English Dub Review: Akashic Records of Bastard Magical Instructor “The Place Found for Oneself”

It’s a nice day for a red wedding.

Spoilers Below

Today is the day. Sistine and Leos are getting married. The entire class is glum, not just because she’s marrying a complete jerk, but because Glenn Radars is MIA. Did he run scared? No. Rumia consoles Re=L with the knowledge that Glenn is laying low until he can figure out a good plan of attack. He will show up to rescue them. Sistine is saying her vows, and the priest skips right past asking if any would object to this pairing to get straight to pronouncing them, man and wife. Pressed because he couldn’t make his dramatic entrance, Glenn barges in with a smoke grenade and runs off with the bride. Initially, she objects, but Radars knows why. He figured that Leos threatened Rumia. That Leos was working for the Researchers of Divine Wisdom.

Nope, he was wrong on that last point. That man she was marrying wasn’t Leos. He was desperate, but this was someone cold and vicious. How vicious? How about sicking the zombified victims of the Angel Dust drug on Glenn, Sistine, and the wedding attendees? The Mage Guild arrives to escort the wedding to safety, while the heroes run for cover. Along the way, they are confronted with Leos. No. Not Leos. This is the man responsible for killing Glenn’s beloved Sara, and unleashing the Angel Dust on the town. Jatis Lowefan, former # 11 of the Imperial Court Mage Corps, The Justice. You know, that one dude at the end of the opening credits looking all awesome in his top hat? That jerk. So what was the point of all this? Some play to get his hands on Rumia through Sistine? Nope. All that was a ploy to lead things up to this point, where he and Glenn fight. Why? Okay, I’d tell you, but it seems like its gonna be the plot of next season, so you should just watch it yourself. It’s fightan’ time! Glenn uses an impressive array of tricks to take on Jatis and his army of Tulpas. A dagger, a mage gun, throwing needles, and a barbed wire whip. All pre-enchanted to reduce his casting speed and mana drain. The two seem pretty evenly matched until Sistine joins the fight. With her incredible mana reserves and potent spellcasting abilities, Glenn takes the upper hand in the fight, forcing Jatis to flee with promises to return. With that, all is well in the city of Alzano again, and Glenn is free to return to his true calling: teaching.

The season finale did not disappoint when it comes to action and revelations. Between the nuptials of the walking dead and the battle against Jatis, we have plenty of spellcasting and acrobatics to go around. I loved all of Glenn’s toys. It reminded me of the many toys of Harry Dresden from Dresden Files. And magical revolvers are always cool. The villain could have used a bit more work. He’s still a bit more nebulous and ill-defined to be really menacing. We aren’t entirely sure what he wants beyond these Akashic Records, which have been referenced a couple times but never really talked about. He seems to have megalomaniacal intentions for these Records, and has a serious beef with the empire, but it isn’t explained why yet. Why this required him to go all this way to fight Glenn, I don’t even know if the writers understood. It feels like a sudden sucker-punch. Hey, this is the plot-Forget that, that was all just a fakeout. If that was all he wanted, why not just go up and attack Glenn? Duh! He’d never see it coming! By going through all of this, Radars was ready for a fight, and Sistine was capable of backing him up. If he left alone, Sistine would be incapable of fighting on his level. Oh, well. Dumb villains never read the Evil Overlord’s list…

The animation is great here, especially during the zombie fight scenes. They’re coming in from all angles, and moving better than normal people do, and with Glenn’s fun toys for this soiree, there’s plenty of opportunities to get dramatic angles and quality animation. They didn’t waste them. Josh Grelle pulled off some great lines as Glenn in this episode. The opening sequences in the wedding had good comedy, while the battle with Jatis has some deep, full-bodied rage simmering. Rachel Messer did an okay job, I guess. She made Sistine’s feelings show up in her performance, but it was very surface level. I didn’t feel like the character’s thoughts were going through her head as she was saying them. Still, it wasn’t enough to be pulled out of the show’s experience, so I was still entertained by the whole thing. I give this episode nine magical revolver rounds out of ten. Because I use one with a ten round clip, why not? Stick around, because pretty soon, I’ll have a summary and review of the whole season right here on BubbleBlabber!