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

Episode 6

It hasn't really been a big secret that Bell's supporter Lili was hiding something – her stories were too inconsistent, her dog ears came and went, and, more importantly, she stole Bell's Hestia Knife. Now, in this episode which finishes adapting the second novel in the series, we learn why. As I mentioned before, Soma is a Hindu god with a somewhat difficult mythology, and Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? chooses to focus on his powers of divine brewing. Members of the Soma Familia, we find out, don't worship the god so much as the beverage he makes, and only those members who bring in enough money are privileged to partake of the ambrosia. It's incredibly addictive and the result is like something out of an Ellen Hopkins novel: the Soma Familia is made up entirely of soma addicts, and since Lili's parents were members, this is the home she grew up in. Her parents died in the dungeon and left her to the “care” of her familia, and it's a chilling moment when we realize that the scenes of her in abject poverty, filth, and misery are actually taking place outside the Soma Familia's house, whose drunken revelry can be seen and heard in the background. Does any of this excuse her actions in this episode? It's hard to say, but it certainly makes them understandable, and makes Lili into a sympathetic character, even if not necessarily a forgivable one.

The Soma Familia itself seems to be a metaphor for a sort of drug cartel, something not typically seen in swords and sorcery fantasy. It's a nice change up in the usual fantasy landscape, especially since Dungeon seems so heavily reliant on the basic “Dungeons and Dragons” formula, at least in terms of world building and races. (Prums are almost definitely less-hairy halflings.) The vicious characters of Lili's familia members underlines their dependence on soma very well, and the guild's true nature seems to be some sort of open secret in town – you know, that sketchy neighbor everyone just knows is up to something but no one really wants to say anything about it. Eina learns the truth with the help of her relation Riveria, a member of Loki Familia, and Aiz happens to be there to hear the whole story. This has a major impact on the outcome of the episode, and I assume that we haven't heard the last of the Soma Familia and the problems they create.

Aiz is starting to become much more of a real character this episode, which helps us to see her as more than “the hot one who's good with swords.” (Interestingly enough, she has a pear-shaped figure, which is not the norm in this show.) Aiz feels that she's somehow done something that made Bell mad, and she's worried that he doesn't like her, which certainly implies that she has more than passing feelings for him. We're beginning to see that she's shy rather than cold, which makes her a much more interesting person than she at first appeared.

That's not the only thing that this particular episode does right either – Hestia shows Eina how much she trusts Bell to make the right decision, which further deepens their relationship, and Maaya Uchida does a remarkable job as Lili, not only pulling off her teary rant with aplomb, but also sounding like she has a swollen cheek to match what we're seeing on the screen, even when she's in full-blown hysteria. The background music is also especially effective this time, subtly enhancing without overwhelming. Add to that the fact that the tenth floor of the dungeon looks like the silver forest from The Brothers Grimm's version of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” and you have an episode that manages to impress visually as well as aurally and in its plot.

Rating: A-

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

Rebecca Silverman is ANN's senior manga critic.