may be the more important takeaway, the quality of execution regarding the fight itself cannot be overlooked. The episode may be comprised of little more than a few similar action sequences, but even without the critical human component, those action sequences were pretty damn incredible. J.C. Staff really went above and beyond the call of duty to make every moment of battle beautifully animated, and the choreography alone is something to behold at times. As climactic moments are reached, the action gets more dynamic, and interesting camera angles are used to accentuate it. A mysterious character we’ve seen pop up whenever the series wants to remind us that it’s got something bigger and more serious in waiting watches on with the rest of us, and has a reaction that you might expect from someone eating a meal from Bell’s Food Wars! counterpart. It’s a simple one-on-one fight that takes quite a while, but it’s excellently portrayed.
In Summary:
In this episode, Bell fights a Minotaur. Surprisingly enough, that makes for one of the more engaging episodes of the series, as it deals very sincerely with thoughts that have begun to really torture Bell’s psyche after having to be rescued so many times. The emotion and the action reach their climactic points and catharses hand in hand, all simple enough but no less powerful for it.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Custom-Built PC, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.