English Dub Review: Shangri-La Frontier “Those Who Illuminate The World’s Darkness”

Overview

Bilac finds jewelry among Sunraku’s loot. In order to show them to a jeweler, she introduces Sunraku to Aramiys, the swordsman of Cazzeria, and vice-captain of the Musketeers in Boots. Later they head to Eighthold where they encounter the Professor…


Our Take

In the aftermath of Sunraku’s encounter with the Crystal Scorpions, Bilac is pleasantly surprised by the rare materials he brings back. However Bilac reluctantly reaches out to an unlikely associate of her’s she calls “Ignoramus”, aka Aramiys, Vice-Captain of the Kingdom of Cait Sith’s Musketeers in Boots (voiced by Ian Sinclair), to create weapons from the materials. Despite their love-hate dynamic, Bilac needs Aramiys to contact his friend D’Arynaata for assistance.

As Sunraku focuses on upgrading Bilac to “Ancient Blacksmith” status, his in-game email messages from Oikatzo and Arthur are temporarily ignored. Aramiys, intrigued by Sunraku’s exploits, decides to accompany them on their journey, further enhancing Sunraku’s reputation. During a visit to Eightfold, Sunraku’s ghost apparition robe attracts the attention of a strange pink-haired girl (with a hilariously unusual voice), who introduces herself as the Professor of the Game lore clan, The Library. And goes as far as to extend a friend request to Sunraku, inviting him to join their group…

Overall, this was a weird way to end the season due to how abrupt and random everything went, yet it was pretty much what I expected it to be. A laid-back episode and given everything he had just accomplished. At times the pacing felt a little off, yet it made up for it with great animation, characters and a proper VRMMORPG world with interesting mechanics, In the end this anime is just about teenage boy who enjoys playing video games with his friends, even if he didn’t always get along with them. But with the recent announcement of Season 2 coming later this year, there’s anticipation for further exploration of this unique gaming world and how Sunraku’s achievements will potentially shape the story moving forward…