English Dub Review: Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest “The Goddess’ Sword”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Nagumo stops being a dick for two seconds after Ms. Aiko begs him to stay and fight the oncoming monster army. The gang helps evacuate the citizens and prepare for it, and Sonobe finally gets to thank Nagumo for saving her back in the labyrinth. Tio then requests that she joins Nagumo and the crew on their future adventures (to which Nagumo denies her, only making her more eager.) Nagumo gives a speech to the citizens and dubs Lady Aiko as the prophesied “Goddess of Plenty” for morale.

While the gang unloads their power onto them, Shea then helps Nagumo identify that the monsters are being controlled by someone. As Shea slays them, Nagumo tracks down the controller and knocks him out, dismantling the army. However, Nagumo recognizes him to be one of his classmates; Shimisu.

Shimisu reveals to Ms. Aiko and the gang that he wanted the demons to see how powerful he was. He says his intent was to kill Ms. Aiko, so that the demons would hail him as a hero for killing the goddess. He takes her hostage and threatens to kill her, but a stray shot from atop a dragon nearly pieces them. Shea grabs Ms. Aiko and takes most of the hit, and Nagumo heals Ms. Aiko with a holy water kiss (he pours the rest on Shea.)

Shimisu then begs for his life as he dies, but Nagumo shoots him, devastating Ms. Aiko who still had hope in him.

Our Take

For the first half of the episode, it seemed far better than the last one, which was rife with gross sexualization and fan-service. There was more emotion added to the stakes involved, with Ms. Aiko successfully convincing Nagumo to stay and fight. The speech Nagumo gave (even though it was simply to boost morale among the masses) was the most verbally inspiring thing Nagumo has ever uttered in the series.

However, in the second half of the episode, it seems like, once again, some plot points seemed lost in translation.

The reveal of Shimisu — a character who hadn’t even been introduced in the series thus far — as an antagonist seemed to be missing an element of surprise. It was surprising to see a student as a villain, but this student has never been involved in the show. He seemed to have a personal vendetta against Ms. Aiko (“Don’t tell me what I want to do, you damn hypocrite!”) but it was never revealed. Probability says that this was cut for time — which made the impact of this scene weaker than what it should have been.

Oh, also? They just couldn’t resist making Nagumo kiss his teacher, could they?

A running theme in this show seems to be, “make this scene sexual for no reason.” One would think that an adult woman would be safe from being paired with a teenager, but nope! They just had to do it. Also, it’s laughable how Nagumo fervently denied letting Tio join the party, but by the end of the episode, she was in the van with the rest of them.

It just goes to show that there’s only one type of female character they want on the show.