Anime Hajime Review: Danjon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Daro ka Gaiden – Sword Oratoria

***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Danjon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Daro ka Gaiden – Sword Oratoria. Reader discretion is advised.***

Series Synopsis

In the country of Orario, there exists a mysterious realm known as the Dungeon. The deeper one travels, the more perilous it becomes. Venturing into its depths can bring an adventurer great wealth and prestige. Not only for themselves but for their Familia.

A Familia is a group of people who follow the guidance of a god or goddess. Their roles can range from treasure hunting, weapon crafting, or other services. One of the largest and most respected is the Loki Familia.

This group of legendary adventurers takes on the jobs deemed far too dangerous. As a result, their ranks include some of the strongest warriors of the land. And among their best is the Sword Princess, Ais Wallenstein (voiced by Saori Oonishi).

Though plenty strong, Ais has grown frustrated by her recent lack of progress. Her troubles have not gone unnoticed by the boisterous Loki Familia. In particular, the team’s rising star Lefiya Viridis (voiced by Juri Kimura) believes she must do something.

Though inexperienced, Lefiya will do what is necessary to help her beloved senior. All the while, Ais’ hardships appear to stretch back to a dark past.

Series Positives

I went into this having liked the original DanMachi. It was a show I enjoyed and want to see its story continue. Thus, when Sword Oratoria came out during the Spring 2017 season, there was excitement on my part. Clearly not enough for me to get to this much sooner, but I don’t want that to be a reflection on this series.

Unfortunately for Sword Oratoria, other shows overshadowed it. Specifically, Attack on Titan Season Two and Little Witch Academia. And Little Witch turned out to be one of my top anime from 2017. Still, that’s not an excuse when there's a seven-month gap between this series ending and this review going live.

I saw the original DanMachi back in August 2016. I know it was good, yet five minutes into Sword Oratoria I realized something. There were a lot of things I didn’t remember about the first series.

Some details have stuck with me, though. One that was important for Sword Oratoria was Ais Wallenstein. She was a reason why I was onboard with a spin-off rather than a sequel.

Except calling this a spin-off isn’t quite right. While Sword Oratoria and DanMachi were their own stories, they went to the same destination. There were occupying the same space and time.

For being the flagship, DanMachi has the advantage of setting the course. It gets to decide where we end up. Sword Oratoria is only along for the ride.

On the one hand, this results in a helpful refresher on some of the big bullet points of the main plot. Too bad the consequences of Sword Oratoria being the second story were the imposed limitations.

There were specific beats this series needed to follow. Certain characters needed to be in the right places to not screw with continuity. These are common obstacles prequels face. Yet with this show taking place alongside DanMachi, there were greater hindrances.

Also, Sword Oratoria wasn’t doing itself any favors by reminding everyone this was the DanMachi universe. Hey, did you know this was DanMachi? Listen, guys, were you aware this was DanMachi?

There was one scene early on where Ais and Lefiya were out shopping. And when there’s a character like Ais and a chance to do a clothes-changing montage presents itself, a show will take it. One of the outfits was DanMachi’s breakout character’s, Hestia’s, signature look.

That was a bit “on the nose” if you ask me. Never mind how Hestia (voiced by Inori Minase) had already made an appearance in this series. Not only that, she appeared again five minutes after Ais was wearing her clothes. Thus, this made the whole thing a pointless cameo.

Why bother doing that? Why put an attractive character in a fanservice-heavy costume…and I just answered my own question.

That’s another thing. There was a lot of fanservice in Sword Oratoria. Or least there was a lot when you compare how much there was in the original. And from what I do remember, there wasn’t much. Fanservice has not been an aspect I have associated with this franchise.

Then again, I could be dead wrong about this. One of the things associated with DanMachi is a petite goddess with a large chest who wears a tight one piece. There’s a chance I’m off the mark on this one.

But if Sword Oratoria was actually par for the course, that’s a huge plus for the original. This means fanservice wasn’t a major focus in the last series. Something else was.

Although I don’t recall everything, I do hold DanMachi in a positive light. Something was there and thanks to this series, I have a pretty strong idea what those things were.

If this leads to me re-watching the original, there are worse things to do on a lazy Sunday. And the likelihood of me doing this will increase should a second season ever come.

When you get down to it, spin-offs and side stories are fine and everything. But a continuation would be nicer.

If you can believe it, there was a point to this long-winded introduction.

Let’s assume Sword Oratoria was indeed way more “alluring” than its predecessor. That’s not much of an issue. Fanservice is not something I will remember about this series. Not because there was something to counteract it. No, I won’t be remembering anything about this series.

Sword Oratoria wasn’t that good.

During my viewing, there was this one constant thought, “Wow, I would have much rather have gotten a sequel.”

There were things to enjoy in this show. This story may have taken the most roundabout ways to get to those things, but they did exist.

Except, if I had trouble recalling a series I liked, imagine what will happen to one that was meh.

The Fights

Two of the aspects I brought up in the DanMachi review was the artwork and the fights. From what I remember, the action scenes of the original were both frequent and top notch. Though they may not have been the main reason, they were a big reason why I enjoyed the first series.

To Sword Oratoria’s credit, that same spirit carried over. It wasn’t the best transition. In fact, there were many points in this show where the animation came off as cheap. But there were also as many moments where that wasn’t the case.

There were plenty of outstanding camera angles and high-quality shots. And these instances usually came during a fight. That or whenever a certain character was on screen. This is a point against this series since this character was almost never Ais. Or at least not exclusively her. No, the character in question was the franchise’s lead protagonist, Bell Cranel (voiced by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka).

As a quick tangent, I’m torn over how I feel about Bell’s inclusion in Sword Oratoria. He appeared enough times to make things awkward. On occasion, he would stay in the background since this was Ais’ story after all.

Except, this show and DanMachi’s timelines were congruent. It made sense why these character’s paths would cross. Scratch that, they would need to cross. Especially due to the scenes in the first series that involved both Ais and Bell.

It made sense for these interactions to be in this series again. But that was where the problem existed. Some of Sword Oratoria’s best-looking scenes came straight from DanMachi.

There was a segment where Ais agreed to train Bell. On their last session, Bell managed to counterattack for the first time. The actual act itself didn’t matter that much because Ais ended the fight in the next move. But it was the meaning behind this action that was significant.

For DanMachi and Sword Oratoria, this was a turning point. For Bell, this was proof that he had grown much stronger. For Ais, this was a needed breath of reflection. As such, the animation in this one scene looked amazing in order to match the atmosphere. It made the whole encounter that much more poignant.

In addition, this was an effective visual way of illustrating the duality of these two stories. I understand why Sword Oratoria would want to include this scene shot for shot.

Too bad this art style didn’t match with the rest of the series. Out of nowhere, there was this random uptick in quality. While a plus for other shows, here it was a reminder of how lesser this story was compared to the original.

If this is such a problem, why then would I bring it up in the Series Positives? Although this was no doubt a fault, there were two things that helped balance it out.

For one, while these well animated DanMachi scenes were out of place, they still looked good. I can’t get too mad at a series that finds a way to get the adrenaline flowing. And if nothing else, it was a great callback to what made the first show so fun.

The second thing, Sword Oratoria had a few exciting scenes of its own. This story did center around one of the most powerful characters in this franchise. Not only that, Ais surrounded herself with fighters that were even stronger than her.

Therefore, encounters had the chance to become even grander than DanMachi ever could.

The pinnacle of this came in episode twelve, Kin to the Gods (Sword Oratoria). Here there was a pretty cool fight. And for a series that was only going through the motions, this was attention-grabbing. Given the setup, if this was any less than epic it would have been a waste.

There was Ais, Lefiya, and their usual group of top-ranked warriors. This team had also succeeded in reaching the lowest level of the dungeon anyone had ever been. And to top it off, they were facing an enemy that, according to legends, was once favored by the gods themselves.

There was a lot going on. It would have been hard for this scene not to be awesome.

Adding to this, Ais found a worthy rival in the character Revis (voiced by Sayaka Ohara). These two didn’t clash often, but when they did it was well worth the wait. There weren’t many things in this show that interested me, but their battles were among the few that did.

Thinking about this, it makes sense why this duel would be so entertaining. Half of its make-up was the major reason to ever give this series a look.

Ais

Like Bell was for DanMachi, Ais was a strong lead for Sword Oratoria. Unfortunately for Ais, she found herself at the center of a far weaker story. But fortunately for her, this weak story had no effect on her.

Sword Oratoria hasn’t ruined this franchise by any stretch of the imagination. Except it did nothing to move it forward either. There was one exception, though. Ais came out of this series stronger than when she went in. She is no longer the side-plot love interest. She is now a main character alongside Bell and Hestia.

Ais’ story was rather fascinating. From what I remember of who she was in DanMachi she was a skilled warrior with an absent-minded personality. That still isn’t one hundred percent false.

Ais was not clueless. She had closed herself off. What looked like indifference was actually her trying to make sense of her past. She thought getting stronger was the way to get closer to what she had lost. At the start of her adventuring career, that was enough of a drive to keep her going.

An aspect of this franchise I have enjoyed has been its use of common role-playing game elements. And every seasoned RPG player knows about the “level plateau”. In the beginning, there’s this rush of growth. Every little thing makes you stronger. Every enemy you defeat improves your stats across the board. Depending on how long this goes on, you may fall into this false sense of security. You start thinking you are the greatest, most amazing person who has ever played this game ever.

That last part might only be me. Either way, sooner or later a wall is going to appear. Opponents and tasks that once gave a ton of experience no longer make a dent. If you’re not playing a game with fun mechanics at its core, this can get discouraging.

This was where Ais was in her play through.

One of the strengths of this series has been its ability to take these RPG mechanics and fit them into a story. Sword Oratoria was no different. As such, this wasn’t a complete waste of time. There was justification for DanMachi to get a spinoff before it got a sequel.

Ais is now a much more complex and understandable character. It will be interesting to see how this might influence a possible DanMachi second season. Should Sword Oratoria get its own continuation, it will be fascinating to see how far Ais’ story goes.

After all, Ais was the best thing to come out of this show.

Series Negatives

There were two scenes that illustrated the problems with Sword Oratoria.

The first was a scene that, I’ve got to be honest, made me super happy to see. And it made me feel that way because I got to re-experience the best scene from DanMachi.

The segment I am referring to was Bell’s second battle with the minotaur monster. In the original, this was the scene where Bell rose to become an outstanding lead character. This fight was tense and exciting. It was the kind that gets your heart beating a million miles a minute. And this scene also had the first series' excellent animation style. The whole thing looked amazing.

I was kind of hoping this encounter would make an appearance in Sword Oratoria. It would have been weirder if it wasn’t here given how Ais was present to witness it. What I didn’t think was for this series to show the more critical parts of this moment the exact same way as they were in DanMachi.

Although this was a perfect reinforcement to how powerful this scene was, it didn’t do much for Sword Oratoria. I get what this story was trying to do. This series meant for this to be the trigger our heroes would use to push past their limits.

For Ais, this was a welcomed lesson. And this isn’t to say the other characters who saw this moment, and even those who didn’t, couldn’t have taken something from it. Except, this affected the rest of Ais’ group way more than it should have.

Other than Ais, the only other person to interact with Bell was Lefiya. And she didn’t even see the damn thing. For everyone else, they knew nothing. They never saw Bell training his heart out. They never witnessed him fight with every ounce of strength to save his friends. I’m not convinced they even knew his name before this. To them, Bell was only a determined adventurer.

From a storytelling standpoint, this was an unnecessary motivation for the final fight.

Also, what does it say when the best moment in a series was one of the best moments in a far better series?

And since I brought up Sword Oratoria’s final fight, that was the second problematic scene.

As an action piece, this worked. It was big and epic. It complimented the caliber of the fighters involved. This battle also showcased the outstanding visual style of the original. As a stand-alone instance, this was a great moment for this series.

And what did this encounter accomplish? I can’t say. Not for spoiler reasons, I simply have no idea what the point was. For the Sword Oratoria story, this didn’t move anything forward. At best, this fight was the first step to a much more impressive and meaningful face off. Except instead of getting that, we got end credits.

I suppose I’m lucky to not have been that invested in this show. But in no way, does this change how much of a problem this is.

Sword Oratoria’s climatic fight was the final exclamation for an underwhelming series.

The Loki Familia

Before going any further, there was something I noticed while watching this show. Something that was absolutely a thing in DanMachi. This isn’t a point against this series, but it is strange. Heck, I would be okay with learning I missed the explanation and I’m about to sound like a jerk.

Who are the gods of this franchise?

The titular dungeon was a trial left by Zeus and Hera. Hestia is one of the main characters. Even Hermes and Dionysus made appearances. From this lineup, things are starting to look pretty Greek.

However, it was the Roman god Neptune, not Poseidon who was in this show. And Sword Oratoria’s main Familia was the House of Loki which is Norse.

I’m not sure why this franchise couldn’t pick one mythology and stick with it. Again, this is only an oddity than neither added nor detracted from anything.

With that out of the way, let’s get back to the topic at hand. Regardless of what legend their leader came from, I wanted to like the Loki Familia. And given certain qualities this group possessed, I should have.

Everyone was close. This was one large family. They bickered, they laughed, they had each other’s backs. When Ais was feeling down, her friends were worried about her. They did what they could to help cheer her up.

Another reason why the final battle was so fun was because the Loki Familia fought as one. This is also why they didn’t need the extra boost from Bell’s fight with the minotaur. The enemy they were up against put the lives of the people they loved in danger. What more motivation do you need?

This is why I didn’t hate this group. But that doesn’t mean there was enough to care about them either. Other than Ais, this was a dull collection of characters. And nowhere was this more evident than with Lefiya.

If I didn’t know otherwise, I would never have guessed this was our second main protagonist. Lefiya was, through and through, an unremarkable character. She served no purpose to this story despite being a gifted magic user. Too bad for her, the Loki clan already had one of those in the form of Riveria Ljos Alf (voiced by Ayako Kawasumi).

To be fair, Riveria wasn’t any more important than Lefiya was. But at least she wasn’t trying to be Ais’ co-lead. Plus, it doesn’t help Lefiya’s case when Riveria was far more interesting.

Making matters even worse, Sword Oratoria’s story spent an absurd amount of time on Lefiya. That was time that could have gone to who should have been the more obvious choice, Ais. This show would cut away from the real main character to a person I’m willing to bet wasn’t even in DanMachi. And even if she was, someone please tell me why she warranted so much attention.

To give Lefiya some slack, the reason why she didn’t work wasn’t her fault. Instead, that blame goes to this show’s questionable storytelling quirks.

Story Flow

There are two possibilities concerning what I’m about to bring up. Both have their own set of issues. One is better than the other, but it's still not optimal. Also, both possibilities involved a ton of boring exposition.

This was a massive problem with Sword Oratoria. This series would not stop with the exposition dialogue. Everything needed an explanation. This show never offered its audience a chance to think for themselves.

“So, you are telling me that big, giant skeleton looking monster is dangerous. I would never have thought that. It would never have occurred to me that this gigantic, scary beast of an enemy was a serious threat. I assumed all creatures existing on one of the lowest known levels of the dungeon were pushovers. Thank you show. This is the type of non-infuriating hand holding this story needed.”

While this series’ constant explaining was annoying, it was kind of necessary. That’s not a good thing. This was sometimes needed because Sword Oratoria had a weird understanding of how story flow works. It’s difficult to justify the inclusion of out-of-left-field details. The kind of details the characters would know all about. But the audience gets left with their thumb up their butts.

As I said, there are two possibilities attached to these random plot inclusions.

The first, it is possible they did get brought up in DanMachi. Should this be true, then I forgot about them. If this is the case, then some of the blame lies with me and I will accept that. This doesn’t change how forced into Sword Oratoria’s story they were, but at least they were around before. And of the two possibilities, this is the one that is easiest to stomach. Because if this is not the case, the other option would be real and that would make this series even sloppier.

The second possibility, these random details were first introduced here in this show. This means Sword Oratoria expected the viewer to know what it was talking about. It also expected us to care at the same time.

Do I have to explain what’s wrong with this scenario? And yet this appears to be the more likely of the two possibilities.

Although this was a constant problem, three instances stuck out further than the rest.

One involved the character Filvis Challia (voiced by Hisako Kanemoto) and the Nightmare on the 27th Floor. Never once had I heard of the latter, but what I could gather, it was a horrifying incident. An incident perhaps this story should have hinted at before revealing everything about it. Rather than what actually happened.

“Here’s this person, Filvis. She’s attached to this one thing. Okay now deal with this other thing. Okay, now we're done.”

What just happened? Why was this part of the story? What did it accomplish? This had zero bearing on anything else that happened in Sword Oratoria. Oh, and by the way, this was a Lefiya focused segment too. Ais had nothing to do with this.

The second incident was the mid-series villain. If I was referring to Ais’ rival Revis, I wouldn’t be bringing this up. So, who was this other shmuck? That’s not quite a fair thing to ask. You’re going to know exactly who this person is. The better question is, “Why should you care?” You shouldn’t, and you won’t. That didn’t stop this show from playing up their reveal as this big twist in the story.

The third example I have of Sword Oratoria doing this was also the most wasteful. The higher an adventurer’s rank is, the more powerful they are. As it stood, rank-six was the gold standard. Anyone who achieved this was among the best of the best. Thus, it was a bit jarring when Ais ran into the one and only rank-seven warrior.

Wait, this was never a thing. Why was this now a thing? This series never once mentioned something like this before. And it had no reason to bring it up when it did. It’s not like it did anything. This person showed up and then went away within two minutes. The only rank-seven adventurer left no impact.

Why bother doing this? Why bother doing any of the things I mentioned? Is it so this franchise doesn’t need to waste its efforts in the future? This would be troubling if this is true. It makes the whole of Sword Oratoria look like a mess. And if this plays into the actual DanMachi storyline, that’s going to suck even more. By doing this, the door is now open for future laziness.

Tone

Of the few things I can still associate with DanMachi, violence and blood are not among them. Sword Oratoria wasn’t gratuitous in this regard, not even close. But it was a lot more graphic than I was expecting. There were some pretty intense scenes in this series. Things got rather serious.

This was not a bad thing. It made sense when these moments came up and they were effective. Plus, this story could separate its darker scenes from its more lighthearted ones.

Not always, though.

There was a serious tone issue in Sword Oratoria. Goofiness and dread can exist in the same story. But if they are going to exist in the same scene, a series better know what it's doing. This one didn’t.

There came a point where Ais and her team got involved in a murder investigation. Yeah, that was a thing that happened. When they got to the scene, it was a brutal sight. Blood was everywhere, and the victim was missing their head. The entire setup to this setting screamed, “This is a shock. What kind of monster is capable of doing this?”

I didn’t think we were going to go down this road, but that was where we ended up. How did this series handle this? With boob jokes, piss off.

The body was right there. The characters had not left the room yet. Why would anyone think this would be the time to add in shtick?

And of course, this was not a one and done instance. For every hint of positivity in Sword Oratoria, there was something to beat it back.

Final Thoughts

If you have seen DanMachi, that is reason enough to give this series a look. It won’t be a great viewing, but it won’t be the worst thing in the world either. And until a second season comes, this is what we have.

To this show’s credit, it based itself on a strong lead character. Ais took on the issues of this story and came out looking better in the end. She had more than enough good qualities to make parts of this series fun. And on occasion, she had some help with the animation and fights.

But there is only so much one character can do. Especially when the rest of the cast isn’t worth much of anything. When there’s not a strong group to follow, poor storytelling stands out that much more.

I’ve been thinking if it is possible to watch this series without the original. In the end, I believe that is possible to do. Why anyone would, is another thing altogether.

That’s why on its own merits, Danjon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Daro ka Gaiden – Sword Oratoria is one you can skip.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? Have you seen this show? How would you advise Danjon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Daro ka Gaiden – Sword Oratoria? Leave a comment down below because I would love to hear what you have to say.

And if you liked what you read, be sure to follow me on my social media sites so that you never miss a post or update. Also, please share this review across the internet to help add to the discussion.

I’m LofZOdyssey, and I’ll see you next time.

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Anime Hajime Review: Danjon ni Deai o Motomeru  no wa Machigatteiru Daro ka  Gaiden - Sword Oratoria