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Feb 12, 2025
It's so close to be excellent. It really suffers from the "anime" problem. Which is an over simplification for those things that happen in Anime, Manga, Manhwa etc that are unique to these cultures and feel like they're more acceptable locally.
In concept it's a story about a Machiavellian every-man who uses his knowledge of politcs and history to rescue a kingdom on the precipice of failure. In practice... yeah it's about that. A civil servant gets summoned to another world and if given way too much power for reasons that don't make much sense. But then like the character after he is summoned, the story
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takes itself seriously. It considers how the combination of magic and monsters would in some respects stunt the development of the world. Souma uses his insight on civil and political issues and his knowledge of technology to help the kingdom try to work it's way out of the pit of trouble it's in.
And it's a lot of fun. One of the first things Souma does is invent a radio broadcast with a video signal and use it to get people that are useful rather than corrupt. And right away when he start collecting his all-stars we can see some "lateral thinking". The pacing is excellent.
It has a great sense of scale and realism. There's some hidden conspiracies and they come out in a way that feel natural.
And yet.... Everything was going fine until about Volume 8. Then the story takes a turn that felt like a joke but suddenly taken seriously. Our realist hero develops a harem. Harems are generally a problem. But they don't fit this story of these characters. Honestly one of the few odd aspects is how the women fall into instalove when Souma shows up. One or two would have been fine but it just felt like everyone and then when the harem started to be formalized it just started a descent. It got bad. It still is. Hopefully it can pull out. But we're basically two strikes in and one more bad dip and I think I'll drop it which is ironic how many trash isekai manga I do read. I just can't take it here next to a story that isn't so self-aware.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 10, 2024
The animation is great. It's just beautiful to look at. I can't imagine how difficult it is to draw ballet that looks so engrossing but they do it. MAPPA did great working making an absolutely gorgeous anime from start to finish. DDD also has a very strong pilot episode. Where as for an anime this length I'd normally give it 2 episodes to get you sucked in. I was instead sucked in like I was 5 episodes deep at the end of the first.
The storyline is strong and emotional and compelling. The characters are interesting. I'm not a fan of the character design. Specifically
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the eye design because it makes it look like the characters are crying which ordinarily wouldn't be a problem but this is a pretty emotional series and the viewer might tear up at any moment much less the characters.
Like many shows about school aged children they often neglect one or more aspects of life. Some might call this unrealistic. I consider it creative license. A show about ballet focuses on the characters dancing ballet. Whoda thunk it. There are also aspects specific to Japanese culture that might feel unusual to those new to anime. But nothing so while or frequent or frustrating that it breaks verisimilitude. You get sucked in and you'll be sucked in till the very last episode.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Dec 10, 2023
It's a fine Isekai if you want something to read quickly but while it has a fine concept in my opinion it doesn't lean hard enough into it to be interesting. "Level 1 dakedo Unique Skill de Saikyou desu" has a similar style minor superpower that the main character uses to great and interesting value. Considering how much mary-sue wish fulfillment that manga is it's one of the few thigns you can really say about it. "Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru" is even closer to this in concept, (sub)genre and tone. But there the main character makes way more use of
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his Isekai power and the characterization feels stronger.
This manga has solid bones. An isekai power that has potential to be interesting without being so overpowered it's like "I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in The Real World, Too". The main character and see the character stat sheet. And as a kid who played games they know what the stats mean. Still there's room for more. The stats we find out don't tell the whole story. For one thing they don't tell Ars, the main character, WHY. Some of the states are genetic but some of them are personal like Ambition. Heck at one point we realize that some of the states don't necessarily mean what we think they mean. There's room to play with this skill. Room for Ars's skill to come into play. To use some sense of people to develop that parts he can't see. Or at least learn about them. But the manga doesn't really do anything with it. Heck at one point they introduce a character who they suggest has a similar power to the main character only they see different information. In another manga this would be the big bad enemy or something. Here there isn't even "or something". Then even as a power fantasy manga he doesn't use the power all that often. "Unique Skill" uses their gimmick all the time in fun and interesting ways. But here we have a character whose skill is collecting the best people and I can count the number of people they collect on one hand. Maybe they shouldn't have been an aristocrat. Maybe they should have been a pirate or a brigand or a thief something that needed a crew of the best of the best of the best. Instead he's an aristocrat and while it starts off interesting. He sees some homeless dude with a huge skill level and snaps him up. He sees a thief girl running from slavers and she's got a huge skill level. But Then after that it's mostly just using his power as a powerful person to ask people to suggest who would be good and then he uses his eye to confirm they are good. It becomes the one thing this genre should hate... boring.
The other way to go with a story like this is to use the Isekai power to explore the characters. It's not a power fantasy it's about a young prince who is actually a fully grown man in a young prince's body learning to cope with power. Again bones are tehre. I like Ars well enough. I like his crew well enough. But the pacing of the manga is just too fast for that kind of story. I mean there's war and tactics and strategy to lay out. There's a romance between Ars and his betrothed. There's petty jealosies that could flare up. After all just because three people are great warriors doesn't mean they get along. But we don't get to really chew on that. The world is well developed but we don't get to see it. So I guess the term wouldn't be developed but designed.
All together it's the Isekai that seven volumes in, leaves you wishing more happened.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Sep 28, 2023
It's very decidedly average. Maybe even blow that. I do enjoy the world. There's some fun things there. Economically it doesn't make sense for a world where everything is monster drops. Including money. After all that would be... you know what I'm not going to go on a gold rush rant yet again. I spend two hours fuming to myself after that episode.
Again I like the world. Economics aside it is interesting to be in a world where everything comes from drops. I even like that when left alone they spawn more powerfully as Strays if left alone. It's WILDLY inconsistent about that though. Sometimes
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the presents of a city is enough people to keep things from spawning into strays and sometimes it isn't. When they're camping and have a make shift city the garbage is still a danger even though people around the trash all day and all night.
I read this manga and I'm still weirded at that the mangaka designed the primary waifu to BE an elementary school aged appearance. Like not he was shooting for adorable and she just happened to look like a 3rd grader. Nah 3rd grader was the goal. She looks marginally better in the anime though. The only Waifu of interest is Eve. She's a literal one note character who only cares about carrots. She's obnoxiously strong. But she's fun enough to watch. The final Waifu, Alice, is the least interesting. Ostensibly she has a skill as a monster hunter/beast tamer but it's not explored. It means less than nothing and suddenly she's part of the family.
I liked the complexity of the OP skill in the manga. I think they simplified it here too much. The way the bullet mechanic works. Unfortunately even though this was among the first Isekai's I'd read (technically I've seen a few of the classics but this was the first I've read since it became a fully fledged genre). It's exactly what I expected from an Isekai based on the background tones I was getting. It's dumb, it's power fantasy-ish, it's harem-ish. It's not breaking new ground. It's reductive. That said I will say it doesn't fail. It's a successful anime. It has it's story, it has it's characters. There's progress of a kind. It's excellent for turning my brain off for 30 minute segments. I'm done with it and I don't have any interest in seeing more of it. I must be behind on the manga. So I'll dig up that and finish it and if it ends here. So be it. I wanted the world to be explored more but if it isn't. There are much better shows out there.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 15, 2023
As a sporadic Anime consumer I've only recently started my journey down this genre every one talks about Isekai. I've gotten to know a few of the tropes just from reading them. I can see the appeal of this dumpy vomit-genre. But every genre and every trope no matter how overdone or poorly thought out can be used in a way that makes it interesting. Isekai Yakkyoku has been a balm on my growing annoyance with this genre. It's been interesting and fun to watch for my 12 episodes.
This isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination. I'm sure some of the classics
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and big shows I've heard about are better but Isekai Yakkyoku is perfectly adequate at a minimum. It features a main character who is overpowered but not annoying. Whose strength doesn't frustrate me in it's simplicity [Saikyou Onmyouji no Isekai Tenseiki] or it's complexity [Level 1 dakedo Unique Skill de Saikyou desu]. There is a harem-ish support cast/found family but while there's room for shipping there wasn't any overt romance elements.
Isekai Yakkyoku is forced on being a medical anime and Isekai and it rather succeeds at that. Watching Farma use his pharmaceutical knowledge to adapt to a more primitive time-period was interesting. The animation felt quite excellent. It made watching the show less of a chore at every moment. At 12 episodes it doesn't overstay it's welcome, but the ending felt, not quite at the level of "unearned" but, perhaps slightly rushed. There are things seeded about this world that aren't explored. Things you'll notice immediately on rewatch. What are the numbers Farma woke up with when he first incarnated. He never touches a divining rode to test his power levels. There's a few other things that get touched on but never really go anywhere.
By the time Act 3 was there, I was invested in Farma. I was invested in the Pharmacy. I was even invested in the bubonic plague. All of these things felt developed and arriving naturally. But the "ultimate antagonist" was not. This fight felt like a first showdown not a final one. A fight that would start a functional rivalry or something but instead the show dovetails neatly into a FIN. I don't mind ending the story here but I would have been fine without the antagonist pulling the strings. It reminds me of Wonder Woman a near perfect superhero movie until the third act. It was sincere, hopeful, charming and awesome at the same time. Until in act three two things happened. 1) Rather than revealing that war is a part of mankind. The movie proved the naive Diana correct by having a here-to-unknown third party be responsible for war among people. Which felt insulting due to the reality of the war and ultimately cost Diana a moment of character growth that would have fit all four of those characteristics again. 2) Because an antagonist was introduced direct combat had to occur and since it's live action that meant the light had to go away. So we had a fight in the dark with a character we didn't care about. All of that to say the same thing happens here. The story was leading to a disease based ending which matches the things we've enjoyed about the show so far and then basically out of nowhere a third party shows up and invites direct combat which is fine but it doesn't match what we've been watching.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 24, 2023
Well it was fun enough. it's certainly in my journey of Isekai nonsense one of the most interesting stories from a narrative perspective. It's not *super* unique but I didn't come to this genre for a bunch of super unique and unexpected things. I came here for masturbatory wish fulfillment that wasn't so cringe I turn it off and go cry.
Let's just this this was neither which an interesting feeling. This is a vignette anime. I didn't even know this was a thing. The story is at times frustratingly opaque as it will stop randomly for an extended vignette that may or may not
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be relevant. Some of them give interesting and insightful insight into characters that Saitou meets. Some of them are extended setups for jokes you might or might not find funny.
I've only seen a few of these shows and I'm already starting to see the tropes and Saitou kinda swerve on some of the problematic ones. He doesn't get so powerful it's boring. He doesn't get into a weird harem situation. He's just a handyman and the anime does a solid job of really playing with that premise in ways that *just* kept me interested in spite of how frustrated I would get watching a random vignette when I just wanted to know what happens next.
The characters are fine. Saito is basically a bland main character with Mario Stats. Even temperament. Even skills. His entire character is just easy going. Raelza is the love interesting and it's a typical anime girl love interest. She's shy for cultural reasons. Worried her skills might make her unattractive in this case her bulky build, kinda. But at least she looks like and is an adult so yay. Lafanpan is the "other" character. A tiny fairy whose gold greedy for good reasons. She's mostly a champion of the relationships and supports people with magic the way Saito supports the team emotionally. Then we have Morlock who is our character with a mysterious past. He's basically the pervert character but he can turn it on when the fighting gets rough. So kinda Master Roshi from Dragonball. There's decent development for the main characters (most of them) and for a handful of the many sidecharacters. Does every challenge get solved easily? Maybe. But is it boring to watch them? not really. The vignettes as frustrating do keep you engaged enough. And so few of them are duds.
I recommend it as an Isekai but one series in I feel you can find better anime. It's pretty good for anime-isms though. It might make a decent on boarding show. There's only a touch of nudity and it's not too cringe. There are a few dick jokes. They're charming enough to laugh at.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 6, 2023
Holy wow was this a fun time. Such a creative world that wasn't put to waste. The animation is spectacular. It also really had some great pacing. A really interesting premise of a character who can control paper really gets a lot of mileage for three OVAs. I would gladly watch this again and again. Thanks Dragon*Con 2001. Turns out sleeping in the overnight Anime Room can have some really interesting results.
The story was fun but still compelling. There are some emotional scenes but this is an action series at it's heart. It's just a scotch too fanservice to really recommend to just about anyone
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but it's not so much fanservice that you can't watch it in front of people.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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