Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV Part 2

A Good Second Half

Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV Part 2 (Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka IV: Fuka Shou – Yakusai-hen / ダンジョンに出会いを求めるのは間違っているだろうかⅣ深章 厄災篇) has a very long title. It’s also the 2nd cour of the 4th season of DanMachi.

Of all the seasons/cours of DanMachi so far, this one was the best. I already liked the 1st cour of Season 4. And because of that, I expected this cour to be good, as well. But, it was even better than I thought it would be.

Why is Season 4, as a whole, better than the previous seasons, though? For me, a large part of it has to do with this season going back to the series’ roots. It’s all about exploring unknown parts of the dungeon.

In Season 4 Part 2, things go a step further. It’s no longer just about exploring the lower floors. Bell and Ryuu find themselves fighting to survive in the deep floors. And while they’re doing that, we also get to follow Bell’s party making their way through the lower floors.

But, that’s not all. There’s also a bit of content following a third party in the dungeon made up of Tsubaki, Anya, Chloe, and Runoa. So, we get to see dungeon exploration from 3 different perspectives.

Oh, and to top it off, Season 4 Part 2 finally gives us the tragic backstory of the Astraea Familia. We already knew they were wiped out in the lower floors of the dungeon. But, in this cour, we actually get to see how it happened and the events leading up to the tragedy.

This cour has a lot of good content.

I Need More Astraea Familia

Overall, the flashback scenes of the Astraea Familia weren’t that engaging. Most of them featured boring things like the Familia members debating justice. But, toward the end of the season, we got to see the Astraea Familia in action for a little bit.

Now, of course, the action we got to see involved the decimation of the Astraea Familia. However, they were very cool while they were dying. I didn’t care much about Alise until we got to see her final fight. She was such a cool leader and I’d love to see more of her.

Unfortunately, I doubt we’ll ever get a spin-off anime following the Astraea Familia. The only DanMachi spin-off anime we have is Sword Oratoria. And let me tell you, Sword Oratoria isn’t good. It’s fine and has some good supporting characters. But, it’s nowhere near as good as this season was.

Lefiya Viridis and Ais Wallenstein were the protagonists of Sword Oratoria. They’re a thousand times worse than Ryuu Lion and Alise Lovell. Just the fact that an Astraea Familia spin-off would follow those two makes it better. Lefiya is insufferable and Ais is as boring as watching paint dry.

But, would an Astraea Familia spin-off actually be fun to watch? After all, we already know how their story ends. With the exception of Ryuu, they all die fighting the Juggernaut. Well, that doesn’t really have any impact on their prior adventures.

We know the Astraea Familia was an accomplished Familia. They were capable of traversing the deep floors. And they had a rivalry with the Rudra Familia, which was allied with Evilus. There’s a lot of potential content to cover in a spin-off series about them. And in this season, we didn’t even dive into their individual backgrounds.

Ais Wallenwho?

I wrote extensively about Ryuu Lion being the best girl of the series in the last few episode reviews of Season 4. But, I’m going to do it again here because I can. There isn’t a single female character in DanMachi who’s better than Ryuu. Period.

Think of all the female characters in the series. Ryuu has more development than all of them. Oh, you like Hestia? Her entire personality is that she’s obsessed with Bell. There’s nothing more to her character than that. Ais is the female lead, you say? Has she even played a role since Season 1?

Multiple supporting characters get more screen time and development than Hestia and Ais. There’s Lili, Aisha, and Haruhime, just to name a few. Aisha and Haruhime were supporting characters in Season 2 and they’re still around. Even Wiene, Season 3‘s female character of the season, was in Season 4 more than Ais.

I do need to point out that I don’t know what happens next in this series. It’s possible that we never see or hear from Ryuu again. After all, she was the female character of the season this time around. But, what makes Ryuu different from Wiene and Marie is that she’s been around.

Ryuu has been in the series from the start. And it’s not as if she only got character development in Season 4. She was always one of the more interesting characters. But now, with Season 4 Part 2, she’s easily the most interesting.

At this point, I want the series to make Ryuu the official female lead. She pretty much already is. Who cares that Bell has a crush on Ais or that he’s devoted to Hestia? Ryuu has gone farther with Bell romantically than either of them. She keeps winning.

Conclusion

I ended up giving DanMachi IV Part 2 a 7/10. That’s the same score I gave to the original season and to Season 4 Part 1. But, Part 2 is better than both of those. The 1st season is like a low 7. Season 4 Part 1 is a standard 7. And Part 2 is a high 7.

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