The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me? (Episode 8) – Presumed Dead? Are You Kidding Me?!

It’s been three years since the tournament and now Well and his party are fully-fledged adventurers. They’re free to do what they want… Well, once they’ve done this one quest for the King that is…
What happened?
After officially forming their party, the Dragon Busters, Well is given a request from the King that he cannot refuse. Their first quest is to explore an ancient ruin that no one has returned from as yet. Brantag will accompany them as their advisor on their first quest, forced out of retirement by the King to ensure that Well doesn’t die. Once inside the ruin, they stumble upon an ancient magic trap. It teleports them to the lowest level of the ruins where they will be forced to fight their way back up. With no idea how far down they are or what they are up against, things aren’t looking good for Well and his party.

What did you think?
Recently, I’ve found myself getting a little frustrated with The 8th Son as it seems to want to focus on anything but the action. So when I discovered that Well was heading into an ancient ruin, I got a little excited, but then we started from the perspective of Well’s eldest brother receiving news that Well had died. Then I was concerned that we wouldn’t actually see what happened and instead focus on the political wrangling of the nobles, but I was wrong. This episode followed Well and his party as the battled for at least five days working their way back to the surface. It was excellent and had a pretty nice soundtrack to go with it. My only real complaint is that I would have liked to see more. Hopefully, we’re looking at this dynamic for the rest of the season.

What have you learnt?
I’ve already mentioned the action in this episode, but other than that I really enjoyed the brief moments of comedy. Some of it was awkward, but it all worked for me. Firstly, we had Well naming his party the Dragon Busters. That gave me a little chuckle. After that, there was a number of smaller moments that made me laugh. My favourite was probably when Louise and Iina were standing over an unconscious Well and Elise discussing the fact that she didn’t need to kiss him for her final spell. Comedy is a hard thing to get right and is one of the most subjective things around, but I think it’s worth trying because when it works, it really works.

Other reviews in the series
- Season One
- Episode 1 – The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me?
- Episode 2 – A Succession Dispute? Are You Kidding Me?
- Episode 3 – A Loner? Are You Kidding Me?!
- Episode 4 – Obligations? Are You Kidding Me?!
- Episode 5 – Political Marriage? Are You Kidding Me?!
- Episode 6 – A Bullet Tour? Are You Kidding Me?!
- Episode 7 – No Magic? Are You Kidding Me?!
- Episode 8 – Presumed Dead? Are You Kidding Me?!
- Episode 9 – People Hate Me? Are You Kidding Me?!
- Episode 10 – Toxic? Are You Kidding Me?!
- Episode 11 – Between a Rock and a Hard Place? Are You Kidding Me?!
- Episode 12 – The 8th Son? I Guess That’s Not So Bad!
- Bonus Posts
