They Went On Vacation And Somehow Saved The World

Endro Episode 4 Review

It really does seem contradictory to have a fantasy/adventure story about a hero who wants to defeat a demon lord and then have it run more or less as a cute girls doing cute things slice of life anime. The mix really shouldn’t work. And while I will admit I find some of the sitting around while the characters have ditsy conversations a little dull, for the most part this anime is actually managing to balance these elements fairly well.

Episode 4 is a good example of Endro getting it right. The girls are about to go on Summer vacation in the fairly standard cliche of let’s get the cute cast of girls to the beach. However, to mix in with the basic premise while there they have summer homework which is to investigate the monsters. What follows is a nice mix of finding and discussing monsters while engaging in all the usual beach shenanigans including dealing with a monster that multiplies watermelons when struck with a sword.

There’s nothing overly deep in any of it but its kind of good fun and while the pastel colour palette isn’t really to my taste, I will admit it kind of perfectly suits the atmosphere of the story being constructed here.

Endro Episode 4 The Hero's Party — How many anime can you say “defeat the evil god and save the mackerelmen” in?

The second half turns more into a hero’s quest though with an Endro twist. The girls go fishing and catch a mackeralman and he begs them to help save the other mackeralmen who have been enslaved by an evil god. What follows is a pretty cute quest. While they do tell us the god is plotting to destroy the world, it is all just kind of low stakes fun and the girls breeze through it fairly easily as normal but somehow this doesn’t turn out boring. I think it is the dynamic between the girls working very well to keep even the most ordinary of sequences feeling a little bit fresh.

Once again, Mao was in low visibility and I can’t help but think the story is better because of it. The last two episodes have definitely improved my view of this anime and while this isn’t going to become a personal favourite I can definitely see this being fun just to crash on the couch to when tired.

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One thought on “They Went On Vacation And Somehow Saved The World”

David Boone (moonhawk81) says:

February 6, 2019 at 5:27 pm

At least Mao-chan isn’t over at the Hoshino house having weird photos taken. . .

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