1953: Still Picking Up Girls in a Dungeon

The anime Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, better known as DanMachi (because Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is a stupid title that doesn’t really reflect what the show is all about) has been continuing to entertain me with each new installment, and I’m glad that so far it seems to be widely well-received for the most part.

What I’ve been pleased to see as the show has developed is that it’s a lot more than the straightforward harem show its official English title would appear to suggest it is. Sure, there are a lot of female characters, and sure, most of them appear to want to throw themselves at wet-lettuce protagonist Bell for their own mysterious reasons, but with each new episode, we see interesting new developments in the characters — and, this week, particularly in Bell himself.

Bell ran the risk of being a relatively generic anime protagonist character, albeit one with white hair rather than the usual floppy dark brown. He was clearly designed to be somewhat relatable to the audience — socially awkward, not quite sure what to do with himself, lacking in confidence and generally a bit clumsy. But over time, his Badass Quotient has been increasing rapidly, though not in the somewhat overpowered way that Kirito became incredibly tough in Sword Art Online. Rather, as Bell grows in strength — both physical and mental — we start to see him change from a naive boy into a determined young man as he starts to come to terms with his own personal adventure.

The highlight of this week’s episode was an unusually violent fight scene between Bell and a minotaur. A minotaur overpowered Bell in the first episode, brought him into contact with the mysterious blonde-haired beauty Aiz Wallenstein and filled him with shame and regret for what he perceived as his own incompetence (rather than simply not being ready for a challenge considerably too tough for him). His battle against the minotaur in this episode showed how far he had come, and indeed during the fight scene, as he strikes back at his foe, determined to knock him down using everything he’s learned from his experiences and his time training with Aiz, he’s barely recognisable. Covered in blood and obviously using every last ounce of both his physical and mental strength to battle his opponent, Bell clearly reaches a turning point in this episode — and, judging by some of the other things that happened, it was an important moment for the overall narrative, too. Most intriguing!

I’m very much looking forward to seeing what happens next. The show has wisely not focused too heavily on the relationship between Bell and Hestia, despite Hestia clearly being the “poster girl” for the series. Instead, it’s very much Bell’s story of personal growth and his quest to redeem himself against his own lofty — some might argue too lofty — expectations. And along the way, he comes into contact with a lot of interesting and memorable characters, several of whom, I feel, will have important roles to play in how everything eventually turns out.

So I’m well and truly “in” on DanMachi until the end, then. Hopefully it keeps up the quality of this week’s episode, and hopefully we’ll see more in the future when this series is over, too.