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Will I Possibly Be The Greatest Alchemist of All Time is the question asked in this cute anime series. The answer is, if your competition is Kinomi Master, then you surely will. I finished both series days apart, both had similar storylines (main character gains powers, uses the said powers for the good of humanity, acquires loyal female friends or slaves, and fights against the forces of evil. Yes, one is isekai and the other is just fantasy, I know that.). The execution of the story, attention to detail and to character development, and how the secondary characters are developed and kept in the loop ... set these two animes apart and boy, how good is the execution in Possibly the Greatest Alchemist of All Time as opposed to how bad it was on Kinomi Master speaks volumes.
Iruma Takumi is a likeable hero. A 40 years old salaryman in Japan, he is transferred from our world to another world by mistake with three other heroes and cannot return to his time and land, so, the goddess Nolyn gives him special powers, makes him 17 years old (and easy on the eyes, too), and sends him to one year before the other three heroes are to appear with special alchemist’s powers and things develop from there. The story is straightforward. There is no novelty concerning guilds, adventuring, use of magic in daily life, slavery, non-human races’ existence, and pseudo-harem use compared to similar stories. However, at least some of the females in here can be seen as Bond girls, helping the main character while looking pleasing. What makes Possibly the Greatest Alchemist of All Time is the way the main character develops, interacts, has self-doubt, and that he pursues what will be to the society’s benefit even though he is afraid at times. I believe the voice actor for Takumi did a great job as he is always doubtful, unsure, uncertain and it is wonderfully reflected in the great voice-work which sometimes even compensates for the poor quality animation. When you have a good, well-balanced, sympathetic main character and good secondary characters surrounding him, when you place every character carefully to their supposed place in the storyline, then you cannot fail. That’s why this is one great anime. It is good for entertainment, for feeling good, for fun, and for good ideas on friendship and loyalty. That’s why, though it ends on some sort of a cliffhanger, even if isn’t to have a second season, anyone watching it may have fun.
I’d recommend Possibly the Greatest Alchemist of All Time easily. Go watch it and have fun.

I so wanted to like this anime. It had everything that would make an enjoyable anime. Kinomi Master started as the story of two childhood friends, Light and Lena who wanted to be adventurers and to that end, they had to consume special fruits. The fruits you consume give you a specific skill and you live your life according to that very skill. Lena becomes a sword master and unlike her, our boy Light becomes a fruit master. She goes to big city and becomes part of the best adventurers' party and he tends to gardens growing skillfruits in addition to other stuff. That is ... until he discovers he isn't instantly killed after eating a second fruit and that he gains a new skill with each skillfruit he consumes, something his society thought was impossible. Keeping this a secret but becoming an adventurer himself, Light joins forces with Lena, forms a party with her and another social reject, Ayla who has the appraisal skill. We follow their adventures, they flourish as they gain fighting experience and they take down important opposition. Meanwhile, the scheming Holy Mother who heads the church that appraises skills, is, well, scheming, against Light and his group.
So far so good, right? Then things suddenly go awry. Lena leaves the two to investigate and she does her investigationin the crass-est possible way, asking every single person she sees about the girl she pursues out in the open and with neither intelligence nor suspense. Light and Ayla require a new sword for Light and live through a duel against a strong opponent who was tasked with eliminating Light, but guess what, the idiot Light then stays around, exercises, eats, exercises, and doesn't even think why a person was sent to kill him. And, funnily, neither does the anime series which changes its main focus to Lena who is in another town. She meets new people while investigating about a necromancer they had defeated, and the whole rags-to-richess story of Light becomes a side-story to the main storyline and we see how Lena defends a city she had never been to previously, and Light loses all his charm, interesting abilities, turns into a 2D caricature of his former self during the very limited screen time he and Ayla get, and Lena and her group take the centre stage and carry on a second storyline.
Now, if the anime series lasted 24 episodes instead of a mere 12, if Lena's story had been somewhat better constructed and clearly connected to Light's, if episode 12 hadn't ended abruptly and with the introduction of another adventurer whose loyalties are unknown to the party with the drop of a hat, all these diversions, secondary storylines, meaningless introduction of myriad supernatural beings, Holy Mother's aid who was adressed by name but never before or after seen and the baby unicorn might have served a purpose. Now that the series a mere 12 episodes, has a score about 5.6 at the moment, and as the new stories and characters added nothing to the anime's ratings, I don't believe we will see a second season in the coming few years. Also, it is unfortunate that Light is a good enough character but Ein at the similar themed anime FuguKan (also from 2025) is far superior in every aspect (dialogue, main storyline, animation, charm, fighting skills, use of girls and their powers, music, what have you); so what's the point of Kinomi Master? It doens't make me root for a second season, it doesn't make me want to read the light novel or manga version (I didn't even check which is available and I wasn't a second late to find and read the Faraway Paladin or The Most Notorious Talker Runs the World's Greatest Clan light novels), and, this anime series has far superior contemporary competition. So, even though it has a nice first couple of episodes and a likeable hero, Kinomi Master is, sadly, a flop.
I still wouldn't tell anyone to not watch it. I'll stay at Mixed Feelings bandwagon for the time being. It's a pity, really.

Now, Ben-To is a great example of how dragging on a good idea can guide you to make a below average show. So, the premise of the series is that young people, and middle schoolers and early high schoolers at that, who are otherwise unable to afford bento boxes from supermarkets fight to the last person so they can get half-priced bento f at the discount hour. There are groups competing for the insufficient amount of bento, so we have competing groups of Bento hunters. Our main character Sato becomes one of these bento hunters via his student club members and meets lots of girls ... and some menacing lads during the bento hunts. They develop strategies and end up working together or against each other.
This is a very nice setup for a 50 minutes long film. However, when you stretch the time to over five times that lenght, inevitably you end up with an overstretched story that becomes sillier as the episodes go on and on and on. Add to that how you don't understand the motives of many of the characters, even you cannot keep up with who was who among the myriad young lasses in the series, things get confusing, over the top, and at the end, boring. Sisters that were curious about the MC become supervillainesses, the one supermarket becomes a long list of supermarkets, the competing groups become seriously crowded.
Don't get me wrong, there is a couple of good characters in this anime. However, as I said before, as the story didn't develop into a harem anime, or a different kind of competition, or, as the bento-box-hunting didn't turn into a more symbolic, more philosophical issue, and as most characters cannot go beyond being 2D background characters, my liking level went down and down. Beginning writing this review, I was thinking "Mixed Feelings," and just for the sake of a few good scenes and the crazy writer lassie, I will keep it "Mixed Feelings" and not go for "Not Recommended." I wish it could have become better because dialogue, animation, and a copule of characters were really great.

Now, "365 Days to the Wedding / Are You Really Getting Married?" is a heartwarming romantic comedrama anime. I saw some people saying it misses the opportunity to become a great romcom but I don’t believe the main idea was to make a romcom per se. It tells the story of two timid, introverted people who cannot achieve to be part of the society start with the lie that they will get married to avoid an unfortunate appointment to Alaska, and it tells us the story of how these two introverts become engaged in the world, with other people, with each other, how they develop ... as characters so they can become functioning, productive adults in the modern society. All the secondary characters have an arc to fulfil, and we see the development of characters, main and supporting, all through the anime series. I truly enjoyed 365 Days to the Wedding and I hope many more will enjoy it, too.

Sorcerous Stabber Orphen. If there was a title that is more forced, I haven't yet seen it. This is an interesting case for sure.
The series starts with three episodes that make you ask "should I continue watching?," then transforms into a great story, then the great story turns into a 1970s 1980s Hong Kong kung-fu film, then ends in the most ambigious manner.
The animation is godawful. I understand it is based on a 1998-1999 anime series and, I didn't check but probably an even earlier manga. The drawings cannot be found anywhere else in the 21st Century apart from Detective Conan, they are that ... bad. The music is completely out of tune, out of character, and meaningless. The characters are not well defined at all. So, a lad named Krylancero grows up in an orphanage with two girls and all three of them are transferred to a school for sorcery, and even though the boy is about up to 10 years younger than the girls, he is in the same class with them. Dramatic things happen, he leaves the school to find Azalie, one of the two girls he grew up with. In the five years that follow, he chooses the name Orphen as he is an "orphan", somehow becomes a loan shark who can not pay the rent for his boarding house room. He meets with two kids and two dwarves and a myriad other people and all the characters are made off of cardboard as they don't develop at all, or far worse, they do develop the moment development is required on the script. The affair with the girl Azalie is very complicated, even incomprehensible because the writer made a mess of the story's continuity. There is a church, an upper echelon of sorcerers whomever they are, a cult, rangers, royal family, and none of these lift a finger when people massacre others in the middle of the big city. Also, there is no background story that illuminates who and what these people and institutions are.
Still, have I managed to watch it from one end to the other; yes I did and I have a tendency to drop anime shows 10 minutes into them. Did I enjoy it; I surely liked more than half of the episodes. Would I recommend it? Only if you are bored, don't have anything else to read, watch, or listen to.
So, not the best show ever, but it is watchable.

Da Wang Rao Ming / Spare Me Great Lord is one hell of a great donghua. I had watched a few and didn't like most, liked Link Click and Dragon Raja a lot, and yet this one surpasses them.
Firstly, the characters are as realistic as animation industry permits. Secondly, they have growth during the season which is great. The story is easy to understand, very easy to follow, and it tells us how things develop very clearly which is a great plus as far as anime/donghua storyline progresses are concerned.
Animation is very good and there is none of that 3D nonsense of many Chinese ... animations have and everything is very nicely drawn and animated. Fight scenes are great and very well choreographed and normal interactions look great, too. I liked the opening theme quite a bit and generally the music score overlaps with what is on the screen.
The main character has a great speciality - he increases his "points" by annoying people and that gives Spare Me Great Lord tons of good humorous situations. Also, there is a great number of very well-depicted, very well-placed secondary characters including the sister and the wonderful, mysterious, and cool Jiang Shuyi. The storyline is consistent throughout the season and we can see how things and characters develop in time and in different situations.
I truly loved this show and I recommend it quite a lot.

So, Hagure Yuusha no Estetica/Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero is such an interesting case study in anime. It has all the clichés, tropes, all the fan-service imaginable, it is made in a colour the dots kind of way, and yet you still want to continue watching it.
Overpowered hero who is somewhat lacking in magical abilities? Check.
Said hero being very cheeky and ecchi? Check.
Two worlds co-existing in a strange manner? Check.
Completely dumb and useless heir to the Dark Lord who falls for the hero in an instant? Check.
Academy for gifted? Check.
Delicate worldbuilding and world explanation made at times and then nothing to come off of it ... during the rest of the series? Check.
Main male and female leads jump-starting the academy at the second best ranking surpassing hundreds who spent years to get to that level, or even worse, who couldn't even come close to that level at all? Check.
Useless teaching staff who cannot do anything at times of danger but are employed at the academy to instruct the crème de la crème of talented mage kids? Check.
Worldwide organization that exists to fight anomalies due to multiverse interactions but doesn’t do anything at all in the direst of dire moments? Check.
Lots of fan service with unnecessary exposure of female -and somewhat male- body parts? Check, check, check.
Mysterious student/s with over the top abilities who is introduced but is absent whenever his powers/abilities are needed very badly? Check.
All the interesting threads that are abandoned during the series (mysterious organization, otherworld politics and international relations, the big scary omniscient evil organization, impossibly powerful motorbike, the Dark Clan, important secondary characters joining the two main characters) given a dose or revival at the very last minutes of the season finale so people might be interested in a season two? Check. Also, no-one interested in a Season Two despite these cliffhangers? Check.
So, it’s an anime series based on all the classic clichés and tropes and yet it has one or two very good, nearly philosophical discussions, a few very good scenes in it as well as an endearing main character.
At the end, it is an anime series that can be watched to kill time, have some fun, but there is surely nothing to be gained off of the experience. I wonder why it was and still is quite famous. To sum up, I have mixed feelings for it because I still sat down and finished its 12 episodes and didn't drop it.

Now this is a feelgood anime if there ever was one. The main character is transferred from a very negative loner corporate worker's life in Japan to a new world by three gods who took pity on him. Consequently, he starts life as an 8 year old lad. He meets people when he is 11 in the forest he lives in and moves to the city and founds and finds a new life for himself at the ripe old age of eleven.
When you are down, when you are worried about life, it is a great anime to watch. Nothing awful happens, there is always a ... positive point in all developments, everyone is cooperative with the main character and the main character, from the woes of his former self's worklife, treats people nicely. There are nice lessons to be had and By The Grace Of The Gods is a very easy to watch anime as a result. As it apparently has a second season, it surely pleased a lot of people, too.
However, there is one question at the back of my mind: Who is this anime aimed at? I mean, it's obviously not a young kid's show as it references to toxic work environments and has concepts like "infantile regression" in it. It is not a show for adults because pretty much nothing challenging or "sexy" happens. So, who watches it? -- that is one real question I have about this show.

“The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me?” reminded me of “I Was Reincarnated as the 7th Prince so I Can Take My Time Perfecting My Magical Ability” at the beginning. However, they took different paths after a couple of episodes. The 8th Son turned into a slice of life, friendship and adventure focussed anime with its overpowered main character. Still, when I compare the two, the approach to the subject matter they ring similar and for sure, 8th Son was released 3 years prior to the 7th Prince.
There are issues with animation quality, the drawings are like from a decade ago as another commentator pointed ... out. Moreover, at points, we just see the same scenery over and over again to make us understand things are happening at the same place or there are scenes with very slow camera motion with next to no movement from the frame. The intro and outro musical number are pedestrian, to be honest. The thing is, if you forget about the first few minutes and the token reference here and there, we can even watch it without thinking it is an isekai anime.
There is a small harem that is built but it is not disturbingly made. There is the necessary token sage/mage, idiotic elder brother, bad guy who isn’t too bright, and the unexpected ally as one expect from an isekai adventure. However, it is a heartwarming story and consequently it is a heartwarming anime. It always gives a positive vibe, it shows how one shouldn’t limit oneself with existing conditions and work for the better life, and it shows how friendship is important. Besides, there is something like a cute main character that we find it in The 8th Son. I believe these points make “The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me?” quite a nice anime to watch. It is easily recommended.

Boy fails at the moment he is to shine, becomes an otaku, is being bullied at school, has one good-ish friend who offers no help but just advice. At home, he has a continuously nagging younger sister, so, life isn't better at home, either. The lad also has problems about thinking about his future. Then, all of a sudden, he gets introduced to a girl at a video game store and deep dives into a nearly forgotten extremely realistic fantasy game. The boy is falsely accused, attacked, bullied, sidelined as in real life and through experiences learns perseverance and the importance of pursuing good activities ... in real life. Then, he discovers he is good. End of story. So, there is Neverending Story, Neverending Story II, and Neverending Story III. Then, there is Full Dive. They are conceptually, trope-wise, and lesson-wise very same.
However, I hadn’t liked Neverending Story films except for the second that starred the late and wonderful Jonathan Brandis. I liked Full Dive. It was a well-written, well-paced, well-developed anime show.
I believe my vote on Full Dive is a recommendation. It is easy to watch and has a great albeit a wee bit generic main character, a good enough story, alright music and visuals, and a quasi-harem. What is there not to like?