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

Why sit around and actively play an RPG online with others when you can watch one on your tv, complete with EXP grinding and annoying party members.

Story - 5/10

This show basically takes the concept of MMORPG games and treats it as if it was real life. Our characters join guilds, (known as familias in this series) go out on monster hunts and level up, all with the real possibility of dying. Like many of the games, there isn’t too much reasoning behind why they do it, besides money and items, but regardless it is the main focus of the city and all it’s businesses.

As for the story itself, it follows Bell Cranel, a newbie adventurer, if you would, as he tries to level up. His main motivation for becoming as strong as possible comes from one of his first adventures, where he had to be saved from a minotaur by a beautiful woman, Ais Wallenstein, who just so happens to be one of the strongest adventures of all time. Feeling the need to be a protector, instead of a weakling, he now goes out every day and tries to push himself.

Along the way he has help from his familia head, a goddess named Hestia, who also happens to have a crush on him. As a goddess, and head of his group, Hestia holds the power to reveal Bell’s level and stat progression, and to her dismay she discovers one of his special abilities is fueled by his desire for another woman, Ais.

The story sadly doesn’t go much further than the act of Bell going into dungeons and defeating monsters, all which ends with him unleashing his true power. They touch on some side stories that could be interesting, as well as giving some focus to a special knife that Hestia has made to help Bell, but those plots go absolutely no where. There was a ton of potential for this show when it started, and while still a fun little series, they couldn’t get away from repetitive fighting scenes or others where Bell falls face first into a young lady’s chest.

Animation - 5/10

While the quality of animation is very nice, there isn’t anything that really makes me marvel over what the animators created. We’re in a time when every series is beyond beautiful, but now it’s up to the creative minds working on the show to give us something new with character designs or scenery, and that just didn’t happen. Every character, every monster and every location resembled a thousand other shows, comics and video games.

Sound - 5/10

The music used as themes, and throughout the series, is more standard fare when it comes to anime. The opening is an unremarkable J-pop song, while the closing is slightly more entertaining and worth listening to. Within the show itself the background music is good, but exactly what you’d imagine, light instrumental pieces that pick up the pace when there’s some kind of action. Considering RPGs, and JRPGs in particular, have some of the most loved music in this culture, I would have hoped a series essentially about RPGs would have the same.

The voice over work in the English version is very well done and what we’ve come to expect from these Sentai Film Works dubs. Each characters voices matches their look and personality amazingly well and I could find no complaints when it comes to most of the acting, but then again when you have one of the best in the business, Luci Christian, as a lead, it’s no surprise. Though I did at times think Bell was voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch, and Ais’ character had the personality and vigor of a dead rock. 

Characters - 3/10

There is very little about these characters that scream originality. Our lead, Bell, is the nerd from every high school series, but this time made to be an adventurer. Likewise Hestia is the chesty and cute girl that is somehow ignored by guys. Filling out the group is Ais, the love interest who is of course oblivious to our hero’s feelings, Liliruca, the annoying youngster whom you hope gets killed by a monster, and Welf Crozzo, the show’s take on the snarky bad boy. The one character that did seem interesting, Ryu, basically takes the turn you expect her to, and then they fail to actually expound on it.

All the minor characters fill the other roles that a stereotypical anime would have. Friend who may or may not be in love with lead, jerk rival who finds out he’s not as good as our lead, and the many many drunks, fangirls, and musclebound meat heads.

Overall - 7/10

Despite the parts of this series being rather weak, as a whole it was a fun show, especially for those who have enjoyed playing MMORPGs. They made sure to add little items we fans would snicker at, but not in a way that would make other viewers feel left out.

Would I watch the series again, probably not, as there isn’t too much to miss or moments you want to relive over and over, but for the few days it took to watch I was entertained and found myself looking forward to the next episode.

Positive Reasons for Score:

 * Of all Anime series, this really felt like a great MMORPG.

 * They answered enough stories, and left enough for season two.

 * The important characters could have been annoying, but turned out likable. 

Negative Reasons for Score:

 * When the characters were annoying, they were amazingly annoying.

 * Basically giving Bell a built in cheat code was a weak way to quicken the series.

 * Way too much fan service for such a title.

Ways to make the show better:

 * Add a little more about the interesting sub characters. 

 * Take away many of the dumb choices characters have that just make the writing seem bad.

 * Go even deeper into the RPG aspect of the series.

Don't let the title fool you! It is a cute show. I'm glad I gave it a chance, and I ended up binging it.

JC staff , doing mind blowing work.

मजा आ गया देख कर ।

Almost every single episode had me wanting more. I would give more than 5 stars if that was an option. For only 13 episodes it did a great job with bringing in characters and making a story I could get into. Would recommend to anyone into RPG, ecchi or funny stuff in general. 6/5, lol!

Animes that take an RPGesce setting have become popular recently. Probably thanks to SAO or .hack. RPG animes have loads of fans and haters. The more hardcore fans (or 99.9% of them) would go on about how SAO, .hack or Log Horizon are the best thing ever and haters are bad people. While the haters are equally as annoying and say they're the worst things ever and that the fans are stupid. They also may troll a lot. Anyway that's enough ranting for one day, so let's get on to the review of Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon!

STORY

Bell Cranel is an adventurer who has a crush on fellow adventurer Aiz Wallenstien. However the godess Hestia, has a crush on him. That's something I should mention, adventurers generally belong to familias. Familias are led by a god or godess and have their own strenghs and weaknesses. Anyway, Bell wants to become stronger to impress Aiz and Hestia cheers for him. He doesn't know she has a crush on him and acts completley oblivious. He also acts oblivious to the many girls who develop crushes on him. I'm sorry if that put you off because this isnt a bad anime. Yes, it's rather generic and you can say a lot of it's plot points, characters and jokes have been done before but Attack on Titan's plot points, characters and jokes were done before and better and we don't look down our noses at it. Anyway, (How much do I say that word?) throughout the story Bell becomes more and more powerful and makes new friends and more women fall for him. (He's oblivious to the point of me questioning his social skills.) That's the story in a nutshell. Actually I think I basically summed it up. Aside from the arguable antagonist but we'll get to that later. 

ANIMATION

I'm not going to spend too long here at all. The animation is what you'd expect, it's good.

SOUND

The soundtrack was ok. There weren't any tracks that stood out to me that much but that's not a bad thing. The opening however, was good. I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the ending. The voice cast was brilliant. There is no dub so I can't really praise a dub. I'm not going to praise wha doesn't exist. I'm not crazy. Isn't that right werewolf in the corner? Anyway, I should mention my favorite voice from the series. The favorite voice goes to Inori Minase as Hestia. Although, I should mention that I find the fact that the guy who voiced Bell also voiced Kirito kind of funny. Maybe it's making fun of how Bell gets overpowered due to Deus Ex Machinas sometimes. That's a joke in the series by the way.

CHARACTERS

I thought Bell was very generic. He's almost cliched. I did like the characters for Hestia and Aiz.  Hestia was funny and Aiz was badass. I promised I'd talk about the arguable main antagonist so now's as good a time as any. I liked Freya. She was mysterious. In fact by the end of the series    nothing is really explained about her. I'd like a season 2 where her character gets explored. 

OVERALL

I enjoyed this series. It wasn't amazing but it wasn't terrible. I'm giving this series a 7/10 because it surpassed my expectations. So I'd reccomend you watch this if you want to watch a lighthearted fantasy comedy, you should really watch this. If you're looking for someting with an RPG setting to rival SAO, then you should probably keep looking. That's it for my review of Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon. Untill my next review, stay awesome!