English Dub Review: Helck “Vermilio of the Four Elite Lords”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Helck finishes his tale, Anne reveals herself as Vermilio, and the two finally approach the Demon Empire, but are alerted by a scout of Azudra to head to Human Kingdom instead.

OUR TAKE

So, after eight episodes (a third of the season) of these two wandering around doing fuck all, and seven episodes after that of Helck giving his Director’s Cut prequel saga, he and Vermilio are FINALLY on their way back to the main plot of combating the Human Kingdom and their Awakened forces. We’ve got five more episodes to go and, as I previously mentioned at length, there is no goddamn fucking way they are going to resolve everything in just a couple hours worth of content. But I’ve kicked that dead horse for long enough until it jolts back to life, so let’s talk about a revived dead horse that actually comes up in the episode: Helck and Vermilio going on one last pointless time waster adventure before they actually reconnect with the main plot. They find a powerful monster and kill it, then run into a guide telling them to avoid the monster they just killed, leading to them end up in yet another featureless human town. Like Holy SHIT dude, why is this show so allergic to getting to the story it set out to tell?! Why did they get TWENTY FOUR EPISODES and spend the vast majority on stupid crap like this?!

In non ranty topics, we finally have Vermilio reveal her true identity to Helck after first going undercover as “Anne” back in…I wanna say the second episode? To be perfectly honest, this bit was so inconsequential that I completely forgot about it only a few episodes in. BUT I do have to admit it does have some significance here. This shows the turning point of Vermilio choosing to fully trust Helck after learning of the horrors he’s been through, as well as a return of trust after he gave her the broken Hero Killer blade for her to use on him if he goes berserk. I have a feeling that won’t end up being what it’s used for, instead probably used on a revived Cless, but it still feels worth mentioning that this is actually a meaningful scene. I do wish they had, at some point on their journey, run into a situation where Vermilio had to hide her identity or maybe even use her clout as an Elite Lord but feel bad about lying to Helck, but that’s just one for the pile of things this story has not utilized well. And I don’t doubt there will be more of those as we enter our final five episodes!