×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV
Episode 11

by Rebecca Silverman,

How would you rate episode 11 of
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV (TV 4) ?
Community score: 4.6

Have you ever had a moment when you wished the ground would open up beneath your feet and swallow you? In the Dungeon, that's likely to be a death wish. It certainly makes this episode feel like a major case of “out of the frying pan, into the fire,” because the combined weight of the Lambton and the Juggernaut have dropped Bell and Ryu down, down, down into the darkness, and when the episode ends, it's with the two of them wounded in the depths known as the White Palace – the deep levels. The only bright side to be found is that the serpent is dead, from Bell firebolting their way out his gut if not from the fall itself.

There's a lot of excellent whiplash to this episode, starting with Bell appearing to die before a blast shockwave sends him to the one place we (but not Ryu) know he has a chance of survival, the water, but no sooner has he had a truly beautiful moment with Marie than he's back on the surface, fighting to keep Ryu alive in the face of the Dungeon's last line of defense. Even the rest of his party isn't exempt from the rapid see-saw of stability and danger; all of the unrest in the Dungeon has caused the Monster Rex of the water floors to awaken early, and when we end things, they're facing off against Amphisbaena, a two-headed monster out of Greek mythology, said to have spawned from the blood of Medusa as Perseus flew in triumph over the desert. That makes it kind of an odd choice for the usually very well-researched work of Fujino Ōmori, because most mythology makes it pretty clear that the two-headed beast is a desert dweller. But it's certainly impressive looking here, with its crystalline head spikes, Cassandra's nightmare made flesh.

With all of the action going on, Bell's moment with Marie stands out for more than just its interesting use of her blood and the calm blue depths of the water. It's also our reassurance that there's some light in this tunnel after all, even if it doesn't guide us out of it entirely. Marie returning Bell to life (he was clearly mostly dead) is a reminder of the bonds he has with others, and of how those relationships become his strength to help him overcome challenges he wouldn't be able to otherwise. He always repays the favor, as we see when he returns to action with the primary goal of saving Ryu, and it's his purity of heart that allows him to keep going. Bell looks younger and more innocent under the water, possibly just because his hair is a bit more disordered, but it serves to drive home the point that his steadfast belief in others is one of his core strengths. He knows that there are bad people out there, but his focus is much more on the good ones. That belief in the basic goodness of others is what makes him a true hero; sure, glory would be nice, but that's not necessarily what's driving him, at least not anymore. What looks like naivete to some is actually what allows him to continue to succeed.

Whether it will be enough to keep he and Ryu safe down in the depths, however, is an open question. Ryu's gravely wounded, and despite having been healed by Marie, his fight against the Juggernaut has put Bell back in dangerous territory health-wise, too. The sounds echoing around him from the tunnels are unlike anything we've heard on upper levels, closer to the eerie screeches emitted by the Juggernaut than any other monster noises. It's truly another world down there, and not one that looks like it welcomes adventurers. Bell and Ryu would have a hard time if they weren't hurt. How can they possibly survive this now? Bell's plot armor nearly didn't function in that last fight.

I opened this season's reviews by quoting Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem A Dirge Without Music. Some of you may know her by her reputation as a macabre poet. Bell and Ryu have well and truly gone into the darkness, but, as she says in the final lines of that poem, “I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.” I daresay they aren't either, and we have only to wait until eventually they find their way back into the light.

Rating:

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV is currently streaming on HIDIVE.


discuss this in the forum (217 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

back to Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV
Episode Review homepage / archives