The premise of Caurious Hero is basically the one of a generic isekai with RPG features but with the twist that there is a realm where a god/goddess has to summon a hero through a competition between themselves (like a lottery game) in order to save the world and see how much of a record said god makes with each victory. A goddess named Ristarte gets to win the lottery and decides fo summon a japanese guy named Seiya in order to save a world called Graenbarde from the armies of the Demon King and his 4 Generals but to her surprise the hero is
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extremely cautious and rather than go straight into danger he either stays to overthink what plan should he make, trains without break, or even pulls the Joestar's secret technique while leaving her goddess behind (XD).
The good stuff:
The opening is AMAZING, the song by TIT and TAT gets you pumped all the time and it improves in terms of animation as the show goes on, specially the part where all the goddesses are dancing in a disco-like background.
Seiya is kind of everything you would expect after readin the title, however that's not much of a problem since, despite the lack of emotion, his obsession of being extremely cautious and at times his cold attitude make him an exception from the typical good hearted hero. Also the fact that he was each one of the goddesses (except for 2) fall for him while barely gives a shit is too priceless.
Ristarte is the star of this show, I think we can all agree on that. Her over-the topness next to her variety of face expresions make for great comedy moments and meme material. She tries her best to make Seiya act property without much success and serves as a self insert for the audience reactions whenever Seiya acts like an stoic dickhead towards her, the rest of the people or when makes a random decision that you barely imagine in a story.
The comedy is the strongest point of this show, I wanted to watch this series so badly after watching a few funny moments in YouTube. The absurdity of the moments along with the intention of the show acting as a parody of the typical fantasy adventures you regulary watch serve as a breath of fresh air and gives you some of the best laughs of the season. (Mind you I’ve seen many people making comparisons of Cautious Hero with Konosuba, but since I didn't watch the latter I can't really tell other than the MC is travelling with an hyperactive deity).
The designs for each of the god/goddess is unique and it gives each one a good indicator of their mannerisms and personalities (with the only exception of Mistis at first sight lol). My favorites are Cerseus and Aria. Cerseus by the fact that despite being a muscled badass guy with moustache that works on swordsmanship, at the end he becomes a scary cat due to Seiya, who at first he was supposed to train but ends up being the one who forces him to train with the sword against his will for many days, which I find it hilarious as a gag; Aria for her elegant design next to her red hair, her kindness and hospitality, and for being the voice of reason whenever her best friend Rista is worried or when another of the gods is causing trouble.
The problems:
If I had to point out the biggest problem with this show, is that it feels really REALLY rushed. You barely have time to see the world building or even understand how the Divine Realm operates. Many plotpoints pass through your head and you get the impression that none of the rest of gods barely do anything while one of them is working.
Most of the side characters are just there or serve only to make the reactions whenever Seiya reveals a new ability he got after days of training and had hidden until that precise moment. Elulu and Mash for example, are likable side characters but unfortunately the series tries so hard to make them strong and useful for Seiya’s team and at the end they get pushed aside anyways by Seiya. Their chance to get properly fleshed out get wasted in order to just have them watch how the MC takes all the glory.
The villains are pretty much plot devices here, each one of the 4 Generals of the Demon King gets dispatched in 1 or 2 episodes. While I get that its supposed to show how much of a ridiculous OP warmachine the MC is, it takes away most of the threat factor, even when the final boss pushed him to the brink of death, we don't see him until the last episode which also misses any chance to make him interesting at the exchange of his minions.
[Spoilers begin here]
By the time we reach episode 11, the show goes from being a hilarious over the top comedy to a melodrama that kind of felt rushed and even forced. While the last goodbye between Seiya and Rista was emotional (which happened right after the guy eventually had to sacrifice himself in order to seal twice the Demon King with the gates Valkyria taught him and the goddess went to far to break the rules ny usimg her powers in an attempt to heal him) and the plotwist about Seiya’s past made his character feel more complex rather than a 2 dimensional stoic gary-stu I can’t help but feel that the plotwist ended up making more questions than answers since it didn’t have a proper build-up. For example:
-How come Seiya was so eager to protect Mash, Elulu and Rista due to them reminding him of his former team, if a hero is supposed to loose his memories after dying? Was it simply his subconcious?
-If Istar and Aria knew about this all the time how come they waited so long to tell Rista the truth?
-What was exactly the whole deal with the sword that the Demon King discovered that could kill both Seiya and Rista?
-How does a former human reincarnate into a goddess?
Rather than have Rista be the reincarnation of Seiya’s dead lover it would've been more powerful if they hinted that Seiya had random glimpses of his past and then they revealed he straight up decided to protect Rista and the rest of his team because they reminded him of someone familiar (rather than having this forceful conection between the two main characters).
[Spoilers end here]
Overall the series is actually not bad; the comedy, the interactions between the 2 main characters, the designs of the rest of the cast and obviously the opening make it worth to watch it and have some good laughs.
However,I must admit that when I marathoned the last 6 episodes in a night, I felt that something was missing. Its surprising that in the last ones the show made a 180 degrees and went from being a comedy to a very emotional drama between the main characters (Go to spoilers for more)
At the end most of the problems come from its really rushed pacing and the fact that 12 episodes weren't enough in my opinion. Now, I heard that its based on a ongoing series of visual novels so I can’t tell if they flesh a lot more the stuff previously mentioned there or how much of the materal was cut.
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Aug 27, 2020
The premise of Caurious Hero is basically the one of a generic isekai with RPG features but with the twist that there is a realm where a god/goddess has to summon a hero through a competition between themselves (like a lottery game) in order to save the world and see how much of a record said god makes with each victory. A goddess named Ristarte gets to win the lottery and decides fo summon a japanese guy named Seiya in order to save a world called Graenbarde from the armies of the Demon King and his 4 Generals but to her surprise the hero is
...
Feb 22, 2020
Oh boy, when I first saw the announcements on YouTube about this movie, I already had a bad feeling about it. Now look, its been a long time but I've been a huge fan of the Dragonball franchise (and a Frieza fanboy) since I was young, which is why I was asking myself why would Toei make this movie to begin with if they were going to kill my favorite character of the franchise again?
However months passed and the movie got released on cinema when I was temporarily living in Argentina back in 2015, so I decided to give it a chance just for the ... |
