DanMachi (Seasons 1-5): A Decade of Dungeon-Diving and Divine Rejection

"Is It Wrong to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?" (DanMachi) celebrates its 10th anniversary as a fantasy series where gods live among humans and form "familias" that explore monster-filled dungeons beneath the city of Orario.

• Bell Cranell, the protagonist, is the sole member of the Hestia familia who develops rapid power growth due to his feelings for swordswoman Ais Wallenstein
• Despite catching the romantic attention of numerous women and goddesses, Bell consistently friendzones them all while pursuing Ais
• The five seasons follow distinct arcs: introduction, saving a fox girl, protecting a dragon girl from prejudice, a tsundere elf's feelings, and Freya's manipulation
• Season 5 reveals the shocking twist that Syr was actually the goddess Freya (or her protégé Horn) in disguise, gaslighting Bell
• The series balances RPG-like progression with romantic comedy elements but never becomes as violent as similar fantasy anime
• The series earns an 8/10 rating, with the light novels now reaching their final arc

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing DanMachi's 10th Anniversary
• 0:36 World Building: Gods, Familias, and Dungeons
• 1:57 Bell's Story and the Friend Zone
• 4:35 Season 5: Freya's Deception Revealed
• 8:56 Final Thoughts and Series Rating [CHANNEL][00:15:12] Channel Updates and Social Media Plans

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

is it wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon? Aka don machi, more like friend zoning, literal goddesses for my idol. But no, seriously, happy 10th anniversary to don machi. Not gonna lie, I kind of glossed over this anime for a while, but five anime seasons of this must be worth a watch, right? So let's go ahead and dive into it.

Speaker 1: 0:30

For starters, plot the story taking place in the fictional serial Oryo. Excuse me if I butchered that pronunciation. The city is home to a number of gods who seek in excitement. They chose to limit their divine powers In order to experience the hardships Of those who reside in the mortal world. So, yeah, gods got bored and decided yeah, you know what would be cool Constipate as humans. Meanwhile, one of them literally did. I'll get to that. Each god maintains a Retinue of adventurers and support personnel drawn from the people of the city, known as a familia. The primary activity of these organizations is exploring the labyrinth under the city, known as the dungeon, in order to battle monsters and harvest the crystal shards they leave behind when destroyed. These shards are used to craft magic items and other treasures. However, they can also be exchanged directly for a world's currency. Okay, okay, and in a fashion, typical role-playing game, the power of an adventurer is quantified by their leveling and number of ability scores. So by defeating more powerful monsters, an advent adventure is able to increase their own level and ability scores, as well as unlock special powers known as skills. Oh yeah, like very video game.

Speaker 1: 1:57

This story follows bell cornell, 14 year old rookie and sole member of the hessia family. At first he looks up to ice wallenstein, a famous and sole member of the Hestia family. At first he looks up to Ice Wallenstein, a famous and powerful swordswoman of the Loki familia, and vows to become as strong as her following a chance encounter where he saves his life from a powerful minotaur is powerful in them. You play enough video games you realize minotaurs are more like basic monsters. I'm like come on, dog. I mean I guess if it's powerful you're like brand new to adventuring, but I don't know. That's an oversell for me. But he ends up unknowingly developing a special ability known as Lyra's Freeze, which is granting him a rapid growth and strength as a result of his feelings. Think, kind of like a temporary Zenkai boost, except it's linked to his feelings. Well, it's the same thing with Saiyan Permanent, but it's more like a temporary boost, especially when you use argonaut. But that's beside the point. I'm derailing now.

Speaker 1: 3:16

As bell goes on adventures and his quest becomes stronger, he ends up casting the attention of many others in the series alongside romantic affections, for other girls, deities and mortals alike, most notably Hestia herself. But he never reciprocates any of them whatsoever as he only has feelings for eyes. So I'm looking at this anime thinking friendzone. Like every time those girls like admit their feelings towards Belle, he would just look them dead in their face and be like friendzone. Like every time those girls like admit their feelings towards bill, he would just look him dead in their face and be like friendzone. Oh yeah, speaking of eyes, uh, she got a spin-off series or oratoria. Uh, I'm sorry if I butchered that. Actually no fucking way, I don't care.

Speaker 1: 4:03

Focusing on Eyes, only one season run in parallel to season one of Don Monty and retold from the perspective of the Loki, familiar In a sense. Yeah, like I want to say it was. The writing was pretty good, like I feel like by the time they got this, um, that one, it was like one is like okay, they get into their stride of opening up the world. Like what can we expect from don machi as a whole. But if I could boil down the series in simple terms, I'd say season one is the introductory arc, season 2 is save the fox girl from prostitution. Season 3 is save the dragon girl and friendly monsters from prejudice. Season 4 is the Sundari elf maid finally catches feelings for the MC main character. And Season 5 is undercover. The ops catch feelings for the main character. Well, not cats. Well, you know, like being cardboard at this point she's not being very subtle about it anymore.

Speaker 1: 5:15

Not gonna lie, I was gonna write the whole series off as mid until I read season 5, with Freya's intention for Belle becoming more queer, cere being Freya all along and her protege, horn, whose original name was Cere, but essentially Freya was like I like that name, I'm gonna take that name and your new name is gonna be Horn. Like, oh, if you're gonna be my protege, you're gonna need a new name. And Freya was essentially role playing. Uh, well, here's the crazy part. It was like, okay, so every now and then, like, freya will be herself and then horn will cosplay as seer, so to speak, like, in other words, sometimes she will actually be herself, so to speak, but you know, being a follower of Freya, but then they sometimes switch places. So every now and then, when Belle is chopping up with Sears, sometimes that's Freya, sometimes that's Horn. That was a swerve for me, honestly.

Speaker 1: 6:25

And freya, this bitch, brainwashed most of the town into thinking that bell was part of the freya familiar, while gaslighting the poor boy like a pimp breaking in a new girl in his stable. It's like just slapping us like look, baby. I'm sorry I had to do that to you. I know. Look, I don't like hurting you, but you need to stop upsetting me. Okay, like you're present to me, I don't want to hurt you, but if you disrespect me, I can talk about other women in front of my face. That one time in that scene where he accidentally called Freya a seer because you know the gaslighting getting juiced with that Freya was trying to have built under and she got mad at him for calling her a seer. And I was like how dare you call me by another woman's name? You know what Get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 1: 7:29

I even thought it was funny how, in the end, with the whole war game and what not, bill finally got to Freya and she asked him One more time Could you please accept my feelings? And Bill was like Bitch, listen, I tried to be nice, but now I'm just going to be straight up. I only like you as a friend. I mean I'll be your knight. Well, if you need my services then sure I'll come help you, but I'm not vibing with you like that. And then you pretty much cut off the flower because you know they had like the flower thing going on how you win the war game. In this one, rhea even offered to share Belle with Ryu, but Ryu turned her down as she should. I thought that was kind of funny.

Speaker 1: 8:27

Hestia, she impressed me a little, especially in season five, with how powerful she can be. Also the virgin goddess wearing the virgin dress makes a whole lot of sense. Now the dub acting, I'll admit, also impressed me just a little bit. Here and there, like sometimes when horn starts talking and whatnot, I I was like okay, I can tell that the voice actor for Horn is definitely like selling it to me, like selling the emotion to me. Everybody else, you know once again, here and there, like I have to call Sierra slash Freya, some bluesy skin. See Gear Slash Freya, some floozy.

Speaker 1: 9:14

This hussy Going on a date with my man. And season 5, episode 2. Bell literally had to learn how to pick up girls in a dungeon and having his teacher, so to speak, had a whole Professor Snake thing going on with him. He said something so wild I'm like this dude got to be certified or something when he said women are expensive. The more you spend on them, the more you show your sincerity, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro, bro, sincerity, bruh, bruh, bruh. How many women have you dated?

Speaker 1: 9:57

So the war game near the end of season 5 kind of reminds me of the choice art from Patekio, hitman and Bourne in a way Like not completely, but in a way Otaro, the main boy on Freya's side, looking built like a jojo, bizarre adventure. This is a north star type character. I just wanted to mention that about the sleeper mvp during the war game between the loki familiar, including loki herself, and some members of the freya familiar, including Hedon and Hogni. In other words, they were more concerned About Freya's happiness, even if it meant Like yeah, like this ain't right If you want true happiness. Like yeah, you know, just go Be here.

Speaker 1: 10:47

But Ultimately and it's like yeah, you know, just go this year, like you know, you know, but ultimately this anime felt like slow burn, solo level and yeah, I know why I don't exactly like that, I know, I know. But especially with Bell wielding two knives, kind of like Jin who did, and I'm like, bro, it's like, I swear to god, it's like when you see jenny with two knives and whatnot, you think you're like, oh man, this gonna be like a stone cold menace. And then you see a bell and I'm feeling like, look at this cute ass kid. I mean I mean he did, but like not that impressive, but yeah, like not keeping Don Machi like that. But it did kind of feel like slow burn soul in a way, but with more romance and less gruesome violence. You know what I'm saying. Like I mean there were some violence, like there were deaths and blood spilled and whatnot, but it didn't get crazy like soul level, that's what I'm saying. Like I mean there were some violence, like there were deaths and blood spilled and whatnot, but it didn't get crazy like solo level. That's all I'm saying. And these characters, it's like these people the women more so either once built for its potential or for the typical anime rom-com protagonist reason he accepted them for who they are when they were misunderstood or on the wrong side of things and that just got their panties wet. The real irony is, like I said in the beginning, del Friendzone just about every other girl except Ives, who he looks up to more than literal goddesses.

Speaker 1: 12:34

If I was new to this anime, if I was new to anime in general, I'd probably give it a higher score. But it's fairly good for what it is A boy willing to climb the heights in order to impress his crush. Wait a minute. I give Don Monty as a whole, as of now, an 8 out of 10. They just got to their final arc in the light novel, so I'm just going to have to see what a potential season 6 and beyond got for us, or I change my school. But yeah, I'll try to keep this fairly sure.

Speaker 1: 13:19

I'm not trying to give away too much. That's the thing. Like I'm trying to make it shorter and ultimately it should be more about giving my impression of it all. How did I feel about it? It's one thing if I go into the plot, but that's just a thing to give you context on what the hell we're talking about. But then I'm mainly more concerned about the audience probably want to know how we feel about it. Go on any YouTube channel, any podcast or whoever else doing this sort of thing and hear the same shit. But what makes it different is how do we individually about this content and I just told you how it is. It's fine, but it ain't all that either. Like I would say, I would be even more impressed if I was brand new to anime in general, like if I was one of those dudes that was like oh yeah, don Monk, it was like my first anime ever. I'm like bro, I'm like 900 anime d-blood. This ain't nothing new for me. So, yeah, like Don Monty's pretty good, pretty good. So let me go ahead and zone out here. We got more anime reviews and reviews in general coming up, especially anime lightning coming up. Don Monty was almost part of the anime lightning, but because the 10th anniversary was today, april 4th, I thought you know what fuck it, we'll just make it like a short thing of it's own and let it be what it is. Yeah, I hope you enjoyed this episode.

Speaker 1: 15:15

I'm gonna try to do a little better with being more consistent with the episode, because things have been kind of messy, not too messy. Don't look at this like that. Not that messy, but more like we need to organize some shit because we got the summer games coming up. We trying to launch a youtube channel. We trying to get people subscribing to our patreon and we got our website, zonealliancecom, where we got new items in our merch store. We trying to get more blogs put out. We're trying to do better on social media with the newsflashes and whatnot that you can see on Instagram, facebook and whatnot. I'm trying to increase my presence on Twitter, even though I'm like ugh, not saying it's better than Facebook or anything, just like it's just so fucking wild on Twitter. It's like I don't even know if I want to be that active on Twitter.

Speaker 1: 16:22

Tiktok it's supposed to be going down tomorrow. So well, supposedly, I just don't know for sure yet Like, we didn't get no announcement or anything. We didn't hear shit about a buyer. So I mean, yeah, yeah, there were some people that bought, want to buy, like, uh, mr beason, some folks. But what I'm saying is I didn't hear anything about official negotiations being done. So it kind of feels like, yeah, it might be it this time or, who knows, you might like, hey, hold on, let's get another TikTok, give these people a chance, work things out.

Speaker 1: 17:04

I don't know anymore. I don't even care if TikToks go down. I only care if CapCut goes down, because CapCut made things very, very convenient as far as editing, and I'm just like I just got around to learn how to use CapCut more efficiently, just for it to be gone, like, if anything, at least let us keep CapCut. If TikTok goes down, whatever, we can move on to Instagram Reels we got YouTube Shorts. We can do this shit on Facebook reels and maybe Twitter. I don't care either way if TikTok goes down, but can we at least please keep Capcom? Can we keep that please? But nah, bro, not indeed real too much. Thank you for listening. You go ahead and take it easy. Have yourself a good morning, good afternoon, good night. You know the whole spiel.