English Dub Review: The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter “The Troubled Classmate”

Overview


After reaching his goal to make “$300,000” in gold and using it to enroll in the Hero Academy, Noir finds out about the social ladder when he’s ignored by his classmates since “Baronet” is a title awarded to commoners for service to the kingdom.

A duke’s daughter named Maria goes out of her way to treat Noir as an equal and actually looks out for him no questions asked, but finds out that she has a curse that will kill her on her “16th Birthday”. In response to hearing this, Noir is determined to return her kindness by going on another quest to remove her curse once and for all…


Our Take

As expected, the Hero School is infested with arrogant high-class noble jerks, unlike the Baronet-level Noir, which is a dime a dozen. Aside from the main premise alone, one of the bigger highlights involves a hot female teacher being slightly inappropriate with a 15-year-old student in front of her entire class, yet this anime still wants to have Noir discriminated against which gives off an inconsistent tone.

Rather than the recurring fanservice which is very down-played in this episode with the exception of two scenes, the “16th birthday” death curse plot takes center stage for a character we just met. And apparently removing it requires an abundance of XP which would be too time-consuming. And it doesn’t help that Lola’s friend just so happens to be a cleric that doesn’t take a lot of curse-removing related jobs, the problem is how to earn that much within a week with her help.

I’m left curious about Maria. She comes across as a kind soul and the quest to cure her is compelling enough to keep watching.