Genjitsu Shugi Yuusha no Oukoku Saikenki

After the death of his grandfather, 19-year-old Kazuya Souma—an aspiring civil servant—is left all alone with no one to call family. Out of the blue, he is transported to the Elfrieden Kingdom, a small ailing country in another world, to be a "hero." An ongoing war with the demon army has put the entire world in peril, and Kazuya was summoned to aid in the conflict as an offering from Elfrieden to its allies.

Dissatisfied with being used as tribute, Kazuya decides to help the kingdom revamp its declining economy—not by way of adventuring or war, but through administrative reform. Abruptly declared the King of Elfrieden and betrothed to the princess, the "Realist Hero" Kazuya sets out to assemble a group of talented citizens who will assist him in his bureaucratic battles to get the kingdom back on its feet.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Elfrieden, Liscia Main

Minase, Inori Japanese

Souma, Kazuya Main

Kobayashi, Yuusuke Japanese

Doma, Juna Supporting

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Udgard, Aisha Supporting

Hasegawa, Ikumi Japanese

Amidonia, Roroa Supporting

Ichimichi, Mao Japanese

Inui, Tomoe Supporting

Kahara, Moe Japanese

Kwonmin, Hakuya Supporting

Okitsu, Kazuyuki Japanese

Vargas, Carla Supporting

Aimi Japanese

Walter, Excel Supporting

Horie, Yui Japanese

Euphoria, Jeanne Supporting

Ishikawa, Yui Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Okada, Kouji Producer

Ozawa, Fumihiro Producer

Yoshida, Shouhei Producer

Reviews

Mar 11, 2024

kchakrak

Recommended

TLDR
I really enjoyed this. It's intelligent and focuses on rebuilding and improving rather than heroes and battles. Its funny, smart and really satisfying. I highly recommend this for basically anyone whose looking for something a little more mature than the superkid hero thing.

Cast
The protag is incredibly intelligent, perhaps ridiculously so, but it is believable for a well read, rational person to know this stuff. The 'found family' cast are what really make this show special though, he's not doing this alone and that really helped carry me through the show. Liscia in particular is a rock, quietly carrying the king through his ordeals. They're mature, ... smart and funny people.

Plot
It's fair to say unless you watch all episodes over both parts I don't think you'll fully appreciate this, as the first season really deals with him creating stability. Above and beyond that there's not a lot to say that isn't in the title. That's what it's about.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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May 19, 2024

AnimeEnjoyer420

Mixed Feelings

Realist Hero primarily sets itself apart from the unwashed isekai masses by focusing on international diplomacy and politics over adventuring and slaying demon lords. Does it work at making the series comparatively interesting? Well, it's complicated.

On the one hand, there is an undeniable novelty to treating statecraft as more than an afterthought in a fantasy series like this. It's a largely untapped vein of storytelling that only Tensura has really explored in a satisfying way to this point. The plot moves along nicely rather than being mired in generic dungeon adventuring, and the focus of the story necessitates a more built-out and interesting setting than ... you get from almost any other isekai.

The downside though, is that if you're going to make a series about diplomacy, you need to actually know something about diplomacy, and it's apparent that the original writer doesn't. Instead, it's clear that he thumbed through a copy of The Prince to reference a few quotes and called it a day. What he calls "realism" is actually just politics, not the Realist philosophy of international relations. Souma, the "Realist Hero" of the title, is not a Realist but an idealist who believes in keeping everyone safe and minimizing casualties as an end unto itself, an emphatically non-Realist idea. I realize this seems like nitpicking, but when the selling point of the series is its comparatively serious treatment of politics and diplomacy, it matters that the writer is flubbing all of the references to political philosophy. The use of Realist in the title and the constant references to Machiavelli would probably prime you to believe this is a brutal series where an amoral protagonist has to make a lot of hard choices, but in fact he's not like that at all and almost never encounters serious problems or resistance. One of the worst things about the writing is that when you get right down to it, it's just a different flavor of isekai power fantasy about a guy that has everything go his way while he amasses a large roster of girlfriends.

More than the writing though, the key problem with Realist Hero is the production by JC Staff. Watching isekai anime generally comes with the implicit promise of bad animation, but this is on a different level. Characters are off model far more than they're on, and not in a charming way. The simplest cuts of animation melt like a chocolate bar in the desert. The few action scenes in the series are simply not animated at all and are presented PowerPoint-style instead. The CGI and digital backgrounds look like puke and the compositing is incompetent at the most basic levels, like not lining up people's feet correctly with the surface they're walking on. It almost feels insulting to watch, that they thought this was an acceptable final product to put out into the world.

Overall, I do think this is better than most isekai anime, but I can't fully recommend it. The plot has a certain propulsiveness that makes it pretty binge-able, and the political gimmick makes it feel comparatively fresh and distinct in an ever-more-formulaic genre, even when it indulges too much in those formulas itself. On the other hand, the treatment of politics and diplomacy is pretty shallow and uninformed, which makes it maddening if you're actually passionate about those topics. The dreadful standard of animation tips it into "don't recommend" territory for me, but you may feel more positively about it if that doesn't matter as much to you

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Apr 11, 2023

Rakdos72

Not Recommended

I made a bet with a friend that I would watch one season of an isekai, and I happened to choose the most flavorless one. "Realist Hero" has got to be the isekai of all time. The main hero is such a self-insert that at times the show plays like an Adam Sandler flick. The show meets so many stereotypes of the genre, it practically feels AI-generated. Let's go through the list:

Overpowered MC? Check.
Contrived harem plot? Check.
Terrible exposition and lore dumping? Check.
Emotionless dialogue and tone-deaf voice delivery? Check.
Soft magic system that empowers the characters when needed? Check.
Demon lord? Check.

The gimmick of this show is, ... the main character has the power of basic social studies knowledge, so instead of action sequences and dramatic battles, we get extremely boring dialogue about farming and resource management. But somehow, every single female character is in love with the MC by the end of the first season. "Male power fantasy" doesn't even begin to describe how Realist Hero is written. Kazuya Souma, the "hero" makes zero mistakes throughout the first season, since everyone in the world he was isekai'd to is worse at understanding basic management than a late Roman emperor. I put "hero" in quotation marks since an actual hero has character flaws and undergoes a defining arc in the form of the hero's journey. But Kazuya spends his entire time on screen being perfect, making his character impossible to become invested in.

I have nothing else to say about Realist Hero. It sucks. It doesn't even fit the bill of "so bad, it's good," because at least those shows aren't boring, just bad. Nothing about Realist Hero deviates from a tone-deaf wish fulfillment fantasy.

3/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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