Kora
“This place looks like it’s full of promising candidates. Well then… Time to face reality. WHAT IS THIS MONSTER!? He looks so ordinary, but he’s definitely no ordinary human!”
Well, this is a perplexingly mixed bag. To be honest, part of me wanted Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town to be good if only because I found the central conceit to be a fun twist on the formula of fantasy RPGs. I can’t deny having wondered on a few occasions what it’s like for the people in the Pokémon games who grow up in the exact opposite of the beginning town. What’s it like trying to beat high level enemies with a level 5 starter? This first episode uses its central joke to great comedic effect, but when the narrative attempts to operate outside of that central gag things start to fall apart. In a lesser season, I’d probably give Last Dungeon a half-hearted recommendation, but it’s difficult to justify that in a season as stacked as this one. At the same time… I did laugh a lot in this first episode.
Last Dungeon follows a young man named Lloyd Belladonna who, as the light novel’s standard titular paragraph states, grew up in the most dangerous town in the kingdom, but has moved to the city to try and join the army. Lloyd himself is a fun character. The best point of comparison I can think of is he’s like what you’d if Bell Cranel from Danmachi had the powers of Saitama from One-Punch Man. Lloyd is used to a much higher power level, so what you end up with is a cheerful, pleasant, self-deprecating, meek god. The show does a great job of mining the premise for humor, as a sizable number of the characters are able to detect his strength, and their absolute terror at his presence is a delightful source of laughs. I can’t stress how much I enjoyed this joke, so it pains me to say that other aspects of this show really annoy me. One of the characters Lloyd encounters while running errands in the city is the disgraced daughter of a noble who is suffering from a curse. He inadvertently lifts her curse when he meets her, and she immediately falls head-over-heels in love with him. This character is named Selen, and I hate how this show utilizes her. It’s possible that she would be more tolerable if it weren’t for the show’s rushed pacing. We get the entirety of her backstory in well under a minute, and she’s in love with Lloyd in barely three and a half minutes of screen time. My enjoyment of the show seems to yo-yo in direct relation to whether or not she’s currently on screen. Fortunately, I responded much more favorably to the other characters, but I wouldn’t go so far as to argue that any of them were great.
The production is handled by Liden Films, and this wouldn’t surprise me if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m writing another review at the same time as this one for another show produced by them that came out on the same day! Given we’re still reeling from 2020, this shouldn’t come as such a surprise, but it blindsided me. Liden Films has occasionally impressed me with good production values in the past. This isn’t one of those times. I don’t know if I would go so far as to call this bargain bin quality, but it’s definitely below average. Sometimes the simple designs and animation can complement Lloyd’s humble persona, but that’s only sometimes. There is a brief action scene where he defends Selen from a monster, and it’s very bad. It features poor composition, movement and impact. The character designs are simple, but passable. As I said before, simplicity actually compliments the comedy and tone of the show, so I don’t mind that aspect as much. Still, if this is Last Dungeon putting its best foot forward, I shudder to envision how it’ll look if they decide to phone it in.
Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:
- I’m uncertain whether this is the worst animation I’ve seen from Liden Films, but it’s certainly a contender. I never watched their Berserk adaptation, so it would probably be unfair for me to compare the two based solely on the small excerpts of terrible animation I’ve seen from it. Of the shows I have seen, I’d guess that Phantom in the Twilight might be roughly equivalent in quality, but I’m not going to revisit it to find out.
- I think I might be in the minority, but I found Danmachi’s Hestia to be positively obnoxious. To me, she was the biggest factor when listing the negative qualities of that show. From what I’ve seen in this first episode, Selen is worse.
- So Selen had a cursed belt that was wrapped around a sizable portion of her head and couldn’t be removed… but when it comes off her hair is normal and there’s no skin discoloration from it being covered for years. I mean how did she get a haircut during that period!?! Wouldn’t her hair be wild and unkempt? This might be an odd detail for my suspension of disbelief to get snagged on, but it really bugs me.
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