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- BirthdayJun 14, 2010
- LocationMoscow, Russian Federation
- JoinedOct 1, 2010
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Aug 24, 2021
It's a reasonably high quality but uninspired isekai show. Fortunately, there is no RPG trash, system menus etc. It's a vanilla isekai, Mushoku Tensei style.
The story would be sort of rationally oriented, if not for the fact that the MC is a freaking Chosen One.
It wasn't enough for him to be reincarnated - he also has an unholy amount of cheats and plot armours. He has a super rare secret contracted spirit (hot girl ofc), then right after regaining his memories, he saves a random noble from kidnappers - it turns out (what a twist! lol) she was a princess.
...
Apparently, he has some special spiritual magic and was a martial arts genius, can kill a professional merc at seven years old, gets to study at the magic academy. Then, a random beast-race slave-assassin (girl ofc) attacks him, gets defeated, and joins him - and she also happens to be a reincarnated person (of the royal blood of the beast-people). Then it finally turns out MC himself is a crown prince of some fantasy version of Japan - his mom was a princess in benevolent exile. His grandparents are still ruling their country and are very well-intentioned towards him. Add to that him being a girl magnet and a typical harem protagonist.
There is a limit to how many cheats you can use before the plot becomes boring. If he had no cheats (or at least a few, not ALL of them) and survived and persevered by using his wits and grit alone - then it could be an exciting story.
But in reality - meh. A high quality meh.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jul 12, 2021
After watching the anime I actually got interested in the continuation of the story, which is a good sign indicating that it was worth watching. But this anime still has some serious issues. It also reminded me of Grimgar so I will reference it a few times in the review.
Story: 5. The premise is actually very good. The whole idea is interesting. You get to enjoy a sort of fantasy setting without annoying MMO garbage elements like HP bars and skill icons. At the same time, it is in parallel with a real-life story of the MC finding his way in life. There is Reona
...
and his relationship with her, though it isn't exactly romantic at this point. All of it can also be seen as a Grimgar-Esque dark fantasy-style deconstruction of the usual isekai trash.
Full dive realistic game with proper AI can allow the MC to act in an essentially isekai setting without being dumb and irrational because of not going through existential crisis and survival stage. Most isekais suffer because they throw their MCs into action while not giving any normal reactions to a serious problem - like, you know, being separated from your family, education, job, the meaning of life, goals, comfort, safety. The MC is like "hmm, I died/ have been thrown by mysterious forces into ANOTHER F-ING WORLD! Meh, Imma treat it like a game. Maybe gather a harem..."
In this anime, however, the MC has all the rights to act as if he is in a game. Because he IS in a game.
And the usual troupes are sort of mocked and punished. It's like using a game to show how stupid a game-like behaviour in an ACTUAL isekai world would be.
Similar to how the first goblin fight in Grimgar shows how a REAL fight to the death is not fun or heroic, the Full-Dive does the same in a more comedic and laidback manner.
That is the first good part.
Another good part is tying together the game challenges with real-life trauma and problems. The MC is not exactly suffering or extremely poor or excessively bullied. But he has problems and is trying to escape into games. Yet it solves nothing. When he encounters the same real-life problems in the Full-Dive game he wants to stop playing, to just escape again. Thanks to Reona's invasive behaviour and his own stubbornness and lack of real-life consequences he keeps playing and eventually learns to deal with challenges, resulting in nice character growth.
The problems with the story are mostly about the game itself:
1) The so-called realistic game is inconsistent. MC is weak as in real life, has no skills, no magic or special privileges, treated like shit etc. - but then he is suddenly treated especially well by Tesla (an important big shot in the fantasy world) for no reason. Even at the end, the main villain kills all guards nearby like bugs, but takes extra special time with the MC, despite the fact that he is the weakest and least important person around at that point. The MC and the antagonist have a Mexican stand-off despite the fact that the villain could cut MC down in an instant like other guys. MC is even given a classic villain monologue and explanation of evil plans. Why? It runs counter to the previously established realism, even though it can be treated as a game mechanic.
Then the sudden power-up with no logical explanation also completely clashed with the established game realism.
And the ghostly magic sword with ZERO foreshadowings. A starting shit-tier sword suddenly turns into elite equipment just cause the hero killed his childhood friend (not by a sword BTW) and then made peace with his ghost? Bullshit!
2) The walkthrough. The Bakugou, I mean, Kamui (the only player who cleared the game) has created a very annoying walkthrough, which is not necessary to the story and also detracts from the immersion and the value of the MC's experience. It would be better if there was no walkthrough at all.
3) Pacing is all over the place and a lot of time is wasted, while the ending is rushed.
The first half is nice but could be better. The latter half of the story is bad.
Art: 7. It's good. Nothing to say really. Not stellar, but good.
Sound: 7. Same. Good, but not special. Voice acting is good as well.
Character: 7. Characters are actually not that good, but most don't matter. There are only two characters that make the whole series - MC and Reona. Both are good. MC has some depth. He does act somewhat stupid and repeatedly ignores warnings that the game IS REALISTIC and that he has to do things like IRL. He still tries to use healing herbs by pushing them as in other games, expects to smoke bombs to explode without igniting the cord, expects to be treated like the main hero etc.
But he still fills his role nicely.
Reona is the best character. Some are annoyed at her behaviour, like laughing when MC is experiencing trauma. He peed himself and she laughed seemingly not taking his feelings into account. But it is obvious to me that she actually did. Throughout the whole story, she behaved exactly in such a way that would cause MC to feel less sad and traumatized and instead more annoyed and embarrassed. She obviously cared about his feelings and wanted to distract him from trauma, encourage him. Her stupid reason for wanting him to win is obviously a lie, she has some depth and only acts stupid for comedic relief.
But it could be done better, I admit.
Other relevant characters include Kaede (imouto), school bullies and classmate friend - but they are less relevant and don't have much of a screen time to matter. AI characters are somewhat bland. The main villain is cliche and also sticks out because of his unexplainable special treatment towards the MC, which would be fine in a normal RPG-isekai or SAO clone, but not in a setting claiming to be realistic.
To sum it up - characters are generally fine, there are too few of them that matter.
Enjoyment: 6. I laughed a lot and liked the moments when various troupes were ridiculed, like MC expecting the childhood friend to stop trying to kill him (for killing her brother) after he grabbed her chest but instead being laughed at - "I am adult you know! Do you think I never had my chest touched? Do you expect me to suddenly freeze just cause someone touched my breasts???"
Such moments are the cheese of this anime. But the plot itself is mediocre at best. Reona is a nice pair of boobs and a cool romance option, but unfortunately, there is no romance with her so far. She is funny, but also annoying at times.
The ending really detracted from my joy - rushed and somewhat full of plot holes.
But I managed to watch till the end which is already rare for me, and I even felt the desire to read the novel, so it was apparently worth watching.
Unfortunately, the story failed to portray the cruel realism and the fear of combat like it was done in Grimgar. Realism was shown in small details, but not where it mattered the most. Overall - the pacing was slow, and it felt like a prologue rather than a full season. I would still like to see the sequel.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Nov 18, 2018
I'll be brief. This particular adaptation failed. Hard.
Either they tried to adapt everything in a short timetable, or the opposite, but J.C.Staff cut too much of the novel content in the process. I would prefer it if they decided to animate less in this season, but with better detail, instead of rushing through the story abandoning valuable pieces left and right. Story 4/10.
Characters' inner thoughts are omitted, some characters were not even introduced and just appeared with no backstory. As a result, their motivation is unknown, their actions seem irrational and forced. Even an off-screen narrator would do, like when Touma narrates about his situation.
...
Why not give Hamazura the same opportunity to introduce the viewer to his situation? 5/10.
And it's all too rushed. We should have had 4-5 episodes dedicated to ITEM alone before Fre//nda happens. Because like this we feel nothing, it just doesn't faze us. The constant jumping between POVs is also not appreciated, not with THAT pace.
Art is passable (6/10), but fights are pathetic. Special effects are just... total trash. Accelerator vs Dark Matter was supposed to be epic. It was instead a short sequence of bad choreography mixed with garbage CG (especially Accelerator's attacks - wtf is that black thing?). And then... the conclusion of the fight happens off-screen on top of that. Other fights are also bad. Mercs and drones that shoot bad CG lines of yellow and never can hit any named characters (who stand still and scatter only AFTER the shooting starts), constant speaking in the middle of the fight, characters teleporting (not via ability, but through scenarists' oversight) all over the city...
The sound is not praiseworthy either. Touma's canceling sound was changed from glass breaking to... something. It just doesn't suit the situation. Music is fine but nothing fantastic. The rest is normal. 5/10.
While original story and characters are good, in this adaptation we can't see any of that. Enjoyment 3/10.
So, overall - poor. 3/10.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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