The Series (4/5)

    I grew up obsessed with video game RPG's. My first console was the NES, so my first experiences into that world were the Legend of Zelda followed by Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest), and then Final Fantasy. However, PC style Dungeon Crawlers including a few PC ports began to make their way to the console fairly early on (including some that required the old standby of graph paper and pencil!). These included Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, Swords and Serpents, and Dungeon Magic. You might wonder why I am mentioning PC style dungeon crawlers in an anime review, and the simple reason is that Sentai Filmworks recent release Is It Wrong to Try to Up Girls in a Dungeon? Is a huge homage to games in this genre.

   The series follows Bell, a citizen of the city of Orario. This city has a huge dungeon underneath it. People come from a far to test their skills in the city's dungeon as well as just simply adventure, kill monsters, and gather loot to sell in the city's markets. The dungeon has one other benefit, which is adventurers get to rescue (and thus) meet girls, which saves them time in the local dating scene. It is this aspect that Bell is most interested in though, it is not one of the damsels in distress that Bell is interested in, rather it is another adventurer.   This creates a slight bit of conflict in the story as all the adventurers belong to something called a "familia", the familias are run by an Earthbound god or goddess that has chosen to eschew their godly powers to remain on Earth and be worshipped and taken care of here. Bell belongs to a small familia called Hestia whose former goddess has a crush on him, but the feelings are not quire reciprocated.

     Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is a riotous blast of comedy and action. The series feels like a fantasy RPG brought to life. Animation is quite solid throughout the presentation. The series score is excellent, and sounds quite epic and sweeping at times.  The show as a whole can easily be recommended to fans of harem style anime, while at the same time dungeon crawler RPG's.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    Sentai Filmworks presents Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?  in a solid 1:78:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer. Everything looks quite solid here. Colors pop. line detail is excellent, and blacks are nice and deep. Audio is presented with DTS-HD MA 2.0 tracks in English and Japanese both tracks are solid, but I have a preference for the Japanese so stuck with that for my primary viewing.  Dialogue and score come through nicely, and I did not detect any issues with the track.

Extras (1/5)

    Sentai provides a clean opening and closing, and some promotional trailers for other releases.

Overall

    Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is a solid fantasy/comedy anime. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, but is again limited in extras. RECOMMENDED.