English Dub Review: Date A Live IV: “Fairy Tale”

Overview: Shido, Tohka (Michelle Rojas), Nia (Mallorie Rodak) and the other spirits get trapped in a strange new place inspired by real world stories and fiction. 

Our Take: An odd little fairy tale transpires indeed with Shido and the gang being sucked into a world created by Beelzebub. It is a fun mishmash of different classic fairy tales and modern manga woven together like Shido being a porker from Three Little Pigs or Nia, Fatima, a gunslinger from her manga Silver Bullet or Tohka as Momotaro, one of Japanese folklore’s most renowned heroes. 

Kotori is also cute in her realization of The Little Matchstick Girl and Kaguya and Yuzuru as the titular siblings from Hansel and Gretel. The crew regroup to find the coveted talking mermaid in Miku who is The Little Mermaid, who didn’t get her voice taken but was captured by a fisherman instead. Natsumi joins the group with her persona being Cinderella as they go to a ball as princesses, including Shido. At the epicenter of all this ridiculous is Origami as a naked emperor because why the hell not, right? It is just one layer of madness baked right onto another that is absurd and entertaining all the same.

Maria and the Ratatoskr crew, although they do not get very many of them, get their moment to shine. Albeit brief, it is interesting to see how they cope without Kotori at the helm, along with Shido and the gang missing in keeping a level head. They are also just as pleasantly weird as the world Shido and others are subjected to in fending off Westcott’s forces with rage, induced from broken figurines, as well as voodoo, (Yes, that actually happened) to protect Fraxinus and head to Zodiac. 

This episode tosses out some crazy ideas in how it adapts stories in its own weird way. However, it really doubles down on and goes for balls-to-the-wall when Shido asks advice from the manga version of himself, that was created by him and the girls, about the true help that Muruko really needs. Besides being entertaining in seeing more of a cliché cool guy protagonist version of Shido, it makes for a clever way of reaffirming Shido’s inner resolve in sealing all of the spirits’ powers as well as wanting to save Mukuro from her pain. That said, Mukuro’s trauma was obvious from day one, and while it took a somewhat roundabout route to get there, it, at least, was smartly executed. The gang escapes, making their way back on the Fraxinus and setting course to Mukuro. Overall, it was a fun side diversion with wacky fairy tale twists, that is good for some nonsense and few laughs that nicely leads to some development for Shido. However, it would have benefited from genuine raised stakes, as opposed to a lighthearted romp, with this critical of a conflict at hand.