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Sword Oratoria: Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side
Episode 11

by Rebecca Silverman,

How would you rate episode 11 of
Sword Oratoria: Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side ?
Community score: 3.9

A couple of days ago, my parents' cat took it into his head to stalk a doe. As you can imagine, this did not go as the cat had planned, but it did provide me with an analogy for the fights in this penultimate episode of Sword Oratoria: Loki Familia looks remarkably like my parents' cat stalking that deer as they face off against the monsters of the fifty-eighth floor. We knew that it wouldn't be easy, even for a party made up of Tiona, Tione, Bete, Aiz, Riveria, Gareth, and Finn, with Raoul and Lefiya as supporters; after all, only Zeus Familia, which no longer exists, ever made it that far. Fortunately for Loki Familia, Finn is an excellent researcher, so he basically knew what to expect – and hopefully he calculated for Lefiya falling down a hole burnt through the levels to fifty-two, because that's precisely what happens. Floor Fifty-Eight appears to be the domain of dragons and monsters that look like a cross between caterpillars and manatees, and those fire lizards can apparently sense adventurers on the floors above. It's one of the biggest issues with floors fifty-two onward – unexpected attacks from below.

Little as I like Lefiya, her tumble isn't really a problem. Not only does it expedite the journey – her magic makes it so that nobody goes splat on the fifty-eighth – but she was trying to help her fellow supporter, Raoul. We haven't seen Raoul in action much, but it seems safe to assume that he's not quite as nimble as Lefiya, nor does he possess the magic to save everyone from certain death via falling, so this really did work out for the best. (Although no one says they're glad to see him when the party rejoins the fallen later on. Poor Raoul.) Perhaps the biggest sign that Lefiya is pulling her weight is that Bete doesn't yell at her or even tease her. Granted, he's trying to take down giant dragons, but it still would have been in character for him to shout something nasty if he felt she warranted it.

For the most part, Aiz seems to be held in reserve for next week. This makes sense given that a mutated monster, who may or may not originally have been a Spirit, that mysterious race tied to Aiz's past, puts in an appearance at the very end of the episode. The creature clearly recognizes Aiz (or her mother in her), which implies that this is Aiz's enemy to fight, and while her familia can support her, ultimately she will have to beat it alone. At this point, my bet is that this is a corrupted Spirit, somehow tainted by the strange magic stones we see the red-haired hunter chowing down on as she anxiously waits for Aiz, and I'm not discounting it being one of Aiz's actual blood relations. Despite this ostensibly being her story, Aiz has been a low-key character for most of this season, so this could be the show's chance to really make her shine.

A word to the wise about that Spirit, though – if you're wearing headphones or are sensitive to discordant noise, make sure you turn the volume down before she starts making whatever you want to call those god-awful sounds she makes. (It's like a cross between keening and ululating in the worst key available.) It's truly unpleasant, but it's part of especially good sound design work this week, with the music and background noises working to make this one of the more aurally interesting episodes of the series. It feels like there might also be a bit less dialogue, but I'm not entirely sure.

Incidentally, we do find out the name of the mysterious goddess behind all of this: Enyo, or Bellona in the Roman pantheon. She's one of Ares' companions, a goddess of warfare and, appropriately enough, a destroyer of cities. This is another case where later events of the DanMachi novels are nicely supported by Sword Oratoria - if Ares is behind the outward attack on Orario, having Enyo coordinate with him from below makes a lot of sense.

Of course, what she wants with Aiz remains to be seen. Hopefully next week will bring us answers and not a “read the novels, kids!” final episode, because a strong ending could, if not outright erase the weaker elements of this series, at least make things feel more worthwhile.

Rating: B

Sword Oratoria: Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side is currently streaming on Amazon's Anime Strike.


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