There is so much anime coming out every single season that it is impossible to watch it all. Normally, I have a strict rule about only watching certain shows and limiting my viewing where possible, lest I lose myself in the need to watch everything. By that logic, May I Ask For One Final Thing? shouldn’t be one of those shows I stick with. I struggle even to call it a really good anime, but I keep watching for one specific reason: the fact that the English dub cast is having more fun than they have any right to.

Granted, I love the idea behind May I Ask For One Final Thing? It is about a noblewoman who must stifle her greatest desire for fear of bringing shame and ruin to her family. However, Scarlet El Vandimion doesn’t desire anything obscene or risqué. It is simple. Pure. In its own way, beautiful.

Her desire, of course, is to beat the asses of any corrupt nobles or politicians who stand before her, though she doesn’t mind going to search them out if it means she gets a fresh punching bag at the end.

The premise is satisfying but thin. Sure, there is a political intrigue happening in the background and we have the possibility of romance mixed in here and there, but all roads lead back to Scarlet catching someone and punching them into submission. It is deeply satisfying to watch the wealthy and the powerful receive a (violent) comeuppance, but it isn’t enough to carry a 13-episode anime series.

Thankfully, May I Ask For One Final Thing? has a secret weapon to keep me interested: the English dub cast. Whether it is a moment where someone is on the receiving end of one of Scarlet’s punches and gives a fantastic reaction grunt or the editor cuts off a sound effect suddenly as someone is flung through a wall at blinding speed, there is something in every single episode that makes me laugh out loud simply because it is such an unhinged delivery. Morgan Lauré is particularly wonderful as Scarlet; the moments when she lets loose and becomes her most feral self are a delight.

The English dub for May I Ask For One Final Thing? brings to mind the abridged series movement that was so popular in the anime community 15 to 20 years ago, and I mean that in the best possible way. These actors not only seem to love voicing anime but are quite clearly having a fantastic time doing it. Sure, this is a professional dub in a quality studio airing on Crunchyroll, a major streaming service, but there is almost a sense of mischief to some of the deliveries. It is so much more playful than I’m used to seeing from an official dub that I find myself enraptured by it.

What May I Ask For One Final Thing? delivers a clear message of not just how important English dubs are for anime, but how important English dubs delivered by human actors are for anime. No machine, no matter how well trained or how advanced, could make this work. It is too fun and too playful for a computer to understand. I struggle to say, with complete honesty, that May I Ask For One Final Thing? is a good anime. The animation is uneven at times, though the scenes in which Scarlet pummels a man near to death are all excellently rendered, and there are, thankfully, quite a few of these. The premise is stretched thin beyond the first few episodes, to the point where I am convinced it should not work.

And yet I continue to watch it. Every week, I watch more because the English cast has injected such fun into the show that it has become something better than the anime they are dubbing. The English dub of May I Ask For One Final Thing? takes what could have been a positively average anime and makes it a surprise knockout.

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