Studios: J.C. Staff, Genco, MAGES.
Aired: season 1 – April 2015, season 2 – July 2019, season 3 – October 2020
Score: 7.5/10
How does one pick up girls in a dungeon? That is the real question, and while it isn’t answered in the anime, it’s worth checking out.
It’s fantasy, it’s mythology, it feels like an isekai, it’s a little ecchi from time to time, and its action packed when it feels like it.
Bell Cranel (I can hear Hestia call “BELL!”) is not your average albino adventurer. No, in fact he’s below average. Like… he sucks at fighting monsters, only improving increment by increment throughout, and still pretty weaksauce into season 3.
And yet all the big players want him, why? Is it because Zeus is his grandpa? We’ve been told season after season that he’ll ‘soon’ unlock his full potential, but has it happened yet? Let me know what you think in the comments!
Maybe I wasn’t paying attention. But it’s not all that bad to not have an overpowered hero; sometimes the ones who struggle the most grow the most.
But I’m not here to bash our hero or the anime, in fact I enjoyed quite a bit of ‘Is it Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon’.
It has some unique characters; an overly innocent & bashful protagonist Bell, his uneccesarily sexualized doting mother of a virgin goddess Hestia, Welf the striving blacksmith, Liliruca the thief, Hermes as himself, Ais the monotone warrior princess, and the rest of the rowdy gang.
The setting and its circumstances are unique. Every character has stats like in a video game and lives under the protection of a real-life worshipped God or Goddess from Greek, African, Eastern, and Nordic mythology. Of course these higher beings are dramatized for the story and like in the myths they think and behave just like humans.
And like the name implies, there’s a tower (Babel? The labyrinth? Forget the name) that’s literally a gigantic dungeon with monsters that grow stronger the higher level the adventurers travel.
Our hero Bell is the sole ‘child’ of the spunky doting Goddess Hestia, and they kinda just chill out in an abandoned church as their home base. Being the only one, Bell becomes an adventurer! (its the typical isekai introduction yadda yadda).
Bell ventures down and almost gets completely f*cked by a minatour, only to be rescued by the warrior princess Ais whose personality rivals that of Planky from Ed, Edd, and Eddy. And of course Bell falls head over heels for her.
But with zero skills, he has a snowballs chance in hell to impress her, so he makes the resolve to git gud.
I personally liked the first season a lot, seeing Bell gear up to be an adventurer and establish the bond he has with Hestia. Of course he can’t be a hero alone, so he recruits members in a series of arcs.
Characters like Lili and Welf are unique and a fun addition, but for me they took away/ sorta third-wheeled any chance for Bell and Hestia to be together romantically (but it’s clearly a mother-son relationship).
What I admire about this anime is that each character has strengths and weaknesses; they’re flawed but have qualities that make them likable, unlike some other anime whose characters are so f*cking bland that they’re practically cardboard cutouts *cough*GrandmastersGrandchild*cough*.
I also like how Bell’s power and gear changes as the series progresses as well, from a fancy dagger that put poor Hestia is debt worse than any American college graduate, yet another dagger forged by a certain redhead blacksmith, “FIRE BOLT!”, and some slightly better armor. Oh and a sort of Falcon Punch! whenever he rarely hears a bell ring out of nowhere.
Season 1 I felt had most of the character development, at least for our main characters. Season 2 had a few interesting arcs, like the fight for the mansion with the deranged and crazy as f*ck Apollo who’s passion for the arts are quite exaggerated here. The sheer sass that Hestia gives him is hilarious, and I quite enjoyed the skirmish the two familias duked out.
The red-light district and the Sanjouno rescue arc was… perhaps the most ecchi the series gets (aside from the hotspring and the beach ova), and reminds us of how innocent Bell is, who has the resolve to reject every prostitute that throws themselves at him. The addition of a couple new members to the Hestia family was cool and all, but I can’t seem to even remember why Mikoto joined in the first place, she had a good time venturing with them on that one raid?
The third season perhaps has the best arc moral-wise; is it still wrong to kill monsters, even if they have a human-like conscience/ability to think and feel and desire like people do? It’s certainly an interesting philosophical concept and I’m surprised the series hasn’t really explored it earlier. I felt that this season focused on this arc quite heavily and left little room to show any of the characters develop further than they already have, besides ‘family sticks together!… I love you guys!’ sunshine and rainbows yadda yadda.
The characters of Weine and the other friendly monsters are fun additions that take some getting used to seeing neutral and not attacking Bell or the others on site like we’re so used to seeing in the previous seasons. I personally liked the little civil war that happened between familias over whether to protect or kill the monsters, showing the importance of the lengths that family members will go to protect and help their own. I’m not gonna talk about the antagonists or Dix, he’s a dick, nuff said.
There were a few scenes that I especially liked in this third season that I can’t pass up on mentioning, because I was honestly f*cking moved by them. Manly tears came rolling out like the sensitive guy I am.
INCOMING SPOILERS.
I especially liked the minotaur fight with Bell, because I’m pretty sure we’ve seen this same minotaur before at the beginning of the series and when Bell cut its horn off and got a nifty dagger out of it. So when it gains a conscience and beats the living sh*t out of Bell; the minotaur spares his life just to prove it can beat Bell and will always get stronger, expecting the same of him the next time they meet.I was surprised because the Loki familia barely held their ground against it, whereas Bell was able to hold his own for the longest time, and yet he probably wouldn’t stand a chance against any of them in a fight. Hermes’ true nature was something I didn’t see coming, wanting to make Bell the hero again even if it means hurting others.
There were two more heartfelt scenes, both involving Weine. You know the ones if you’ve seen it, although the revival one felt a little too easy and convenient with the Sage around to grant it like nothing.
The other where Bell faces Ais and almost gets completely demolished by her also took me by surprise, because I felt that the two had grown somewhat close over the past two seasons, and it just seemed like Bell had feelings for her.
So when Weinen goes to prove that she’s harmless, by doing that thing and the other thing, I can honestly say I was kinda moved by it. The fact that Ais let the pair go just shows that even she can be convinced, which is like… the hardest thing to do with Ais.
(Also that rooftop scene with Ais was pure meme gold)
END OF SPOILERS
I feel as though it’s difficult for a series to keep up the momentum especially after 2 seasons and a movie (that I heard wasn’t very memorable), but this season felt enjoyable to me and I’m so curious to see which direction the series will go next. I want to see the introduction of more gods, monsters, interesting environments or dungeons, more character development, and of course Bell’s ‘true power’ that keeps getting teased over and over, unless that’s just his resolve to help others and be a ‘fool’.
If you’re new to the series, don’t let the odd name scare you, check it out and let me know what you think in the comments! If you’ve seen it all, what was your favorite part of the series or who is your favorite character?
I know… I know I skipped talking about a ton of content and could have stretched this into three posts, but I just felt like discussing what I personally found most intriguing about it. Maybe I’ll delve deeper about it in another post.
Thanks for reading!
By: The Shy Otaku