Oh no, what do you do when your clown waifu can barely count?
The World’s Strongest Rearguard Ep. 7
Didn’t our amazing party unseal a god last week or something to that effect? Ah well, I’ve forgotten already! Time to move onto bigger, better things!
- For instance, Atobe’s party is now the top-ranked party in the entire district! They’ve explored… what? A grand total of three floors? Sheesh, everyone sucks here.
- Atobe encounters Falma’s kids and their dog being bullied in the streets. By helping them out, Falma offers to let the dog accompany Atobe into the dungeon! Well, as we’ve already established, only women are allowed to join. Good thing Cion is a girl dog. Her ability to turn her tail into a lightsaber will certainly shore up the party’s defenses!
- Atobe goes to a shop where they butcher monsters for parts. The owner tells this sob story about how his wife died while adventuring, so she turned into a demi-human there and then. She was pregnant at the time, so I guess that makes her daughter like… half demi-human? I don’t even know how that works. Anyway, the father wants his daughter to experience “youth” so he has her join Atobe’s party as well. Good thing she’s not a boy! If she had been the wrong gender, no experiencing youth allowed!
- Atobe meets the leader of the now second-ranked party. The guy seems amiable enough, but he’s also a man in an isekai setting. As such, there’s always a non-zero chance he could be a conniving loser hoping to displace Atobe from his girls!
- Uhhh… Atobe and Theresia have yet another bonding moment. Yes, yes, your mute lizard girl loves you very much.
- The next day, the city is under attack from monsters. Ho hum.
I think that covers the “highlights” of the episode. Can’t wait to see if Atobe recruits yet another female party member in future episodes.
Skeleton Knight in Another World S2 Ep. 7
Plot-wise, almost nothing important happens. A fully recovered Arc takes a tour of Chiyome’s new village. It’s basically just feudal Japan (likely around the Sengoku or Edo period), but filled with beastmen. They mingle, they party, they drink, so on and so forth. At one point, Arc gets into a tug-of-war with Goemon, which ends in an unsatisfying draw. Meanwhile, Ariane apparently swings both ways when she’s drunk. Yeah, this feels like filler.
Right before the episode ends, the party hears the bad news about Danka and how he was attacked by someone using twin blades. So? Lots of people can use twin blades. But the only person who can use twin blades well enough to defeat Danka must be Sasuke, Chiyome’s savior and likely first love! Well, I hate to break it to her, but he’s either brainwashed or a zombie doing some evil asshole’s bidding. Considering how we’ve just seen someone raise an army of skeletons to fight the heroes, it’s probably the latter.
Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs Season 2 Ep. 7
We get more of Marie’s backstory. Basically, she’s just a horrible person through and through. Do I feel sorry for her? Not really. She got herself kicked out of the house by missing her brother’s funeral for a vacation. She got herself involved with shady men afterwards. She could’ve then focused on her daughter, but she once again got involved with another shady man, who would go on to kill her in an act of domestic violence. So what does Marie go and do? Get isekai’d into this world and still try to fill the void in her life with shitty men. Luckily, her suitors here are just idiots, not actually evil. It’s obviously not her fault that men abused her. It is, however, her fault that she constantly failed to see the warning signs. Plus, if you have a daughter you can only see once in a while, why wouldn’t you put all your energy into earning back her trust? Why would you even bother getting into yet another relationship? Even if that guy had been a saint, it still would’ve been stupid and irresponsible. But clearly, Marie is incapable of reflecting on her own actions. She’s a broken soul.
Meanwhile, Olivia is crying, because she thinks she’s all alone. She thinks she doesn’t deserve Leon, Angelica should win the Leon sweepstakes because she’s actually a noble, Leon hasn’t given her an answer to her confession, blah blah blah. First, we know Leon’s going to marry them all (hopefully not his sister), so there’s no tension here. Angelica is all, “We’ll confront Leon together, and we won’t let him run away!” Uh-huh, as if he can only pick one of them. The harem ending is unavoidable, so why are we acting like it isn’t? Yeah, whatever. Second, the kingdom literally needs Olivia’s saintess powers to fend off the Principality, so Leon accepting her love is a foregone conclusion. Third, she and Angelica have barely had roles to play in this season. They’re like bit players. I almost forgot they even existed. As a result, this drama falls flat on its face.
Last but not least, Marquis Frampton gets his comeuppance in front of the king, queen, and the rest of the nobles. Ahhhhhh, who cares about this idiot? Like with Olivia and Angelica, the problem with Frampton is that he’s just a side character. It’s not like he’s this well-developed, overarching villain, who we’ve been following since day one. It’s not like he has some deep, compelling reason for doing what he does. He’s just a cardboard cutout of every power-hungry noble that you always see in anime, and now he’s screwed. Devoting half of the episode to Frampton’s downfall is a complete waste of time.
You have to develop these characters! You have to put in the work, or else there’s no payoff. It’s not complicated.
From Overshadowed to Overpowered Ep. 9
As if everything we learned last week wasn’t bad enough, we now see a despondent Anastasia being led down a dark alley by a bunch of rapey men. You couldn’t just have Eftal catch up to Anastasia. Oh no, he has to save her first! And from rapists! Have I mentioned how she was about to be raped!
Anyway, Eftal is all, “I got you, babe! Don’t you know who I am? I’m the fucking Lightning Emperor! I knew all about your sitch when I took you in!” Wait a minute, wasn’t he about to walk away from her when he initially saved her back in episode… shit, now I gotta go back and read my terrible posts. Hold on, lemme see… yup, I bitched about this exact thing back in the fourth episode:
“So Eftal’s gonna save this girl, right? Well, kinda. First, there is this whole incident with an orc berserker. Don’t worry about it. It’s just an opportunity for Eftal to look overpowered and cool. He then starts walking away while the girl is still in bondage. Eftal then turns around and accuses the slave owner of attempted murder. It’s true; the other guy tried to trap innocent people with the orc berserker just so he could get away. But what’s Eftal’s point, you ask? Well, y’see, criminals can’t own slaves! Oooooooooooh, that’s how you’re going to free her! On a legal technicality! You’re not going to stop him because he’s a slave owner. That would be gauche. Y’see, the problem here isn’t that the man owns a sex slave. That’s totally fine. If he had just been a law-abiding citizen, he would still have the opportunity to dump copious amounts of semen in the girl. Tsk tsk. So once again, Eftal starts running off. Uh, you’re not even going to help the girl? Yes, she’s technically free, but she still has a leash on her. Fucking hell, these so-called isekai heroes…”
But now he’s singing a different tune: “I took you in. And I knew everything when I did. I’ve got your back, so don’t worry about a thing.” You barely had her back back then, asshole!
The next part is almost just as ridiculous. Anastasia returns to her true master and demands the katana back. Her true master proceeds to knock the girl to the ground and repeatedly beat her with the scabbard. You don’t see Eftal, but you know he’s watching. He didn’t save her from rapists just to ignore her now. He doesn’t intervene, however, until Anastasia’s true master is about to bring the blade of the katana down on her. These isekai heroes, man. Of course, the story then tries to backpedal by giving us a flashback of Anastasia begging Eftal to let her atone. Apparently, that means allowing herself to be beaten. Eftal had just told her moments ago, however, that he doesn’t blame Anastasia for anything other than not telling him about her situation. She was a slave — a slave compelled by a crest that is somehow magically backed up by a god — so she had no choice but to obey her true master. So don’t you think a proper isekai hero would’ve jumped in before the girl got beaten?
Anyway, Eftal beats the asshole up. Asshole summons goons to protect him. Eftal beats those assholes up. Asshole also loses his mansion. Finally, Merlin shows up to expel the asshole. But that’s it? He not only owned a slave, he was beating. He threatened to mutilate her. Oh wait, I forget slavery is legal. Beating them is probably legal too. Meh. So what about the god behind the slave crest? Shrug. Guess we’ll deal with that some other time.
The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows How to Game the System Ep. 8
It takes quite a few more tries, but Ruche and Elymas manage to farm up another pricy gold dagger. They now have 34 million gold in their possession. Still, how would you even manage to sell these items? First, you’d have to have willing buyers. Just because something is valuable doesn’t mean people can actually pay for it. Second, Ruche’s right when she says these daggers have painted a target on their backs. Oh well, we can worry about that later, because the dungeon boss has come a’knockin’.
At first, the solution seems easy enough: just leave the dungeon, duh! But right on cue, a couple of injured adventurers show up. Somehow, they got tangled up with the dungeon boss and its minions, so one of the adventurers is practically at death’s door. So what do you do when you’re a goody-two-shoes like Elymas? Obviously, you tell your clown waifu to help the adventurers escape while you buy them time. Is it kinda stupid to throw your life away for complete strangers? Yeah, yeah it is. But I don’t hate it. Earlier this week, I watched a lady murder a company of soldiers who had already surrendered. I’d love to wash that bad taste out of my mouth. It’s okay for fiction to be aspirational, especially for a show like this. None of this grey morality, “life is full of trade-offs” bullshit. Just pure-hearted goodness.
You might argue, “Yo, why are you mad about Eftal saving Anastasia then?” That’s also a morally good act, but the whole setup — Anastasia being a sex slave who offers herself up to Eftal out of gratitude — is where it crosses over into “Ooooh, this is not so wholesome anymore” territory. Anastasia barely has anything else to her character other than being a hot piece of ass, who has also been abused just to garner cheap sympathy points from the audience. Meanwhile, I might joke about Ruche being the clown waifu — and we barely know her because this show took its sweet ass time bringing her back into the story — but at least she isn’t just a piece of meat. And yeah, there’s also a bit of sympathy farming here also, i.e. her former party ditching her without giving her a proper share of the loot. But again, there’s a wide gulf between that and “slave who can’t die and is forced to procreate in order to give her master more slaves.” It’s like, “Geez, chill. I get it. Slave waifu is in a shitty situation. You don’t need to overdo it.”
Anyway, Elymas tells Ruche to run, because he thinks she would be dead weight in the upcoming fight. Oof, harsh. At first, Elymas’s game knowledge carries him through the fight. He thinks he has a narrow path to victory. But this is the “real” world, so the mobs quickly adapt. As a result, our heavy knight finds himself stunned and thus a sitting duck. Naturally, clown waifu came back just to save Elymas at the last second. Corny as shit, but c’mon, you knew she wouldn’t ditch him. ‘Cause this is what RPGs are about. It’s why, as I grew up, I switched over from character action games to RPGs. I love the group dynamics, the teamwork, the camaraderie, etc. I’ll probably gripe about the show’s pacing until the season finale — and the plot is still hella generic — but again, I don’t hate heroes being big damn heroes.
Plus, Elymas legitimately gets beaten up. In so many shows, the MC seemingly wins every fight without breaking a sweat. It’s okay to lose once in a while, especially if it helps you learn that clown waifu isn’t completely useless. I mean, just look at the other shows in this post. Atobe has suffered a minor injury once in like seven episodes. Allen hasn’t struggled with a real fight since the first season (he was never gonna die against Helmios). I haven’t started this week’s episode of From Overshadowed to Overpowered yet, but I’m sure Eftal is about to free his slave waifu from their evil demon classmate. So yeah, it’s a “breath of fresh air” to see Elymas get roughed up a little.
As an aside: wouldn’t it be nice if the injured adventurers are grateful for the help, so they end up joining the party? But they look way too generic to be important characters.
Hell Mode S2 Ep. 7
Allen alone discerns the Demon Lord’s “intricate” strategy: by forcing the elves to withdraw their healers from the front lines in order to defend their kingdom, this will sow discord within the alliance. But why is it that no one but Allen has noticed this? Granted, he’s not actually a kid. Being an isekai protagonist, he’s mentally an adult. But where are the tacticians and strategists coordinating this war effort? No one thought to consider what the Demon Lord was aiming to achieve by invading the elven kingdom? Ah well, maybe this explains why this war has been stuck in a perpetual stalemate. Both sides are too stupid to claim any significant advantage.
But fine, Allen is the only “genius” who can see through the Demon Lord’s dastardly plans. So what’s the solution? Just pure logistical overpoweredness. Need heals? Simply dump 600,000 healing items on the problem. I’m a strong independent DPS and I ain’t need no healer!
The kids are thus off to Rohzenheim, the elven kingdom. Funnily enough, fantasy racism is still in play. Despite the fact that they’re facing absolute extinction at the hands of the Demon Lord’s army, our lovable elves continue looking down on the other races. As a result, Sophialohne advises her party to keep their hoods up when out and about in Rohzenheim.
When they arrive, the snobby elves have a bone to pick:
Stupid elves: “We have over 140,000 injured soldiers! We can’t fight! We must protect the queen and abandon our people!”
Godly isekai hero Allen: “No, you can! I just happen to have a ton of healing items!”
Stupid elves: “Use strange healing items we’ve never heard of! Preposterous!”
THE PRINCESS: “DAMMIT BITCH JUST FOLLOW ORDERS”
Well, not in those exact words per se, but hey, you gotta give me some creative liberty to make this write-up entertaining for myself. A bunch of kids and Allen’s summons then proceed to turn the tides of the war.