English Dub Season Review: Shachibato! President, It’s Time for Battle! Season One

Overview:

What happens when adventurers and adventuring companies are supposed to be following the same rules and guidelines as modern-day office workers? Shachibato! President, It’s Time for Battle! (henceforth referred to as just Shachibato!) answers that question in mostly entertaining and hilarious ways. When Minato is asked by his childhood friend Yutoria to take over as president of his missing father’s adventuring company he reluctantly agrees. The Kibou Company as it’s called has some other employees as well. The soldier Akari, her brother the priest Makoto, the accountant Guide, and Yutoria the secretary round out the starting group. Two more get added later with the wizard Marika, and the talking Maju (what they call monsters in this world) Mineko.

Shachibato! is based on a phone game that released in 2019 and the anime originally aired in a pretty jam-packed Spring 2020 season. My hats off to Funimation for continuing to go back and dub shows they weren’t able to because of, let’s just say 2020 in general. They did this with Gleipnir, Listeners, and Tamayomi just to name a few. I imagine they will continue to do this as they continue to improve on their dub from home process. Thanks to them, Crunchyroll, and HiDive for continuing to dub shows with all the craziness in the world for us fans to enjoy. Let’s dive into the world of Shachibato! and discover if it’s worth your time.

Our Take:

Shachibato! has a message and it is not subtle about it. Japan has a huge overworking problem and Shachibato! takes aim at the issue with most of its monsters, their attacks and abilities being centered around this idea. The problem is so prevalent that it has its own name, Karoshi, or “death from overwork”. Most of the time it wasn’t too distracting and was handled pretty hilariously. One example was in episode 6 when a boss Maju used an ability that turned Akari and Marika into “corporate slaves”. Under the influence of this ability, they performed menial tasks all while saying things like “Must do unpaid overtime” and “Will work all weekends” in a zombie-like tone. There was a boss Maju that was a Cerberus with three heads but the three heads were the boss, manager, and subordinate. Which they defeated by pitting the subordinate and boss head against each other with the manager head stuck in the middle. Not very subtle right? I was not expecting any sort of message in a cutesy anime based on a phone game so this show earned my respect in that regard.

I really had a lot of fun with this show. A lot more than I expected to have. In my experience anime based on phone games are “misses” more often than “hits”. A show like this lives or dies with its characters and this show has some very charming and enjoyable characters, with some excellent voice acting. I want to go a little more in-depth with the voice acting so I will cover that a bit later. Minato is our main character and there’s a little mystery to him. I was expecting the typical “Yeah he seems weak but he’s actually OP” trope and while it’s kind of like that I was pleasantly surprised with the direction his “secret” went. As the president of the Kibou Company, Minato issues orders in battle and never participates directly. This is a not-so-subtle nod to how the game was played. Minato gives us a couple of “power of friendship” speeches, whether you find those cringey or not depends on how you feel about them.

Then there’s Yutoria, the childhood friend, and she fits this role to a T. There’s a small and unfortunately unfulfilled romantic subplot with Yutoria and Minato. Minato goes out on “dates” with almost all of the female cast but it becomes rather clear where his heart lies. Especially when Yutoria gets sick and must be nursed back to health by Minato. Yutoria is the secretary of Kibou Company and does not usually participate in battle except a few stand-out moments. Such as killing a slime whose weakness is its business tie it wears. Episode 10 was an excellent episode to showcase the chemistry between Yutoria and Minato. We got what was essentially a dungeon date cause no one else could join, and as you can imagine hijinks ensue.

The sibling adventurers Akari and Makoto were not represented equally. Akari stood out quite a bit throughout while Makoto did not have many moments to show till pretty much the end of the season. Akari is teased as a love interest for Minato but as I stated earlier, it’s pretty obvious who he has feelings for. Though I think she just respects Minato as he spends a lot of the season earning her trust and respect. Early on we get introduced to Marika who becomes the wizard of the group. Her grandfather left her a treasure map and she enlists the help of the Kibou Company, agreeing to split the treasure with them. Marika fills the tsundere archetype for us (“I-i-i-it’s not like I want to give you the treasure… Baka!”). As I said Makoto gets a little development later on but even then he gets overshadowed by a new character. Makoto shows off how big of a Maju nerd he is when there is a rumor of a talking Maju. This is when we meet Mineko, a precious cinnamon roll who deserves all the head pats. Her introduction pretty much stole all the wind from Makoto’s sails but they make a (potentially) cute couple so I suppose it’s a fair trade. Finally, we need some rivals and that is where Rivar and Valmi come in. Rivar is the typical annoying rival who you want bad things to happen to. Valmi on the other hand is a schemer, she is the one that works out Minato’s secret. They fit their role but nothing really to write home about.

As far as the voice acting goes there isn’t really anything bad or any miscasts in my opinion. There are three I want to mention because they are some of my favorites and they do a solid job here. Josh Grelle as Minato, Grelle or as I like to call him “Mr. Harem protagonist” cause he voices a lot of harem anime protagonist’s. He brought a lot of life to what could of been an otherwise by the numbers boring main character. This was a somewhat different role than I am used to of Jill Harris who voiced Yutoria. Jill’s most stand-out roles for me personally are tsundere’s like Black Clover’s Noelle Silva and The Quintessential Quintuplets’ Nino Nakano. Jill did a really good job and her and Grelle did well together, which helped build the chemistry between Yutoria and Minato. Last but not least was Tia Ballard as Guide, I feel Tia has one of the most recognizable voices in the VA industry. She really broke out to me as Zero Two in Darling in the Franxx, but she has always been solid. Guide was given sweetness and charm thanks to her performance. Honorable mention to Eric Vale who plays Minato’s dad in a video recording. He does those aloof characters really well and this is no different, there just isn’t much screentime to warrant more on him.

Shachibato! is a feel-good, shut your brain off type show. There are definitely worse shows out there, having said that it also isn’t really anything special. These types of shows are a dime a dozen, the fight scenes aren’t especially exciting and it ends on some serious sequel bait that I feel pretty confident we are never going to get. If you enjoy romance there is enough blushing and substance here for you to at least get a fix but be warned as there is nothing conclusive, sort of like the series itself. Despite some amazing performances and a pretty solid if archetypal cast of characters this show doesn’t do anything special. The office comedy in a dungeon spin is unique enough that I say give it the old three-episode try. The best thing I can say is I didn’t regret my time with Shachibato! which is more than I can say for some other shows.