Is it try to try to pick up boys in a dungeon?
What They Say:
Lefiya dreams of fighting in the dungeon beside someone she admires: Ais Wallenstein! When monsters attack the Loki Familia camp, will Lefiya be able to prove her worth?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
DanMachi was a fun show when it aired two years ago, perhaps exceeding most expectations of what could easily be a boring RPG formula with obnoxious harem antics. It was far from a masterpiece, but it used its tropes cleverly and gave us some iconic characters that would blow up fandom for some time. While Bell was the actual protagonist, the star in the eyes of the fandom was clearly his intriguingly dressed goddess Hestia, a truly lovable character for a variety of reasons. Even without that bias, she was unquestionably the female lead of a show with something of a harem aspect and, despite Hestia’s clear love for Bell, the girl he had his eyes set on was the one who saved him at the beginning of the series and perhaps the one with the least personality of the main cast, especially compared to Hestia, a powerful swordswoman named Ais.
So when our return to DanMachi after two years is a spinoff not starring Bell or Hestia but instead Ais, it’s hard not to wonder why this was what we got from all the possibilities out there. This is, of course, an adaptation of another light novel series, but in addition to the anime adapting a spinoff over more of the series proper, a rare move when the main series has only run for a single cour, one could easily wonder why this is the focus of the spinoff series in the first place. Isn’t it safe to assume at this point that everyone wants more Hestia than Ais (everyone except Bell, that is, but there are few viewers who would empathize with his priorities), or at least something that would feature more of the more interesting cast members? But to be fair, Bell and Hestia are the stars of their own series, and if there’s any way that Ais almost has to get the development that has been a little too slow and steady in the series so far, it’s in her own story. It’s a neat idea that we don’t see executed often, especially for anime adaptations; giving a lesser character their own series does ultimately enrich the world more by reminding us that everyone you see is the main character of their own story. If we ever do get a proper second season, this spin-off will surely prove to have been beneficial to appreciating Ais as a character in her original context and role.
J.C. Staff returns to adapt this spinoff, keeping the aesthetic and animation quality on par with its parent story. When spinoffs are adapted, it’s not uncommon for them to go to a studio that won’t treat them with the same care, so it helps the series a great deal to be in the same hands and with consistent treatment. The battles we see in the first episode are very similar to those we would see in its predecessor, but the consistency is most prominently felt when the episode reaches its climax that ties into the iconic introduction of this world from the original series. This is the best case the series can make for its purpose as a version of the story we know told from a different perspective, and since Ais was always known to have an involved story of her own, it’s something that does give hope for a more interesting series of events than initially anticipated.
In Summary:
DanMachi is back, in a sense. There’s not much of Hestia to be had outside of some cameo shots that many of the old favorites also get, but that doesn’t mean all is lost. Ais may not have been the best character in a series that didn’t give her the most focus, but in her own starring role, it looks like she has much greater potential to prove herself worthy of her importance, if not necessarily Bell’s obsession with her. With the same animation we’re used to, it’s a good start.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Anime Strike
Review Equipment:
Roku 3, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.
