English Dub Review: Scarlet Nexus “Nagi Attacks”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Nagi ambushes Yuito’s platoon and the two of them have a big ol’ skirmish. Nagi dies in the end, and Yuito vows vengeance on those who altered his brain. The platoon confronts Yuito’s older brother, who reveals that the mission of New Himuka is solely to launch an attack on the moon with Yuito’s special powers. Yuito and Kasane prepare to go and tell of this evil agenda to the rest of the world, but before they leave they receive startling news about Naomi.

Our Take:

It seems like Scarlet Nexus should be finished by now, but that’s because it’s been a looong time since Funimation’s last dubbed episode release. Or at least, it feels like it’s been a long time. Episode 15 is out now, and features some major revelations about Yuito and the role his family plays in the running of New Himuka.

The episode is titled Nagi Attacks, which turns out to be a pretty apt descriptor since that’s what the episode begins with and takes place for the majority of the runtime. Yuito and the rest of his platoon members are surprised that they’ve been allowed into the city so easily. The guards are standing down, which means it must be a trap. That trap comes in the form of an over-powered Nagi who has undergone so much personality rehab that he barely knows who he is anymore. I would’ve really liked to see some physical changes though, like veins bulging or something to sell how much he’s been tampered with.

The battle that ensues between Yuito and Nagi is definitely one of the more memorable moments to happen in Scarlet Nexus in a while. Nagi and Yuito are the two characters we’ve known since the beginning, so the two of them fighting to the death is bound to be a big spectacle. The animation is mostly up to the task, with some solid action sequences mixed with banter between them. In the end, Yuito is able to talk Nagi back to his senses, but his old friend still passes away due to his own brain being overloaded.

Overall, it’s the best part of the episode for sure, but I think it could’ve had a much bigger impact had Nagi and Yuito relationship been developed a bit deeper, as well as Nagi as a character himself. In bringing him back around to himself, Yuito brings up all of the surface level stuff we already know—Nagi’s a jokester who wants girls to like him. It almost made me laugh how silly it sounded during a life or death fight for Yuito’s brain.

After the battle ends, Yuito vows revenge on Nagi’s oppressors and goes deeper into the city, where they find his older brother… uh oh! Turns out, his brother’s been commanding Nagi to kill him. He expresses his wishes that Yuito would’ve turned himself in sooner. When Yuito presses him for more information we finally get to the bottom of why New Himuka has been acting in this way: because apparently, the entire mission of Yuito’s family is to see to it that the wishes of Sumeragi, the founder, are fulfilled. And those wishes are basically to launch a major attack on the moon. The plan was to utilize Yuito’s psionic power, but of course that hasn’t worked out… so his brother vows to do it by force.

Of course, the guards can’t capture Yuito and co. This battle is a lot less visually interesting than the Nagi fight. Yuito and Kasane decide the next move is to go alert everyone as to what the government has been up to, but wouldn’t ya know it—there’s another wrinkle complicating things. Major General Fubuki has been seen transferring the human-derived Others away from the life research facility in Seiran… where is he taking Naomi?

Nagi Attacks had some cool moments, especially in the title fight, but a lot of the rest felt pretty lame by comparison, and it just seems like it’s dragging on and on at this point with the squads jumping back and forth between the same locations. Scarlet Nexus still has plenty more episodes to come, though, so hopefully things get shaken up by Yuito’s family revelation.