Review for Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? Complete Season 1 - Collector's Edition

Introduction

Anime has always been a ‘now’ thing, although there was a different value of ‘now’ before the whole streaming revolution. Back then, the fansubbers and the bit-torrenters got their community juices flowing first, as the shows would air in Japan, then typically the US fan community as a whole would celebrate the latest thing as it was licensed and released in the US, and that wave of fan fervour would ripple across the world as the show would be licensed and released in local territories. It didn’t matter that Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex had been out for weeks or months in the US, as it felt like a big, big thing when it did get to the UK. But now, the whole world streams anime, almost day and date with the Japanese domestic broadcasts. That’s when the ‘now’ thing happens.


2015 was the year of the boob ribbon. Everyone was talking about Danmachi, a.k.a. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, particularly its most prominent character’s dress sense. Hestia’s boob ribbon, which you’ll no doubt see in the screencaps became an instant talking point, a cosplay must have, an internet meme. That was then. But the show comes out on home video in 2017, after the wave of fan fervour has ebbed away. Of course the show will sell like hotcakes given its prior exposure, but you won’t get the same passionate appreciation from fans as they discover the newest thing (they’re probably talking about Attack on Titan Season 2 right now). Sometimes I miss the old pre-online streaming days.


I suppose it could get pretty stolid being a god, lounging about atop Mount Olympus, sipping ambrosia, reminiscing about the good old days when there was more smiting. It could also get pretty boring just looking down on the world instead of interacting with it. Apparently long ago, the gods sealed their powers, and descended to the mortal realm seeking excitement. All that was left was the ability to bless adventurers enabling them to fight monsters. Those blessed would become part of a god’s Familia. Although some gods would have more worshippers than others, have more status in the world. The goddess Hestia has just one adventurer in her Familia, the unlikely Bell Cranel, who is a whole novice at this dungeoneering thing. It’s getting so bad that Hestia has to take a part time job. But Bell Cranel has an unexpected talent...


13 episodes are presented across 2 Blu-rays in this Collector’s Edition release from Animatsu. You also get the show on DVD as well.

Disc 1
1. Bell Cranel – Adventurer
2. Monsterphilia – Monster Festival
3. Hestia Knife – The Knife of the Goddess
4. Supporter – Weakling
5. Grimoire – Magic Tome
6. Liliruca Arde – Reason
7. Ais Wallenstein – The Sword Princess
8. Argonaut – A Hero’s Aspiration
9. Welf Crozzo – The Smith

Disc 2
10. Pass Parade – Monster Procession
11. Under Resort – The Labyrinth Paradise
12. Show – Malice
13. Familia Myth – A Tale of Family

Picture

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? gets a 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p transfer on these discs. It’s broken record time again, as I once more skip through the usual litany of appreciation. We have a solid transfer of an anime series here, clear and sharp throughout with strong consistent colours. The image also comes across without aliasing, with smooth and fluid animation, and with the minimal of digital banding. It’s what you’ve come to expect from anime in high definition. Hestia’s boob ribbon is the gateway into this show, and that little element of costume design is carried off well, but the show has generally agreeable character designs, and a solid, fantasy inspired world design. The animation is of good quality for the most part, but it really does perk up for the action sequences, touching theatrical quality at its best.

Sound

The show offers the usual DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese, with English subtitles and signs locked to the appropriate track. I have to admit that I didn’t even try the dub this time around, sticking to the original Japanese audio. The characters are cast well for their archetypes, and the actors deliver enthusiastic and lively performances. The action comes across well, as does the music, with the stereo offering much in the way of dynamic sound design. The subtitles are timed accurately and are free of typographical error.

Extras

The discs present their contents with static menus. There are translated English credits at the end of each episode.

Disc 1 autoplays with a trailer for Amagi Brilliant Park.

Disc 2 offers the textless credits, one of each, plus trailers for Amagi Brilliant Park, Chaika the Coffin Princess – Avenging Battle, Cross Ange – Rondo of Angel and Dragon, and Trinity Seven.

I haven’t seen the retail release to comment on the physical extras.

Conclusion

The boob ribbon is not enough. Sure there is a lot to appreciate about Hestia’s character and costume design, and the same is true for many of the other characters, while the show’s animation is really solid throughout, making the most of the characters and their quirks, really excelling in the action. But visual aesthetics aside, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? ultimately doesn’t succeed. It’s a show that promises much, but fails to deliver. Fortunately, the road to non-delivery is an entertaining and colourful one, this is a show that you can engage with, and it’s a lot of fun to watch. But like many a summer blockbuster movie, it’s after the fact that you realise just how hollow and unfulfilling an experience it has been.


It’s deceptively ineffective at world building. At first glance it seems really well constructed and quite deep, really indulging in the Ancient Greek mythology, and throwing in gods from a few other pantheons as well. Gods just want to have fun, so they seal away their powers and come down to interact with mortals, and as you might expect, they wind up being the central focus, patrons of groups of adventurers. The goddess Hestia is a minor deity, and at the start of this story, she has but the one follower in her Familia, Bell Cranel. The show is all about the Adventurers, and they sally forth into the dungeon on a regular basis to do battle with monsters, all to level up their abilities and gather loot. And that is as effective as this show gets with its world creation. It’s an RPG world, it’s all about adventurers levelling up, and the fact that the dungeon itself makes no logical sense is by the by.


But where the show with the long, cumbersome name excels is in its character building and story development. The show begins by introducing Bell Cranel and his goddess Hestia, showing the average day of a novice adventurer, just how wimpy Bell Cranel is (he ran away in shame after being saved from a minotaur by a girl, Ais Wallenstein), and the fact that despite this, he’s popular enough to have something of a harem gathering around him (especially the waitresses at a local inn), something that makes Hestia divinely jealous. All that Bell wants to be, in proper anime protagonist tradition, is strong. And typically, he’s different enough from everyone else that he has a penchant for levelling up, despite his whiny personality.


The first few episodes are actually a little dull and uninspiring. I was already drawing comparisons to The Sacred Blacksmith, another show that allows its character archetypes and fan satisfying storytelling to overwhelm any particular creativity or originality, and also another show where the boobs are the stars. But then the show introduces the Supporter character, a young girl with a Mayoi Hachikuji sized back-pack whose job it is to support adventurers as they go about their business in the dungeon. She’s had a hard life, a dark past, and she’s wholly cynical about the world, expects to be mistreated, and she’s all about sticking it to everyone before they can do it to her. And she signs on with naive, likeable and trusting Bell Cranel. Following that, Bell actually spends some time training with Ais Wallenstein, the blonde girl who so panicked him before, and we get to learn more about her, and her Familia. Then there is Welf Crozzo, a blacksmith turned adventurer with a complicated past of his own who also joins up with Bell Cranel to go adventuring.


All the while, we learn that there are dark dealings afoot in this world, with several people showing undue interest in Bell Cranel and his successes and failures, most notably a semi-naked woman (assume goddess) who is always following his career with villainous attention. And towards the end of the show, we meet another god, Hermes who has a particular interest in Bell.


The way that the show unfolds, the story builds, is like a rich tapestry being created, with more and more threads being added, the depth and complexity of the story really coming to life, and drawing you in. It gets interesting, edge of the seat exciting at times, and you really do want to know more. But when it comes down to it, the show never actually delivers on any of this. It’s all so much promise, and not enough satisfaction. Instead of revealing what its story is about, the final few episodes focus on a mission into the dungeon, deeper than Bell and his friends have ever been before. There they wind up facing the toughest challenge yet, requiring a whole lot of big budget animation and magical explosions on screen to convey. The character nuances and secrets that you really do want to know about are forgotten for the most part. The only bone that we get thrown in this regard is a throwaway line from Hermes revealing something of Bell Cranel’s ancestry, a spoiler which I won’t repeat here.


Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is fun to watch, and its strength lies in its characterisations. The animation is strong, the storytelling is paced well and draws you in, but ultimately the show is a disappointing one, a show that is obviously open-ended with an eye to a sequel. Alas we miss out on the OVA episode with this collection, while the Sword Oratoria series that MVM have licensed for release isn’t a sequel per se, rather a side story focussing on Ais Wallenstein.