Tensei shitara Ken deshita

A nameless sword wakes up to discover he has been reincarnated from his former life as a human. With his power of telekinesis, he moves around this new world, acquiring several skills and abilities. When the sword comes upon a forest filled with monsters, he meets a young girl fleeing from a beast. Grabbing the sword, the girl easily defeats the monster. After introducing herself as Fran, she names the sword "Shishou" and officially becomes his wielder.

The two set out to become adventurers, but unfortunately for Fran, she is a member of the Black Cat Tribe—a Beastkin group with a bad reputation. No member of this tribe has ever evolved into a mightier beast, but Fran plans to be the first and achieve her parents' dream. As Shishou promises to remain her sword until she attains her goal, they form an unstoppable partnership of impressive strength.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Fran Main

Kakuma, Ai Japanese

Shishou Main

Miki, Shinichiro Japanese

Amanda Supporting

Koshimizu, Ami Japanese

Gallus Supporting

Tsuji, Shinpachi Japanese

Nell Supporting

Ookubo, Rumi Japanese

Dovy, Jean Supporting

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Dungeon Master Supporting

Sakaguchi, Daisuke Japanese

Allsand, August Supporting

Aoyama, Yutaka Japanese

Elevent Supporting

Yamamoto, Shouta Japanese

Krad Supporting

Yamaguchi, Tomohiro Japanese

Kotaka, Tatsuya Assistant Producer

Hieda, Kouki Assistant Producer

Takimoto, Rei Assistant Producer

Kawasuzuki, Ibuki Assistant Producer

Reviews

Jul 25, 2024

The_Walker

Recommended

"Reincarnated as a Sword" is what I like to consider "Isekai light", which is where the line between where a story can be considered to be within the "Isekai" genre or the more general "High Fantasy" genre IE Lord of the Rings is blurred. The reincarnation element exists in these stories, however it is only very loosely explored and not given much degree of importance, often taking a backseat to the rest of the plot. This type of writing often gives the impression that the only reason the author decided to include the reincarnation element is to make one of the characters more relatable, but ... otherwise you can tell that they really just wanted to write a non-Isekai fantasy so they included only the barebones.

This specific anime is one where the low attention granted to the Isekai element actually works in its favor, allowing the show to focus more on the second main character as she tries to grow from a young and weak girl into a capable adventurer to restore honor to herself and her kin.

The show however is not at all perfect and without clichés. The main annoying cliche being that the Sword/"Shishou" is just a little bit too overpowered for his own good, and the catgirl/"Fran" is just a little too weak without him. So under the hood this anime is actually an extremely generic fairly straightforward Father-Daughter drama plot with the Sword playing the father figure and the catgirl playing the daughter. It's just wrapped up in a Fantasy RPG setting package to give a plot that would ordinarily be very basic just enough action and spice to make it less boring and seem less predictable than it is. It's just good enough to recommend, especially if you happen to be a Dad yourself and have a daughter to watch it with for some feelgood relatable moments, just don't expect some deconstructive groundbreaking masterpiece.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Apr 15, 2024

Legolaspt

Mixed Feelings

The premise and execution are surprisingly good; the fight scenes are quite good, the jokes land well and the animation is gorgeous. In general Tensei shitara Ken deshita is a lighthearted fun experience, something to turn your brain off and enjoy some action + comedy, and I find the comedy notably funny.

That being said, Tensei is not perfect. There are lots of expositive dialogues, and the presentation is very lacking. What I mean by that is that the story is fun and interesting, but it is presented quite poorly in regards to the storyboarding.

1st example of poor presentation: The show starts with a scene that, ... in chronological order, is the post-climax scene from the end of the same first episode. In this scene, the viewer is greeted with an expositive useless monologue by a narrator; and then the show immediately proceeds to a flashback. This may be the single worst first minute in television history. There was no need for this, and presenting the first episode in chronological order, without a narrator, would have been a much better and, honestly, obvious choice.

2nd example of poor presentation: The 2nd episode starts with an expositive powerpoint presentation.

3rd example of poor presentation: Episode 1 kind of repeats the same scene - the mc killing random monsters - over and over again, instead of progressing the plot or showing us more interesting scenarios.

4th example of poor presentation: Episode 3 has 4 scenes in sequence about buying stuff - which is half the episode - and these scenes are ok, but 4 in a row is too much, you gotta space them out or the viewer gets bored.

This pattern of weird storyboarding continues throughout the show.

obs: The idea of of presenting the ending of episode 1 - or smthg similar - as the first scene is to be used in order to provide a hook for tension, suspense or intrigue, so this scene must be mid-action, instead of the calm post-climax first scene presented in Tensei shitara, which also has an obvious path between the flashback and the fastforward, thus providing no tension or suspense. For good examples: American Beauty, Fight Club and Jujutsu Kaisen.

Also, the difference between telepathy and inner thoughts is not clear, which makes understanding certain scenes a bit of a hassle.

Now, I like that the Mcs are not overpowered and frequently struggle, also I like that the anime is somewhat dark.

Futhermore, the mcs are good characters overall. That being said, they are not perfect and there are some scenes in which I believe either one or the other should be acting different according to their characterization. Moreover, the worldbuilding is the generic isekai - it does some things well and others not quite so.

Tensei Shitara also does a great job of executing and of being creative in the ideas it puts forward. Creativity in the details is a major selling point of the show - both the combat system and worldbuilding are generic, but implemented with creative details, with much thought put into, making them both more interesting and fun.

Unfortunately, the last arc is somewhat weak and even more cliché, and it ended the season on the wrong foot, lacking plot development. Also fan service is quite rare, but when it is present and regards a child, it gets quite uncomfortable.

In the end, I would recommend watching a single episode to see if you enjoy the comedy and, if so, I believe this is a good watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 10, 2024

MellowStork

Not Recommended

Funny

Another generic isekai in a JRPG video game world. In this case, the protagonist is the sword itself while the deuteragonist is its wielder, a catgirl child named Fran.

Most of the JRPG isekai tropes are there, like the video game world, the disembodied voice of the all-knowing tutorial, cheat OP abilities, blatant racism and classism, cartoonish levels of discrimination and slavery, medieval european fantasy setting, you get the point.

The sword is the standard level of isekai OP, being able to unfailingly obtain any magic ability and skill from anyone, equip and use any skill and magic unencumbered, gather enormous amounts of experience from simple encounters ... to max out any stat, and share them all (along with massive stat boosts) with his wielder WHO DOESN'T NEED TO DO ANYTHING, EARN ANYTHING, OR EXERCISE IN ANY WAY.

Regarding the plot and story, there is neither. There's no glimpse into who the isekai'd person was, what they looked like, or the circumstances of their death: it's completely ignored as it's inconsequential. There appears to be no overarching mystery to their reincarnation: no one takes credit for it, there appear to be no gods shaping the events of this and other worlds, and the sword just doesn't have any curiosity or urgency to find out about anything. Fran is pointless: since episode 1 the sword moves, acts, fulfills their purpose as a weapon (kill), grows, and evolves, all on their own with no external help; Fran doesn't provide anything in this relationship, and literally anyone else could be a better, more equitable partner. There aren't any major antagonists, no crises, no pressing needs for anything... the sword and Fran just get pulled by LITERALLY ANY RANDOM event and let the plot happen casually around them.

In this very stupid world, all knowledge and dexterity are skills (WTF?!), which conveniently for our heroes, can include things like civility and good manners. This means that just obtaining a base skill like "pottery level one" or "etiquette and protocol level one" and maxing it with EXP from battles alone is enough to become a master on something unrelated, in a way that makes absolutely no sense.

Fran, the sword wielder, is literal child with only child interests in mind, and has nothing going on for her other than "act cute" and "look cute". The only "grown up" force driving her forward is the "craving for power as a tool to evolve her species", whatever that means. Her race is bullied and enslaved, but why? what makes everyone in the world want to enslave them and no one ever considers them to be worthy of protection or even research? Who knows? History is set up in the flimsiest and shallowest way possible.

In the end, given the pairings and world rules, what we end up with is LITERALLY Konosuba's Mitsurugi Kyouya with the Cursed Sword Gram: a wholly incompetent "warrior" in possession of an exclusive weapon that does all the work and carries them. And since every landmark is always going to be built on stolen strength, and never from enduring hard-earned effort, this story is not going to be anything but a painfully shallow dud.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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