Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? II

Episodes 1-2

Welcome back to Orario, the city atop the dungeon. Or, more precisely, welcome to season two of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, the show that pretty much never does what its title says. What it does do, however, is present an interesting world based equally on sword and sorcery fantasy and the mythologies of various religions, and as readers of the novels know, this new season is picking up with one of the most exciting storylines in the series, and one that should lend itself very well to an anime adaptation.

These first two episodes certainly seem to bear that out. Fresh off the events of the previous season, Bell has formed a firm party with Welf of Hephaistos Familia and Lili of Soma Familia, and with Hestia as his patron goddess and Loki Familia's Ais as his idol and teacher, he continues to work towards fulfilling his potential as an adventurer. He doesn't have much time to rest on his laurels, however – when he and Hestia are invited to a party hosted by Apollo and his familia, it turns out to be a thinly veiled excuse for the other Greco-Roman god to challenge Hestia Familia to a War Game, with Bell as the prize. It's hardly a fair proposition – Apollo has a huge familia behind him while Hestia just has Bell.

If you know your Greek mythology, this actually makes a lot of sense. While Apollo is one of the more varied gods as far as what he's the god of, he's also got a rather nasty habit of getting revenge on people who deny him what he wants or driving them into a corner due to his attentions. Two of those women are prominent members of his familia – Cassandra and Daphne. Cassandra is best known as Cassandra of Troy, a Trojan princess whom Apollo gifted with the power of prophecy and then cursed so that no one would ever believe her. The reasons for this vary by source, but they all have the same general idea: she wouldn't have sex with him, so he cursed her out of spite. Meanwhile Daphne was the unfortunate nymph Apollo formed an obsession with thanks to Cupid, and the only way she could avoid being raped by him was through transformation into a laurel (daphne) tree. In line with this, according to the show, Hestia (who, we should remember, is a virgin goddess in mythology) refused Apollo's advances, so this War Game challenge is definitely part of his mythological M.O. He's also, episode two shows us, formed an interest in Bell, so this is two-fold – he gets his revenge on Hestia and he gets the new object of his affections in his familia.

That, of course, is assuming that Apollo Familia wins. And I've got to admit, that actually looks pretty damn likely right about now, because there are a ton of them, and the fact that they've all got military-style uniforms on says something about their precision. As an added bonus (?), they've also gone so far as to align with Soma Familia, which is technically the group Lili owes her allegiance to. Even if there isn't a formal alliance, they've certainly notified Soma's followers as to where their missing member has gone, although an alliance itself would make a certain amount of sense, given that Soma is a moon god to Apollo's sun. That takes one of Bell's allies out of the picture – and if Hephaistos objects to Welf helping Bell here, that's two he's down.

Fortunately it does look like Hestia's got a couple of divine allies to call her own. Takemikazuchi Familia still feels badly about the whole Pass Parade incident and when they hear that Apollo is playing dirty by attacking Bell and Hestia even before the War Game has technically been agreed upon, they come running, as does Miach Familia. Both are small groups, though, and thus far Loki Familia – who might reasonably be expected to help out, given that Loki and Hestia are sort-of friends – is trying to stay out of it. Plus Freya's still hanging around with her own obsession with Bell, making her the sort of wild card who could push things towards either side.

With the intensity of episode two as a whole, it's nice that episode one at least spends some time on lighter moments, such as Hermes instructing Bell in the finer points of getting out on the dance floor. Hestia and Bell's relationship was a highlight of the first season whether you choose to read it as romantic or not (and Hestia makes it clear that she does, or at least wants to, in episode two) and that looks like it's carrying over nicely here. With its blend of slick action, character relationships, and a world that's just ambiguous enough to wonder at what could be going on behind the scenes, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?'s second season looks to be off to a good start.

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Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? II is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and HIDIVE.