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Welcome to another episode of: Why the HELL is this isekai?

Let me preface by saying it's a fantastic series, but let's talk about what's the main point of an Isekai anime. It's to utilize the knowledge from our world in a more permeative setting, thus bringing unlikely scenarios like pitching a dragon against a rocket launcher. If we take out the first minute of the first episode, this anime has ZERO isekai elements attached to it and becomes a relatively decent low fantasy story.

Recently the concept of Isekai has been reduced to either:
1. Gain some bullshit OP ability that nobody else in the world have.
2. ... "Wow everything works just like a video game!" with the more stupid ones even having the HUDs and skill points.
3. They just want to have isekai in the title, nothing the MC does differs from people of this world.

This series falls victim to all three to some extend. First, instead of having a good backstory or world building, MC's bullshit (but not really OP) high fantasy power is granted when he got isekai-ed into a low fantasy world. Then the power manifests in a way that can only be applied to video game logics, with different class and skills accompanying a numeric value and rank to each one. And finally he does absolutely nothing special with his previous life's knowledge, except for some obscure references inside of his own head.

I usually rate shows very generously, so as long as they don't bore me to death they earn a passing grade. That being said the show is an easy 8/10 with great visuals, story, and character design. But I'm inclined to give it a 7 or even 6 due to the massive wasted potential, the literal clickbait title, and the lazy attempt at giving the MC special power with the excuse of Isekai. As a true Isekai connoisseur who would watch any isekai no matter how trash they are, this is both a surprising delight at how good it is and a disappointment at the fact that THIS SHIT IS NOT ISEKAI.

It's one of those goofy shows that are pretty good, as long as you don't think too hard on the details. Also this is more of a rant about the plot than a review so there's that.

Spoilers below:

So the entire plot revolves around the princess being cursed by the "evil" wizard to reverse her age until she disappears. But if you give it just an extra second of thought, the wizard saved the kingdom from a rampaging dragon that will wipe out millions and doom it for good, and all he asked for return is the princess. The king agreed to this, then later regretted ... it and banished the wizard from the kingdom, basically played him like a fiddle. Then the wizard got mad and cursed the princess, and nobody else. So after all, it's the king that's a PoS who is too weak to defeat the dragon and save his own kingdom, who agreed to give his daughter away but then regrets it, which ultimately doomed her from the curse. The king had a choice, give his daughter away so the entire kingdom can be saved, or burn with his daughter alongside the entire kingdom by the dragon. He had his cake and tried to eat it too, he fucked around and didn't want to find out. Cheating and angering a wizard powerful enough to defeat the dragon that can wipe out the entire kingdom, what did he expect to happen? So why are we blaming the wizard? He saved the kingdom and everybody in it, it's the king that should be hated for causing all of this to happen. But alas, no good deed goes unpunished, and the wizard is "evil" for being duped and the POOR king has to watch his daughter reverse age until she disappears. This is exactly like one of those "unjustly treated hero by the royalty" story except the 'hero' in this case, the wizard, actually did something about it instead of sulking or magically gaining super OP abilities to impress the royalty so much they apologize or some BS like that. The princess is the sole victim in this: being given away by his father, then due to his father's indecisiveness, getting cursed by the hero who saved the day. He could've killed everyone, but he didn't. He just wanted to, in his own words, "make them feel the despair he felt".

But yeah except that BS the show is pretty good.

I have held off watching this since I don't think a sequel is necessary after the 4th sequel, but here we are with no overarching story or previously established rivals to go against. Yet here I am, out of other trash to watch and finally got around watching this and holy hotdog is it cringe inducing and stupid.

Episode 2 & 3 spoilers ahead:

Oh of course, the infamous crime syndicate of culinary arts, that's bigger than the mafia, bigger than the yakuza, and bigger than the triad in which they are an international organization that roams free despite being a bunch of criminals. And of course, ... openly threatens the headmaster of the most prestigious culinary school that actively influences the politics and lawmaking of its residing country, just so the boss can MARRY the headmaster after beating her with COOKING. What in the fuck, is this stupid ass plot? Even someone with an eighth-grader syndrome will cringe at the thought of a crime syndicate boss break and enter a girl's room with a bunch of men, just to tell her he wants to have a cookoff with her and if she lose she has to marry him. I know the author is out of ideas and such, but why not just make him wanting to take over the school for the "dark side"? Is it because you already did it with Asami previously so you have to use this kind of idiotic main plot? And the amount of reused scenes are so out of place, it feels like a recap episode with out of place reactions and overused cooking scenes. Onwards to the BLUE exam, and the designs of the other cooks, holy shit clowns? Is that a self-insert of the author? Also hiring known criminals and allowing real guns in such an official event is such an elementary way of thinking I can't even. Then there's Elina, casually chatting with the creep who just broke into her room and threatened her not long ago. It seems like the author wasn't out of ideas, but he had TOO MANY stupid ideas that his brain ceased to function and just shat out a bunch of random dumb ideas.

The main villain's "ability" is such a slap in the face for a real chef, by touching their cooking utensils he gains ALL their skills they learned over the years and "cross" them with whichever other knife he wants and create brand new dishes on the fly that is guaranteed to be better than others. The show has been so far relatively grounded in the feat people pull, despite all the cloth explosions. And this brand new villain just feels like the author completely gave up on the idea of good old sweat and tears that makes a chef great, and pulled an isekai OP protag right into the story and called it a day. I can keep going with other problems like the awful pacing and again reuse of scenes, but just from the first few episodes alone I can tell there is nothing interesting to see other than the signature borderline-hentai cloth explosion scenes after tasting. 2/10

Hero-King my ass, what a piece of human garbage that gives no sympathy nor have empathy to people around him. Of course this is filled with spoilers but the show is trash so you're not losing out on much. The nonchalant behavior gets worse and worse with him ignoring oppression, slavery, mass murder, and innocent people getting mutilated right in front of him for the sake of "staying free of politics so he has the chance of fighting stronger opponents". Almost everybody but him feels depressed about this oppressive and unjust ruling of the Sky-whatever people, and this idiot knowingly ignored everyone's depression and just ... head-emptily said: "IDGAF I just wanna fight stronger people." The history of his kingdom has been erased from all records, and even the gods have disappeared, a little investigation doesn't hurt your goal of becoming the world's strongest ffs. On top of that you think a villain who murdered some innocent soldier for no reason "doesn't deserve to be turned into a monster", yet upon hearing that an entire city is gonna be ripped from their homeland with all the residents having to either GTFO or become slaves, he choses to stick with "oh when the city goes and the people gets enslaved, lemme know if you need any help." I can't with this bitch, seeing some brat murder someone then mutilate the king and all he thinks to himself is "yeah I guess everyone think differently I won't judge people for that". Who wrote this stupid ass plot? A kindergartener? While the "strongest monster" know to mankind has spawned near his friends and fellow classmates, all he thinks about is "hell yeah I finally get to tie this lazily put together plot and fight the thing I said I always wanted to fight, but first let me just chat with the big bad for half an hour while my friends are literally getting murdered no big deal." Then have the scene of said friends getting murdered accompanied with the most generic ass looney toons sound effects possible. Even after that, "This is not my time period so I can't do anything, the people need to help themselves", bitch are you dead right now? Are you a ghost that cannot interact with the real world? This dumbass plot I swear to god. And after all that goofiness, he's been using the same fucking move since he was a baby not even a year old to defeat the "strongest monster" mankind has ever seen. So what's even the point of this stupid series? To see a creepy old man in a teenage girl's body?

Speaking of creepy old man, at this point you may wonder, yeah I know the main character started off as an old dude but he got reincarnated into a chick why do I keep called him a "HE". Well you see, his thought process is still that of an old man, and he often compares the current situations he's in from his past. And since he still thinks like he's an old geezer recalling events in his previous life for almost all situations, it makes it extra disgusting and creepy when he appears in those fanservice scenes with other girls, especially when it comes to bath scenes. He utilizes none of the wisdom and empathy he had from his previous life, and only gave the past like 30 seconds of thought before fully immersing himself in this teenage girl's body. Seen often admiring himself in the mirror on how much sexier the girl's body has gotten, and... shit's getting too creepy I don't even want to keep going.

"But his dying wish IS to become the strongest and stay away from politics right?" I hear you ask. Sure he doesn't have to have the dilemma of having to choose between becoming stronger and saving the world again, because it can just be generic power fantasy number 13 in the grand scheme of things. But the author just have to pull a 5head and give the story such a heavy-ass plot of self-imposed superhumans in the sky enslaving the regular folks on the surface, while doing SUS shit like human experimentation. I know isekai/reincarnation and slavery goes hand in hand, but for fuck's sake can we just have more than one per season that doesn't rely on such bullshit?

Rant over, presented to you by my midnight stupor once again on yet another plothole generator with unlikeable main characters.

I don't know what compelled me to write this review. Maybe I got fed up with all the generic trash this year, maybe this garbage is just so bad I have to dedicate 15 mins of my life typing this rant, or maybe because THIS SHOW HAS A WORSE PLOT SETUP THAN REDO OF HEALER. But anyways we have another generic trash anime that have pointless plot points and unnecessarily evil people just to show how great the protagonist is. Nobody has any character development throughout the entire runtime, and the main conflict between the protagonist and the hero's party is so painful to watch ... due to how one sided and full of plot holes it feels.

Spoilers from now on but there's not much to spoil because there literally isn't anything to spoil.

For a "feelgood" anime, the very first scene makes me feel disgusted. Sure, an evil hero trope isn't something new, but here comes the main plot hole of the series:

"If beast tamers are universally understood as one of the worst class in this world, it should be common knowledge that the reason is other than being able to tame one or two animals MAX, they can't do much else. So why wouldn't they realize the protagonist's ability to tame literal dozens of animals at once is super special and overpowered?"

There is NO WAY they wouldn't have known that fact unless every member of the hero's party is an amateur, they couldn't possibly not understand the importance of being able to scout ahead risk-free, knowing where the enemies are, being able to avoid traps or dangerous terrains, and FREE FOOD. Lack of knowledge aside, every member is just evil for the sake of being evil. There is no nuance to their personalities other than they are evil, unlikeable, greedy, and pretentious assholes. Even when the author hints at a chance where they might be just misguided decent human beings, things just revert right back the next scene of them being a bunch of unlikeable goons. It's as if the author doesn't know how to write a compelling villain, so they just resort to the "evil just because" trope which is overdone to death and not even good to begin with.

Second, even bigger plot hole, is if the protagonist is so OP as seen throughout the episode, why the hell did he not use such powers while in the hero's party? And I don't even mean when he share the abilities of his harem, but when he displayed his "normal" abilities of controlling dozens of animals, insects, monsters, and even demons at will. Controlling an entire poisonous killer bee colony seems pretty OP to me, let alone being able to control monsters, demons, and ghosts. Why not just control something powerful like a bear? Or the enemy monsters he's fighting? Or anything useful other than squirrels and birds? And let's just ignore the fact that the protagonists only start to meet all these "mythical furry waifus" after leaving the hero's party, which is another convenient trope showing how uncreative the author is. And of course we have slavery in this show in the form of "contracts", you just can't spell isekai/fantasy in anime without slavery in recent years.

Overall, the entire story can be boiled down to: "The protagonist is good and OP, the hero's party is evil and stupid for not knowing he's OP. So the protagonist powerlevels by enslaving five furry girls within a month or so (rare and mythical btw) like collecting Pokermans, and the evil and big bad hero's party finally gets shunned by everyone. HAPPY END."

Story 0/10
Plot 0/10
Characters 1/10
Art Style 6/10
Sound/Music 8/10
Animation 7/10

So the reason this pile of garbage isn't a 1/10 is just because the animation and characters are nice to look at, and the OP/ED is good. As to why not just give it a "slice of life" treatment and rate it more generously? Because a slice of life doesn't make me feel like shit in the very first scene of the entire anime, and introduce either new plot holes or impossible to understand decisions the characters make in this pile of trash. Rant over.

I'm usually very generous with scoring something and rarely write any reviews. And having seen countless trash isekais, I thought I'm quite adaptable when it comes to cringe, edge, and giant plot holes. Oh boy how wrong I was after seeing this dumpster fire, and I can't even last the usual 3-episodes rule. But since I'm so appalled by this dumpster fire that I need to vent by to write a review and you can only do that after three episodes, I went ahead and tortured myself some more. And since I already wrote the review beforehand I'll just add anything new that comes up. ... P.S.: nothing new or exciting for the two episodes.

Isekai with smartphone was already stupid enough with the author ignoring how technology and physics work, this took it to another level by having the MC call people back in earth like it's nothing. This bitch is able to have a stable and good signal in another universe while my expensive ass mobile plan doesn't even cover the entire city I'm in, also who the hell is paying for his phone bills? I'm sure international calls doesn't include "calls from another world".

The MC is unlikeable, not because he's evil or anything, but because the writers doesn't know what to do with his characterization. Are they trying to make him calm and collected? Or are they trying to make him cool and determinate? Perhaps meek and sensitive? Or behave like any harem MC ever existed that acts both shy and attractive at the same time? We don't get to see or hear his internal thoughts or conflicts, only "I saw this on Wikipedia and since this kinda worked in the past so I guess it'll do".

Aside from the stupid phone shenanigans, this guy apparently conquered(?) a bunch of girls who are also Valkyries? He just glossed over how he got them to follow him in the first place with no knowledge of the language, no idea where he is, and no power but a smartphone. Probably because the writers are too lazy to bullshit their way out of this giant plot hole so they cliffsnoted that entire thing with a 5 second flashback still image. "For some reason I somehow became the leader of the wolfs within two years and with no knowledge of the language of this barbaric land." Man perfect explanation 10/10.

On top of that the obligatory girl calling him "big bro" has to be there, but the "father" fucking killed me coming from someone seemingly his age. Also the enemy leader just so happen to be a young good looking girl who was forced to be his little sister? I bet in the coming episode she will not only completely forgive him for slaughtering her people, but fall in love with him and become part of his harem. Because that's simply how anime hatred works: as long as you are the harem MC no girl will escape your grasp. (And after watching episode two, she already wants to marry him while goes into the bath alongside his harem, that was fast. On top of that episode three just have these two more girls wanting to marry him out of nowhere, the harem speedrun any% is real with this one.)

Reason I dropped this show isn't because it's generic, nor because its dumbass plot. But the combination of trying to be a clone of an already trash anime, and turned out to be even worse. On top of that managed to sprinkle in some subtle incest and bestiality, and spreads open that giant gaping plot hole for all to see in the span of half of the first episode. Trying to reenact historic events and make references to history and mythology, only ends up making some superficial mentions of them for the edge factor.

So ignoring how TF does he get enough signal to make a call, or how TF does he connect to the internet without any cell towers near by, or how TF is he still not bankrupt from all the phone bills of roaming and inter-universe calls, or how TF does he became the leader of an entire country in two years without even knowing the language, or how TF is he still alive with no special power but a smartphone in a warring period with all the assassins and magic users around him, or how TF does everyone in a Greece/Roman looking setting knows Japanese, the only thing I want to know is how TF does he charge his phone?

With all these in mind and the generic animations and character designs, I give this pile of garbage 2/10.

TL;DR: I don't think the author knows how normal human-beings nor games work, despite the series' heavy dependent on these two elements.

The art and character designs are fantastic sans the protagonist, he's just the generic edgy kid who has the power of god and anime on his side. If you turn your brain off and overlook the nitty gritty of this anime, you will find great character design, environment settings, battle sequences, and even witty dialogues from time to time. BUT.... If you start paying attention and think critically for just a second during the entirety of this show, you will start hating more and ... more of its elements as the "story" progresses. I don't think the author knows how games work mate.


There will be slight spoilers below.


Hard-hitting questions like:

"Why does Kirito has to be an edgelord who claims to be "the best beater in beta" while wearing all black and unable to say words like 'the giant dude who tried to kill us back then must've changed the bosses mechanics from the beta'?"

or

"I thought this is suppose to be a Parmadeath-IRL-MMORPG with intense actions and strict time limits, not slice of life WTF happened?"

or

"Is he really 14 or 400? He knows kung-fu, have vast amount of knowledge without the help of Wikipedia, watches lower level friends die with no emotions even though he could've saved them by doing ANYTHING other than letting it happen (the fact that he lived means he killed all those monsters by himself aka he could've saved them kids), can hack a game while inside said game, AND revive like Jesus."

or

"How many episodes is this cafe exposition/recap crap gonna last?"

or

"Was the rape scenes really necessary?"

And so on...

To sum it all up: A 14-year-old who is the best hacker and martial artist known to men beats every single adult including a cheating GM, then defies hard-wired game code to pull some main character halo bullcrap to saves his virtual GF TWICE from just some dude, then a creep who rapes her every day while having to deal with his incestrous little sister.

Now... Time for some real spoilers of the "story", so you don't have to suffer through this crap. Why story in quotations? Well, there is no story. Or rather, there is no story permanence. Nothing mattered in the end, nobody gave two shits when anything happened.

So anyways, in the beginning we are introduced to this awesome death RPG where if your character dies, you die in REAL LIFE! Oh shit! The story is gonna pick up real fast and be tense AF right? RIGHT? Nah, the main protagonist grinds on his own in an MMO with ALL endgame contents locked behind multiplayer dungeons, but manages to become one of the best of the best, obtains a skill which appearantly NOBODY ELSE in a MULTIPLAYER game ever had, and has raid-level gear from some 40-men-dungeon despite never grouped, and has the reflexes and skills of a martial art master at the age of 14, all in the span of around 2 episodes. I don't think the author knows how games work mate.

Then he purposefully watch a bunch of low level teammates die, when he could've totally bust out his shiny unique skill and save them. Then he met the female protagonist who is supposed to be so much stronger than him, but somehow needs him to save the day every damn time and falls in love with him. They just fuck around for half of the season. In a death game. Picking flowers and shit. And fishing, fishing was cool. Putting the AI daughter bullcrap aside, this 14-year-old, HACKED THE GAME. While INSIDE the game. In 5 seconds no less. To save his AI daughter or something. I don't think the author knows how programming nor games work mate.

Gloss aside all that bullcrap, the BIGGEST SIN is the ending of the first arch and the whole second arc. First the ending, he somehow overcomes the hard wired game code and revives himself to kill the last boss. Then turns out, the villain did this just because he can. Then the villain from the first arc becomes the savior of the second arc who helps the main protagonist defeat the creep who raped his girlfriend. On screen. Several times. There were also tentacles involved, but I guess if you are into that kind of thing good for you. Once again, I don't think the author blah blah blah...

In conclusion, I can understand the appeal of the characters and settings, but the flaws are just too jarring for this series to really shine. A generous 5/10 for the characters sans the protagonist.

Perfect blend of comedy and emotional drama, also one of the rare gems that doesn't end in a cliffhanger.

Story 9/10
Honestly, the story could use more work other than "we gon git dat god", but unless you are one of those mystic creatures called "masochists" who pause every frame to look for flaws in a show, it shouldn't bother you all that much.

Art 10/10
The style is clean and detailed, with occasional exaggerations for comedic effects.

Sound 10/10
The soundtract is seriously one of the best I listened to even to this day, just by listening to some of the songs alone brings out all sorts of emotions.
...
Character 10/10
Everyone is unique and quirky in their own way, with actual character developement tied to the plot in this short and awesome show.

Overall 10/10
It's 90% comedy. But when it gets emotional, it hits you like a truck.

I'm going to be short and to the point: It's entertaining and gut-wrenching at the same time, like a rollercoaster ride that actually ends properly instead of throwing you off a cliff and slap a 'to be continued' arrow sign on top of the freeze-frame.

If you want to immerse yourself into a short and bittersweet lovestory, this is it. There's no contradicting plot points nor convoluted character developement. Although there are some inappropriate jokes here and there, I see them as tension breakers that reminds you "this ain't some School Days trash, we aren't gonna stab your heart til it's mush... yet"

Predictable story? No shit ... they pretty much tell you what's going to happen in the end right in the beginning. You also know how the rollercoaster's routes gonna pan out, but that doesn't make the ride any less fun. Also to those who say the female protagonist is just an architype of kuudere/tsundere, try to pay attention next time they reveal character motivations in any series okay?

I won't be able to explain this without spoiling a tiny bit of the story so here we go:



You good? Okay. So... She is going to die, so to speak. She can't lash out or party like there's no tomorrow neither, because she is not a human. She has no rights to be capricious, and is forced to keep working until the day she loses the sense of herself completely. She seems like a kuudere because she doesn't want to relate to any more people, so it doesn't hurt her even more when she goes. Also because she doesn't want to hurt the people she interact with any more when the inevitable happens. But as cheesy as it sounds, love is blind. So she slowly opens up as the relationship progresses. kuuderes have no emotions whatsoever, and tsunderes have that distinct screech you can hear from miles away. She is neither, she is an AI even more human than most human-beings she interacts with. And she is the most precious little potato ever.

I was hoping they would adopt the light-hearted Azur Lane Comic Anthology, instead of going the other certain shipgirl anime's route of edgy conflicts with broken-ass storylines from the game.

Overall 8/10:
Either if you are a veteran laughing at the shitty plotline and worshipping the Sandy cult, or a newcomer here for the cute girls, this is not a bad watch. If they take a more light-hearted approach towards the plot in the future, it will be even better.

Story 6/10:
This is a fanservice franchise through and through, so I didn't expect any amazing story in the first place. The storyline isn't horrible per-se, just as ... generic as a storyline can get. At least it's not all over the place, and very easy to follow as it unfolds.

Art 9/10:
The animation actually looked very good minus the obviously janky 3D stuff, quite surprising considering it's from a small studio. I know it's far from eyejizzingly amazing, but the faithful recreation is very appealing.

Sound 8/10:
The sound effects are really solid, but some of the background music can be just like the storyline: generic AF.

Character 10/10:
Really what anyone watching this anime are here for, the character interactions and motivations. They did a good job portraying the original source and throwing some random memes/inside jokes around. Even if you don't know or understand them, it's basically cute girls being cute. Really hoped for more relaxed interactions like in the anthology comic, but this is ayyt.