Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV: Part II - Reviews

Alt title: Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatte Iru Darou ka IV: Familia Myth - Shinshou Yakusai-hen

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Rbastid's avatar
Jan 6, 2024

K-On! and The World God Only Knows, not two anime titles that would easily be connected to the Is it Wrong series, but if things follow the direction of the previous installment, this may also become a show that was bad for season after season, only to finally break out as a top rank anime.

Story - 6/10

We catch up with Bell and Ryu right as they land in the lower floors, damaged beyond what would be survivable for a vast majority of adventurers. Unsure of where they even are, they struggle to make any progress, as every turn has them coming under attack from hordes of new monsters. Eventually they find a safe resting spot, but awaiting them is a grim reminder of what happens to even prepared adventurers down in the lower floors.

Nearly a dozen levels away, Bell’s old party is in as much trouble as he is. Due to the dungeon now following none of its own rules, it’s spawned a floor boss that wasn’t supposed to show up for weeks, and without Bell to save the day, our group needs to rely on using their own abilities to survive. For once the show actually made a fight interesting, as party members worked together, and synchronized their abilities, to over come a monster they have no business fighting, and little chance of actually beating. 

All throughout this half of the season they begin to really touch on Ryu’s backstory, and the tragic events that put everyone in their current position. We meet all her old family members, and see a Ryu that is much more eager and bright-eyed, than the woman we know as a serious and secretive assassin. Tossing things out bit by bit does offer it’s own problems though, as they use it as a way to never really answer many questions about Evilus or any of the happenings of five years earlier in the series, just the results.

So as both stories jump back and forth, we’re actually treated with a show that for once doesn’t seem like just your run of the mill shounen series, but boy do they punish us for thinking that way. 

In the last few episodes they just pile on everything that is horrible with these type of series. Bell now single handedly destroys everything in his path, despite these being the floors that even entire parties struggle on, but who needs a party when you can just constantly scream the name of your spell and blast away any foes. Not content with just using the “Overpowered MC” trope, they then had to dig deep in to the “females fall madly in love with MC” trope, and in the worst way possible. The character that the show has been building up as a steely-eyed assassin, who slaughtered everyone who did her familia wrong, is now a bumbling fool who just wants to rub up against Bell, and be with him forever. 

This runs into the last episode which really accentuates the major flaw with this half of the show, pacing. The first ten episodes are done very well, building suspense and properly displaying the action sequences that have been missing from this series. But then we get in to the home stretch and everything falls apart. Wasting episodes on weak ecchi for weirdos, instead of things that are important, means that another battle that should be exciting turns in to a five second flash, where the hardest monster to ever roam the dungeon is taken out with one shot. Somewhere along the line they needed to cut out a few minutes here or there, or even remove pretty worthless sections such as those including the new party sent to help Bell, and instead work in more over arching stories that will set us up for a future season.

This is an odd season to say the least, and part of that oddity is how there is both an okay story, and kind of no story at all.  While they went a little back in to the past to tell us about Ryu, and built up a little bit of lore, there once again isn’t much going on that matters. At least in previous seasons you can claim that they were spending a dozen episodes to add a character to the party, or to work out the story of the xenos and how eventually Bell will unite man and monster, but here they didn’t even add much about Evilus to inform any future plots that may deal with them. The whole season pretty much breaks down to “Bell is super powerful,” and “even the most badass females melt in Bell’s tiny clammy hands.”

The DanMachi universe has so many characters and stories to it, and with those characters and stories there’s so much opportunity to expand and make even new stories, but instead we just get the same thing over and over, where they don’t ever seem to get anywhere important.

Animation - 7/10

The season starts off on a really horrible note, animation wise. Our large group is stuck fighting the giant, two headed dragon floor boss; and well its animated using horrible CGI that makes it look so shiny, that it doesn’t integrate with it’s surrounds at all.

Normally that awful bit of animation would bring this series way down in the score, but they did such a good job in the corresponding areas that one little thing doesn’t hurt a category as it normally would. Sure there’s the other tiny little issue with some of the xenos still not moving their mouths when they talk, but the well animated fights, varied monsters, and interesting landscapes more than make up for it. 

Sound - 4/10

As is the case with every installment of this series, the themes are complete garbage, and don’t seem to connect in any way to the show itself.

The voice work gets some good and some bad changes. The good part is that there is now a much larger variety in the voices, as an oversized chunk of our time is spent with the party that stayed behind, so while we are poisoned with more Lili, it means we spend less time with Bell. Apparently to counteract that good, they decided to add a half dozen more Lili’s, and a few with stupid cat-like lisps and puns, because it often seems like this show can do nothing right. 

Characters - 3/10

So one of the best parts of this section of the anime, is that it gives so much more focus on characters that aren’t Bell. They didn’t really build up any of their backstories, but seeing the other members of our party do battle, and getting a great idea of what “class” they would be, was a fresh and entertaining aspect to the show.

That party does carry one big annoyance though, one we’ve dealt with since season one, Lili. Throughout this season she whines and moans about how basically the entire party should get themselves killed, all to maybe find Bell. They pose it as her owing Bell for saving her life, but that only works if she’s only risking her own life, instead of constantly demanding that everyone in the party travel down to areas where they will certainly be killed.She’s supposed to be the tactician, but makes the worst choices possible. 

I’m also so happy they didn’t just completely ignore Ryu’s backstory, which certainly deserved it’s own season to unfold. Seeing her interact with her old family, the days that led up to their ambush, and the aftermath were better plot lines than anything in the previous seasons. 

It’s just such a disappointment that this great and powerful character just turned in to another weak kneed little school girl, pinning over Bell, and unable to actually do anything herself. It seems like none of these anime series can have a strong female character, that doesn’t then just melt over the weak and pitiful male lead, turned hero (I’m looking at you Sword Art Online.) There was no need for pretty much anything in episode ten, but it seems like the sad and pathetic writers always need to make the main character some uber-desierable alpha male, because they think they themselves are this character.

And that leads us to our ever awful main character. When the show started Bell was a good lead because he wasn’t the best, he was just a kid trying to become an adventurer, and screwing up massively along the way. He was sad, pathetic, and needed help with everything, but that’s what made him likable, because he wasn’t your typical annoying MC.

But oh how quickly they did away with that, and to an extent that just makes any lore of the show useless. Bell is now not only a strong character, he’s literally stronger than entire parties of people higher level than himself. At the start of this block they talked about how the monsters on the lower floors were so powerful, and even the greatest familias stay clear of the area; but Bell, life threatening injuries and all, is able to single handedly kill dozens and dozens of attacking monsters, often with a single blow. 

They also try to give Bell a completely moronic mix of being an aloof dunce, with also having the biggest ego in all of Orario. 

Overall - 3/10

They once again really had me going for a large chunk of this continued season. The large scale fights between our party of side characters and the boss monster, was well written, and made for some great action packed episodes. Likewise the time when Bell and Ryu first came to on the lower floors, and things actually seemed tough for them, made for great viewing.

But as is always the case in these shows, they went completely off the rails in their many attempts to make our MC the greatest thing ever, as well as such lazy ways to reverse unwinable situations. Everything they do to make Bell overpowered just makes other characters seem pointless, and any future battles uninteresting, because we know he can just make up an ability to beat something, or pull out a magical elixir that cures literally getting your arm chopped off and neck broken. 

Even much of that could have been forgiven, if they didn’t then dedicate pretty much the entire ending to a character we all looked forward to seeing more of, turning in to nothing more than a love sick girl, getting into sexual situations with our worthless MC. At this point I expect season five to be nothing more than bad romance, with sparkles and stars flying around all our big eyed idiot characters. 

Positive Reasons for Score:

 * Focusing on the many other more interesting party members was a nice change.

 * The fight against Amphisbaena was done properly, showing how you’d expect a large scale RPG-type battle to take place.

 * The anticipation of a good story will keep you watching (though completely disappointed)

Negative Reasons for Score:

 * They’ve gone way overboard with how much more powerful Bell is than even entire level five parties.

 * Turning Ryu into just another girl drooling over Bell, and whose clothing fall off at will, almost took this series to a negative score.

 * The rushed ending once again showed how these writers have no idea how to craft a story. 

Ways to make the show better:

 * Learn about pacing, instead of rushing so much of the ending.

 * Stop turning your great characters in to nothing more than braindead, nudie bait, for your most pathetic of viewers. 

 * Make each story connect to the larger overall plot, because yet again this season means little to any major story.

6/10 story
7/10 animation
4/10 sound
3/10 characters
3/10 overall
jstenneg's avatar
Aug 21, 2023

So, much like part 1 of season 4 there is very little storyline here.  They did do some major character development on the blonde elf Ryu, via backstory into her past and just the struggle to survive alongside our MC.

The upside is that part 2 is non-stop action.  Flipping back and forth the MC and the party of his friends.  Whole lot of kick-butt fighting and many points where it seemed all was lost. 

But for the overall story, they learned a little more about the dungeon, and our MC picked up a new lady that now has a crush.  

Nuts and bolts the animation is the same as always, the audio levels are stable, and the music is good.

Love the series, this is a must to watch.  I cannot wait for another season.

6.5/10 story
8/10 animation
8/10 sound
9/10 characters
8/10 overall
apoc9's avatar
Mar 16, 2023

The fourth season of Danmachi is the best season so far. The second part of the season follows Bell and Ryuu in deep levels of the labyrinth as they have to fight fatigue, injuries and hordes of difficult monsters while they are trying to find way back to the surface. The stakes are high and everything is quite exciting. Ultimately the story focuses on Ryuu and resolving her past. There are flashbacks which release the tension of the survival element. Ryuu also shows her more vulnerable side and grows much closer to Bell. Sadly, she likely doesn’t stand chance, because Bell’s primary interest is in Ais Wallenstein. Rest of the Hestia familia have hard time as well. Lili and others try to go deeper to find Bell. Bell being absent from the party gives opportunity for side characters to shine.

Visually the series is nice. Soundtrack is great. I don’t care about the OP and ED, but that is not big deal for me.

Overall, very epic adventure season. One of my favourites in this season. I enjoyed it very much. The only downside might be some parts felt bit longer than necessary. If you watched previous seasons, you should watch this one as well.

9/10 story
8/10 animation
9/10 sound
8/10 characters
9/10 overall
JustAkeno's avatar
Mar 21, 2023

A very solid and well-written season of this Anime. Literally the only bad thing about this season was the ending. They gave the monster a random fucking nerf like what????

I was wondering in what ways they would possibly be able to beat that monster. Oh I see, they just give it a pointless random nerf so that there's an excuse for them to beat it.

Besides that though, really good.

8/10 story
8/10 animation
8/10 sound
8/10 characters
8/10 overall
drx89's avatar
Feb 23, 2023

Danmachi - The Bloodborne Arc

Everything is going wrong for Bell and the gang this season, with Souls bosses appearing around every corner of the Deep Floors. Part 1 did a decent job setting up the journey into the deepest parts of the dungeon, but Part 2 is where it really shines. 

The Deep Floors are grey and lifeless, and the show does a great job showcasing how much of a nightmare they are. Bell finally gets some well earned development, learning the struggles of not just relying on those around him. If the minotaur fight was the beginning, then this is the climax and it's looking to be a great end to this arc.

Bell's crew is getting a bit overcrowded as they were in Part 1, but most of the members get time in the spotlight. But the most interesting part of this season is the journey of Bell and Ryu, learning to depend on each other and not hide behind their flaws.

The animation is great, apart from some CGI but it's by no means a big problem. Some of the skeletons do look like the funny CG Berserk skeletons though. Music is great, and the main narrative is put on the backburner. It's a good choice though, giving more time with the characters and the world of Danmachi.

Best season since S1 and I'm excited to see where it goes next!

7/10 story
8/10 animation
9/10 sound
9/10 characters
8.5/10 overall