Is It Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (Episode 1 Review)

Based off of a light novel of the same name written by Fujino Omori and illustrated by Suzuhito Yasuda, Is It Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Is set in the world of Orario, where adventurers band together and look for treasures in an underground labyrinth known as Dungeon. However, for Bell Cranel, fame and riches are secondary to what he wants to find the most: girls. He soon finds out though, that anything can happen in Dungeon, and winds up being the damsel in distress instead!

Dungeons check, monsters check, leveling up check, great setting check. If you’re a fan of RPG’s then this is the anime for you. Is It Wrong to Try and Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Does so many things right in the first episode. One thing episode one does right is establishing our protagonist Bell Cranel. Bell when we’re first introduced to him is running away from a Minotaur. He’s an adventurer who is on a quest by himself. He’s not at a strong enough level to take anything down. Plus he is about to get killed. Adventurer Miss Aiz Wallenstein steps in to save the day. One glance in her eyes and Bell falls in love with her. This sets up Bell’s motivation of the episode and probably the whole series. Bell character is pretty simple. He doesn’t really desire money, fame, power like other adventurers. Bell’s desire is to get stronger to impress Aiz Wallenstein. In the world of Orario, usually female adventurers are attracted to guys who are strong. This causes Bell to become overly driven with the desire to be stronger. He takes risk that starts to effect people who care about him. The person affected the most is the one who gave him his powers the Goddess.

In the world of Orario, the gods came to the world looking for excitement. They decided to seal away their divine power and become human. The only thing they offer was a blessing to the children of the world to fight monsters. The children who are given the blessings become servants of the gods. The Goddess and Gods divided up their blessings by family. The Goddess who has chosen Bell for the blessing is a member of the Hestia Familia. Bell is the only one chosen and has to go on quest alone. While Bell motivation is for Aiz, this leaves his goddess feeling unwanted. She has feelings for Bell and can’t admit it. This element I wasn’t a fan of to be honest. We have seen countless times, I can’t admit my feelings in thousands of anime already. The episode was going very well until this cliché factor came. This cliché doesn’t kill the episode, but it does add a distraction element to Bell’s arc. Bell is completely unaware of the Goddess feelings for him. This leaves Bell in a cliché I hate which is the dense guy. Hopefully later on this season this cliché is solved and flushed out. Overall the episode was great. The world is Orario is enchanting with a great cast. Bell is a likeable protagonist and is fun to watch. The animation and action scenes are stellar. Full gore is added for when the monsters are slain which gives it a touch of realism. The voice acting is spot on as well with a great cast. It’s time to jump into the world of Orario.

Pros

Great Characters

Wonderful Animation

Voice Acting

Music

Setting

Cons

Cliché subplot

Final Grade – 8.5/10/ B+