Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Sword Oratoria (I’ll just be calling it Sword Oratoria going forward, for obvious reasons) is the second released series under the IiWtTtPUGiaD (yea, that’s why I’m just calling it Sword Oratoria) name. In fact, this series is particularly interesting in that it happens during more or less the same time frame that the first series does, but it is told from a different perspective, which is super cool. For my review on the first series, click here.
For those who haven’t seen, read, or heard about this show, I’ll give a basic rundown. This is a world where explorers and warriors enter dungeons in order to slay monsters to get magical loot and gain experience to level up. If you’re thinking that this sounds a whole lot like a video game, you are correct. The main unique twist to this world is that there are gods and goddesses who live among the ordinary people who lead houses or “familia” which are more or less clans.
Over the course of the first series, we follow a young low-level explorer named Bell Crane as he struggles through the dungeons in his quest to appease his goddess, who leads her very tiny familia. In Sword Oratoria, we follow the explorers who belong to the house of Loki. In particular, a new mage Lefiya who is doing her utmost to impress the familia’s greatest warrior, Aiz.
Aiz, the warrior Princess of house Loki, is working her hardest to reach her maximum potential, and reach the deepest levels of the dungeon, but this young low-level warrior just keeps crossing her path – and running away before she can get a word in edgewise. Throughout the series, she encounters minotaurs, giant grub-looking things, killer plants, and even faces off against a level boss solo. This series as a whole (including the first season) sort of flows around Aiz and Bell’s storylines.
While both series of the show share a lot of plot points, Sword Oratoria is slightly less comical (although still has plenty of funny moments) and focuses a bit more on the larger familia dynamics. It is an interesting contrast to the largely single protagonist (with a couple of companions) in the first series. Once again here we largely focus on one or two main characters, but the supporting cast is quite a bit expanded.
Personally, I found this series to be a very fun watch because it gives a lot more depth to the story that we already know, from the first series. Sword Oratoria can be watched completely stand alone, but I strongly recommend watching the first series prior, because it makes every overlap of the stories where the characters meet each other infinitely more interesting.
Overall, I find that Sword Oratoria steps back just a little bit from the over the top harem style anime and focuses more on a series of complicated interpersonal relationships between the characters, which is explored fairly well in the twelve episodes. This was the perfect companion piece to the first series and I would highly recommend it as a follow-up.
As I mentioned in my review of the first series, this show has a very airy and almost hazy glow to it that carries into Sword Oratoria. This lends itself to a less than crisp visual display but still looks quite good on screen. It is a strange design call, but it is what it is. The colors really do look great on the screen, however.
As with the previous iteration, this release also has both Japanese and English 2.0 audio tracks. Even without the surround channels, the audio track is pretty well mixed and everything sounds fairly good. I would love to have a more three dimensional sound space, but alas, it isn’t so.
Special Features:
- Clean Opening Animation
- Clean Closing Animations
- Japanese Promos
- Trailers for other Sentai Filmworks shows
Sword Oratoria Blu-ray Final Thoughts:
Sword Oratoria could technically be watched as a standalone series, but it is really best served as a follow-up to the first series. Watching these in order unlocks a whole lot of funny little details that crossover between the two. I would definitely recommend this series to any anime fans, especially if you like harem anime and/or MMO gaming.
It comes in both a standard edition and a Premium set with more goodies.
Note: This Blu-ray was sent to us for review. This has not affected our judgment or editorial process in any way. Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this process.
