English Dub Review: Re:Monster “Re:Sist”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Parabellum continues to decimate the human army’s forces under orders and pay from the elves, but end up facing a greater threat in the form of Phillip the Bug Brave, who manages to put up a fight against Gobrou thanks to his own blessing from the gods and escapes.

OUR TAKE

The ongoing war between the humans and elves continues to be the closest thing this show has to story arc, though despite that, it doesn’t manage to really feel like something that’s any more important to any of the characters than a standard job. Like I get it, they’re mercenaries, so they don’t really have any big investment in any of what’s happening aside from completing the job. As we’ve seen for the past couple episodes when everyone got their big power ups, every fight pretty much gives all the key fighters a chance to show off their skills, but because their character can basically be boiled down to just what they add to a fight, it just reminds me of how thin they are in terms of characterization. Unfortunately, I can also levy that criticism at Gobrou himself, who still feels pretty light in terms of character development even after all these changes. I can at least understand that he wants to fight to protect and provide for his group, but I guess I expected more by this point. We do get a sense of his more crafty side when he gives the human prince the elves’ cure, but to what end that’ll be is unclear for now.

But the highlight of the episode is the fight between Gobrou and Phillip, who proves to be the first real challenge that Gobrou has faced since that big red bear back before he turned Hobgoblin. And it seems the reason for this is because Phillip has also been blessed by a god like Gobrou, Gobkichi, and a few of the others have. Apparently, at least according to the show’s Wiki, there are multiple tiers of gods and blessings, and Gobrou’s blessing is from the God of Demise and Origin (basically life and death), one of the five big gods, because of course the main character gets the biggest and bestest blessing from the biggest and bestest gods. Anyway, Philip manages to get away so this very likely and hopefully won’t be the last we see of him, but it’s nice to see there are some who are still a bit of a match for Gobrou. Philip also mentions an “awakening”, which Gobrou doesn’t understand but is likely referring to what will eventually be the power up that turns his red markings gold and get him his strongest form that we see in the opening. So yeah, let’s see where that goes!