Princess Connect! Re:Dive

Episode 8

“In which irresponsible adults play babysitter.”

After the largely serious episode last week, this week's episode is much more low key. After a quick montage of adventures, our heroes find themselves in a bit of a rut. They always seem to be doing quests for food and little other reward.

Soon, however, they find themselves on a quest with no reward whatsoever. A group of three young girls wants to be adventurers when they grow up. However, they are smart enough to know what they don't know and are looking for an experienced guild to teach them. In the face of the girls' pure innocence, our four heroes are basically guilt-tripped into taking the quest--lest they shatter the girls' positive illusion of the adventurers' life.

Thus Yuuki, Karyl, Kokkoro, and Pecorine set about planning a beginner's level adventure for the girls to tackle. They give the girls a route to follow, set up some treasure for them to find, and keep a watch on them from the shadows. Our heroes even send along a chaperone. Unfortunately the escort they choose is Yuuki--i.e., the only person more clueless about the world than the little girls.

From this setup, you can likely tell that this is a comedy episode. How much you will enjoy this episode is directly proportional to how much you enjoy seeing Yuuki ineptly care for the children and how much you like seeing Karyl, Pecorine, and Kokkoro running themselves ragged to make sure that no one dies.

That said, there are two interesting things we learn in this episode. The first is the reason that each of our main heroes is adventuring--and the realization that their reasons are less altruistic and more selfish. Kayrl wants money as a reward for a job well done. Pecorine is happy just getting a wide variety of food. Kokkoro wants to do whatever will make Yuuki happy. None of them are out there fighting to simply make the world a better place.

The other important thing touched on in this episode is the fallout from the last one. Karyl clearly expected some punishment for her role in the last episode--fighting off the shadows attacking the village. She was certain of the shadow's source yet chose to help Pecorine instead of simply letting things play out.

Her master, however, gives Karyl a way out on a silver platter--claiming she must have never mentioned the shadows being her doing. Moreover, she tells Karyl she's been doing her mission exactly as commanded by simply relaying what Pecorine is up to. However, this is all just buttering up Karyl to add another layer to her mission: spying on Yuuki.

Karyl knows that spying on her friends is wrong. However, she wants to somehow be true to both her master and the party at the same time. Thus, she is quick to rationalize what she is doing as no big deal. Yuuki and Pecorine are always just messing around and doing nothing of consequence. So it's okay for her to spy on them and report back.

It's a weak and temporary bit of self-deception and one day, Karyl's actually going to have to make a choice about where her true loyalties lie.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Other quests the guild completed include a wagon escort mission, a mining mission, and a fruit-gathering mission. ...I wonder if these are sidequests from the game?

• Wait… What do you mean Kokkoro's a kid? I thought she was just an elf and aged slower? How old is she supposed to be?

• I'm surprised that no one in the party seemed to remember the little girls from when they appeared in episode 3.

• This week's “How Crazy is That?” count: 0 (We got a “yabai” but not a “yabai desune.”)

Princess Connect! Re:Dive is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of experience living and working in Japan. For more of his writings, check out his Twitter and blog.