Is It Wrong to Try to Pick up Girls in a Dungeon?

Well, here’s an interesting little anime. An addictive 13 episodes, it’s easy to blitz through in one evening. Despite the whimsical lede of a title, Is it Wrong…? does not actually involve all that much dungeon crawling for the sake of meeting chicks. Instead, it follows the adventures of one Bell Cranel, favored of Hestia (an impressive classical reference, that), whose crush on a much more experienced dungeon crawler leaves him blind to the fact that he’s dropping the panties of everyone around him — including, ironically enough, Hestia’s.

Perhaps the most traditional subversion of the harem comedy genre — the oblivious harem head.

But what makes this anime so enjoyable is that it’s so much fun. Bell Cranel is essentially our Final Fantasy or Skyrim characters turned into an anime, somebody who sucks donkeyballs at the beginning of the first episode (when the aforesaid dungeon crawler saves his ass and he falls hard for her). And after that, he turns into a determinator, whose skills and experience — along with a certain bit of divine favor — compound quickly. By the middle of the anime, he is the fastest person to ever reach Level 2, eclipsing the previous record-holder’s. And by the end, there’s a full-fledged WoW-style raid.

Perhaps the most interesting part is Hestia’s characterization. In classical mythology, she was virginal — revered but rather boring for modern tastes. Here, however, she’s this genki girl teenager with obvious hots for Crenel, along with a rather long jealous streak. She’s also mentioned as having previously been a freeloader retainer in Hephaestus’ household before striking off on her own and trying to start one of her own (one that Crenel is currently the only other member of), and the other gods and goddesses seem to treat her as something of a little sister.

Oh yeah, and gods and goddesses walk among men, undisguised. Freya, Loki, Demeter, Hephaestus, and Hermes all make appearances; one scene has Hestia getting drunk with Miach. They’re not allowed to use their divine powers on the mortal plane — otherwise Bad Things might happen — but a number of gods have created clans of like-minded mortals. For example, Hephaestus runs a clan of high-end blacksmiths, while Loki runs the best dungeon-crawler clan.

Like I said, it’s a fun anime! The only disappointing part is that it’s only 13 episodes long — these episodes are so unbelievably addictive I’m pretty sure I would have binged until the crack of dawn had there been more!