English Dub Review: Tales of Wedding Rings “Episode 11”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Satou and his friends have arrived in Satou’s world with no way to return to Arnulus. Satou suffers from being unable to fulfill his duty as Ring King when Amber, the Ring Princess of Idanokan, the Land of Earth, appears before him.

Our Take:

We found out that finding the Earth Princess wasn’t easy. Of course, it was due to Idanokan being destroyed by the war against the Abyss King. Even worse, the darkness-shrouded figure had risen to corrupt everything in sight. As a result, Satou was sent back home along with the other princesses, indicating that his journey had reached its devastating and anticlimactic end. But that isn’t the case since we’re nearing the end of the first season, and the second season has just been announced.

Since the previous episode ended with the princesses scrambling around in Satou’s apartment, I became concerned that this would be the context of the penultimate episode. It has the usual fish-out-of-water elements that have been played out in other movies and shows, with the princesses getting used to the modernities of Japan. Considering how its humor turned out so far in the show, I was worried that this long-running joke might drag it further into the ground. However, I was relieved to see that it only happened in the beginning.

Afterward, it’s tossed aside for the episode to display the burdens surrounding Satou and Hime. Satou felt guilty that he couldn’t perform his duty as the Ring King now that he was sent back home. As for Hime, she quickly accepts to live her life on Earth because she can’t bear to lose Satou in a fight she believes he couldn’t win. The couple eventually faces their guilt when the dwarf princess, Amber Idanokan, arrives with the Earth Ring, but with a twist. Amber is actually a robot modeled after the princess when the dwarves went extinct. She was also sent to Earth to guard the ring and find the Ring King. More importantly, Amber can open the portal to Arnulus, meaning the gang can return and finish what they’ve started.

This episode was a mild surprise for me, which is good since we’re close to the season’s conclusion. What seemed like a pointless filler episode involving the princesses appearing “normal” in the real world became a solid yet basic turning point for the show’s protagonists. I would even credit the episode for pulling the reverse-isekai trick, even if it doesn’t reach the heights of Dead Mount Death Play. With all five rings in Satou’s possession, the battle between good and evil can finally begin.