English Dub Review: Date A Live “So Be It! 2D It Is!”

Overview: With Kotori’s (Bryn Apprill) guidance, Shido (Josh Grelle) tries his best to win Nia’s (Mallorie Rodak) heart with him dealing with the unique plight that she only likes 2D men.  

Our Take: Nia’s love of 2D men only makes for some enjoyably goofing strategizing from Kotori and her team of love experts. Shido cosplaying a serious, loner of a main protagonist and messing up his traits is beyond hilarious in his cluelessness but also Nia’s over-the top fangirl mode. Josh Grelle nails it with his deeper, melancholy tone too. Shido’s other attempt at winning her heart is funny in trying to voice a version of himself in an otome game. Geek Toys does an excellent job in nailing the aesthetic with the cute and cuddly art direction and game text/UI. But of course that goes south which leads to their latest scheme in Shido and the girls planning to create a manga based on Shido’s adventures with the spirits and publish it at the mangacon Nia is entering in, with her agreeing to read their manga if it beats hers in sales. All so, maybe, just maybe, she will like him. 

Everyone’s own art style is not only fun to watch in their varying skill levels but with some (definitely not Tohka’s kindergarten art) drastically cool art styles that are nice homages to different manga genres like shounen and shoujo. The respect to the medium goes a step further when even Shido and the girls have to slave away at a manga to finish it in time, not totally dissimilar from real life artists. 

Kurumi is also very active in her seeking out Nia once again after saving her initially. She has requests for Nia and her all-seeing book to take down the spirit of origin and eventually use time to gain more power of some kind. It promises to be interesting in how that takes form in how, and specifically, what rules play a role in shaping that. 

We dive deeper into Nia as Shido and Kotori learn about a fellow manga author she befriended that she slowly but surely shut out. Her shutting people out and the root of her attraction to 2D men is them not being able to betray her is a strongly relatable and down-to-earth struggle for people as they drift away from friends, or who they thought were their friends. Kotori believes that’s boiled down to her all-knowing book. However, Shido thinks it goes beyond that as he sees her in a way people don’t, already teeing up that he has got this in the bag because, at this point, he is just a kid at the ice cream shop sampling all his favorite flavors of waifu.

The real life mirroring of a mangaka also just keeps coming with Natsumi, Shido, and the gang working overtime on the pages until she collapses of exhaustion, also not unlike that of manga artists grueling work hours! It leaves off a nice character progression moment for Natusmi that is sweet and endearing in her paying back the kindness bestowed upon her by Shido and the other spirits to Nia. With the crew finished with the manga and the convention imminent, Tohka and the other girls’ surprise that they teased to help Shido is still up in the air, offering a fun lingering mystery as to just what that is.