The Legendary Hero is Dead!

Episode 10

I was pretty harsh to The Legendary Hero is Dead! last time, and you know what, I wanna try being a bit more diplomatic this time. I still have some pretty negative things to say about this episode, so I've decided to package this review as a Compliment Sandwich. A little sugar to help the medicine go down, if you will. So let's start:

The joke where Touka points out Yuna's astral form and everyone thinks he's pointing at a bug was kinda funny. Anri totally buying it was a good gag, and Milly saying it had her sister's jawline was a solid escalation. It was a decently delivered joke that made me chuckle to start this episode off.

After that, the show pretty much fell off a cliff, though. If last week proved the writing doesn't have the skill or material to make its character drama work, then this week is here to show that the production cannot sustain a serious action story. This show has never been a looker and has mostly gotten by on the fact that it's a comedy, so any given action scene was merely an excuse for more jokes or fanservice. It didn't matter if nobody on staff had time to properly animate a swinging sword or animate a walk cycle that wasn't embarrassing, because it was all just fodder to get to the next gag.

Now, however, the show is leaning further and further into actual high stakes, even showing a group of holy knights getting slaughtered by our villains, and it all looks like crap. The animation is barely holding itself back from a total collapse, and no attack – magic or otherwise – has the slightest hint of impact. Characters get stabbed through the arm and don't even have visible blood afterward. There are obvious blurring and speed-line effects tossed on top of images to either disguise unfinished animation or limply imply actual movement. This is supposed to be a big tonal turning point, where we see just how formidable our heroes' final opponents are, but none of it lands because this production is fundamentally unequipped to deliver convincing action.

The shift into Serious Business mode also makes the few remaining comedy segments all the more unbearable. At least when Legendary Hero was 90% farce, it sped through its jokes quickly enough to never bog itself down. Now, however, comic digressions stick out like a sore thumb and bring the episode to a grinding halt. Like, uh oh! Touka's got to save this random trio of women from being killed by demons, so he comically convinces their captors that actually, it's more fun if they make the women strip naked and wear stockings! Hurray! Our hero has saved these random props pretending to be characters AND let the audience see their humiliated tiddies. This was a very good and necessary addition to the story, especially when our heroes are under a very strict time limit before Yuna turns into a demon.

It's frankly interminable, and even if it weren't yet another reminder that Touka sucks eggs whenever the show stops pretending he's a decent person, it would be a total waste of time in an episode that is otherwise rushing toward the end. Like, really, we have to cram the reveal that Sion's soul has been hanging out with Touka the whole time into a single line, but this cut-rate Hiro Mashima nonsense needed to be here? It really highlights how out of its own depth this series is. Trust me show, for your own sake, just go back to being a sub-mediocre sex comedy. If I wanted to see a version of Fairy Tail that was worse in every regard, I could just watch Edens Zero.

Oh, right, the compliment sandwich. The gag where the stupid mayor's horse just keeps coming along with him was funny. It made me smile.

Rating:

The Legendary Hero is Dead! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.