Back to GravenER's Profile GravenER's Profile

Let's be honest. Part of the reason why this anime is given such a low score, despite having a relatively high production value, is the loli harem.
Keep that in mind when you decide whether to watch it or not. Besides that, or maybe indeed because of that, it has some glaring issues.

First, the characters. I did say they're okay, and that's indeed all they are: okay-ish. Tropey personalities and interactions, skin-depth, and too busy fawning over the blank MC all the time to make for any meaningful dialogue or character development. Nothing new in the world of fantasy harem shows with OP MCs. The villain ... is just too useless to mention. Not even the designs are original or compelling, despite, again, the animation being more than decent.

Then, the plot. Big meh here.
I enjoyed the first three episodes, with the two girls slowly learning to master their magic skills with the help of an expert tutor, while the rest of the anime—mainly focused on the school and school drama—is lacking in pacing and stakes. It's as if at some point the author dropped any pretense of building a story and a world and just had stuff happen for the sake of having the female cast fight for the MC's affection, which is frankly boring to watch and lazy to write.
If you want the focus to be on the fanservice, at least grow some and go full-in with an R17 ecchi show, or you're going to alienate both the pearl-clutching vanilla fantasy audience and the bored coomer audience.

I'm still giving it 8, though. If mediocre garbage like JJK and DS can scrape past 8/10 on the sole account of their high production value, this can get a bit more as well.

This anime works well. Somewhat.

The plot hook of the "all the female characters are actually assassins trying to kill the MC", offering a slightly new twist to the usual fantasy plus OP hero plus harem formula, could've quickly become stale and boring or degenerate into the girls forgetting their motivations and engage in the usual fawning competition for the MC, which is what I had expected, but is actually well-executed.
More importantly, the show allows for a few moments of heartfelt character development, demonstrating that the authors cared at least enough to produce a somewhat entertaining anime.

Now, as for the MC, at first I thought ... the continuous fainting every time the girls did something "ecchi" would've become boring before long, but it has its value, and the show uses it smartly and with purpose. It's actually what makes it possible for the other characters to do their thing. Also, our hero does find ways to avoid fainting, so you don't get irritating scenes with the MC being useless when needed the most.

The girls are nice, and they have somewhat interesting backstories and motivations that make them more than walking tropes, but their designs are nothing impressive. Anemone is a rip-off from Black Lagoon, and Ciel, the white-haired loli demon, is just a generic white-haired loli demon. Goa, on the other hand, truly stands out, both in her design, motivations, and character depth and development, although Ciel also has a couple of moments.

As for the rest of the cast, well, there are no other relevant characters, besides maybe one villain who manages to last a little longer. Consequently, the world of the show feels inevitably empty and flat. Indeed, the worldbuilding itself is just the Nth RPG-fantasy knockoff, with dungeons, monsters, adventurers, a Demon Lord, etc., and the MC one-punches through most obstacles with little to no effort, his own party members being the biggest threat.

Overall, unfortunately, the show still doesn't manage to scrape past the 6.5/7.

The thing is, it does the bare minimum to raise a little bit above the usual fantasy slop, but not enough to find its place next to genuinely compelling anime from the past season like Silent Witch or Water Magician.
The production value is mid, the art is okay, the idea is decent, but on top of the issues I already pointed out, such a gimmick can only be milked so much, and if we ever see a second season, which I highly doubt, there's a good chance the show will implode on its own premises.

I'm at episode 7, and I don't think anything's gonna happen to save this aggressively mediocre show.

A terrible school-themed romcom mixed with a subpar sci-fi dungeon crawler. Add two dollar-store lolis, and there you go. One-note, unremarkable characters, low production value (mediocre animations and designs), bad music, and lack of originality or creativity - not even for the main characters. The romcom bits are extremely boring, so much so that I almost found myself skipping whole parts, while the dungeon exploration part falls short of passable.

Honestly, it'd have been a 6.5 if they just plucked out the contemporary school setting and went for a ... classical fantasy, or at the very least greatly reduced the non-dungeon-related scenes and characters. Also, they should've dared more by making the two lolis summonable outside of the dungeon, but nope, they decided the two parts of the story were already too cool on their own to mix up, I guess. Hell, make them live with the MC, add in some more cheap fanservice (you know your fanbase, Japan), or give meaning to those SOL scenes by having the two servants appear at the MC school or whatever! Make it interesting, for heaven's sake!

But no. The show is dead-set on boring you out of it, and if you manage to get past the frankly horrible episode 7, I will guess your favorite topping is mayonnaise and you sing along with white girls' music. Just don't waste your time.

If you're looking for a cheap battle shounen with yokai and suffer from TikTok brain syndrome so you can't keep focused for more than five seconds without a constant adrenaline rush from some cartoons beating each other, this anime is not for you - you might find the "talking" a bit too complex and verbose to follow, and who'd want to see a bunch of characters *talk*, right? At least add a Subway Surfer gameplay in the background to keep the kiddos focused, right? Oh, wait, they do that in Season 1 with the final battle.

But let's assume you're a normal person and your ... brain hasn't yet been hijacked by some Chinese spyware. In that case, this anime is clever enough to forgive the relatively low production value and some pacing flaws, and you might actually find it compelling enough to watch two whole seasons. No guarantees, though.

Let's do this: I'll give it a 7 because at least the production value is decent, and I've seen worse with better votes (like Shield Hero), but as for the rest, there's little to nothing to talk about or enjoy about this.
The plot is what you've seen in dozens of similar isekais that did it better.
The art is mediocre, the animation is mediocre, the character design is uninteresting, and the worldbuilding is shabby.
They clearly leaned too hard into the gender-bending trope and didn't put effort into, well, anything else - another dishonest isekai who tries to do something different but ultimately fails ... at being compelling.
When are they going to learn that adding a little twist to the standard formula doesn't guarantee success if you can't present an interesting story, an interesting world, or at the very least interesting characters? Sigh.

The characters, that were supposed to be the main focus of the show since there's nothing else of value going on, are flat and uninteresting - Tsukasa is a closeted gay volcel who hates women for vague reasons (actually, he just wants to bang his friend, that's clear as day even before they get Isekai'd), and Hinata is an annoying incel with the personality of a cabbage.
Are they supposed to be relatable or what? Instead, they're just annoying, and not the kind of well-constructed 'annoying' like the MC of Mushoku Tensei. Nope. Hinata is useless and whiny, he's such a dysfunctional human being that he behaves like a school kid despite being in his 30s, while Tsukasa is plain-up insufferable and acid, to the point of being unreasonable for the same of some cheap gags.
The problem is that the """plot""" is driven by said cheap gags, so there's no escaping from that.
The rest of the cast is just as unremarkable and one-note-y.

What can I say? Watch it if you're scraping the bottom of the barrel and are out of isekais to watch, but it should be really down on the list.

A bit of context for those who weren't there in the early 00s and 10s.
When this anime came out, being a NEET (a recluse, a hikikomori) wasn't a fashion statement yet, and people were just starting to figure out the possibilities of the newer World Wide Web as having a personal computer in each house was starting to become the norm.
Furthermore, back then watching anime and spending time geeking out on MMOs or programming was something for nerds - for the quiet kids who weren't popular at school, you see. It was the era of forum boards, WoW was still a brand-new game - the ... 'new golf' of tech-driven culture, as some called it - and social media were still in their infancy.

In that regard, this show is a realistic portrait of a relatively bygone era, but the phenomenon of the so-called hikikomori has all but disappeared.
Instead, it gained momentum with the new generations, in a reality that seems to be getting increasingly hostile to basic human functioning - when the world outside becomes either too mean to deal with or too bleak and/or boring to be worth the effort, as if everything was against you, like in some sort of conspiracy to keep you and the environment around you miserable. Yeah, because it's always someone else's fault, right?

In a sentence: NHK is the Fight Club of the true losers - those who weren't Brad Pitt enough to bang Helena Bonham Carter. And, just like Fight Club, it aged like fkin wine. Unfortunately.

I typically don't mind there's no season 2 for anime with low ratings/low quality - I'm not that invested in seeing how the story progresses. But this is not low quality, and alas, I am invested. Sigh. If there's one thing I truly despise about animation above all else, it is how some anime are just video promos for the manga, and after watching this, that's exactly what it feels like. A very good anime - easily a 9 in my book: great production value, nice monster designs, compelling characters (albeit not shown out enough - keep in mind there's no true character arc), and ... an intriguing concept, but alas, it gets nothing done in 12 episodes. You don't learn anything new about the MC situation - why does she suddenly see spirits? What happens if she does NOT ignore them? What's up with those fishy shrine gods? Forget any of that being answered.

And, don't take me wrong, that's fine if you plan on reading the manga or are already a manga reader, but if you just want a self-conclusive anime, this show isn't for you. I heard they have no plans for a season 2, so if you are - like myself - the anime-only dud, you're gonna be utterly disappointed by the ending. If you still don't mind the fact it develops barely 1% of the overarching plot of the manga, and are fine with just going to read the wiki to see how it ends, then there's a lot to be enjoyed about this "comedy-horror" show. Personally, I find that to be one of the worst flaws of animation as it is today - lots of good products end up being shelved because they don't sell enough, while trash like Redo or Arifureta gets season after season, and all you're left with is the manga. Meh.

You know, I held off on watching this for a long time. I've seen similar stuff, and I didn't like it, so I supposed it'd happen the same with this one. And indeed, I was correct. At first, I thought the show was taking the route of "extremely smart but not OP MC uses his brain to overcome the obstacles" - the kind of show where the MC has to find new ways and strategies to fend off the challenge of his new world.
Instead, what I found was a boring show where stuff *kind of just happens* all the time, often with no decent ... introduction, either - there's no linear plot development or progression, and while that might be a good thing if done correctly, here it just makes no sense.

It's kind of sad when an Isekai tries to do something different, but, instead of 'deconstructing' or subverting the expectation, it ends up being a completely nonsensical mess. Pretending you're making a parody of the genre doesn't exempt you from putting together a coherent story with interesting characters, and this show has neither. It's just utter emptiness and boredom - it literally has nothing: no decent combat scenes, no interesting plot devices, no compelling character arcs, no plot line worth following. It's not even fun.
Miss me with this one.

There was an attempt. An attempt at being deep and nuanced, and doing something new, but while the intention is commendable, the execution is shabby and boring. Almost clumsy. I don't care about the surprise twist by the end, so I shall judge it based on what the show presented through the 12 episodes, and, honestly, what was presented was an aggressively mid, low production value product with immemorable music, mediocre animation + character designs, skin-deep dialogues, and 'moral challenges' (like that in episode 6) that a middle schooler at their first creative writing assignment could come up with. A series of poor ideas poorly ... executed.

To reinforce the point, this anime is sometimes the personification of the "I'm 14 and this is deep" meme - an immature kid pretending to be a thoughtful grown-up. They try to touch on some delicate topics like bullying, illness, or religious tolerance (lol), but they do so in such a dismissive, childish, and shallow way that it feels like reading a Twitter thread by some California schoolgirl talking about capitalism. And no, the fact the MCs are kids themselves doesn't justify the shallowness of the dialogues in the slightest - anime oftentimes portray super smart kids coming up with extremely complex thoughts children their age typically don't have, as per the Most Writers Are Adults trope, but even if we assume the show tried being 'dumb' on purpose to portray the kind of thoughts a kid could realistically have, it STILL fails at that. It simply looks and is half-baked.

Now, a quick summary. The plot... the plot is whatever. Boring.
The characters. The character arcs are filled with the usual uninteresting cliches, and while they do manage somewhat to avoid the pitfall of the personality stereotypes, that doesn't do the show any favor, really. For the aforementioned reasons, I doubt anyone with an actual chronic condition is going to see themselves in Kasue, or a victim of bullying is going to empathize with Yuka, etc. - their motivations and sad backstoriesTM are, again, just too shallow and cliche to be taken seriously.

That said, it's a mediocre fantasy anime. Worth watching it to kill time, but don't expect much.

The devil is in the details. What do I mean by that? Simple: while it may look like a well-thought, high-production value, engaging anime on the surface, there's little to no substance to talk about. Oversaturated with made-up fantasy-sci-fi jargon coming out of left field every time a character speaks, the show tries to hide its lack of depth behind a facade of pseudo-intellectual mumbo-jumbo. That's possibly the most annoying thing about the dialogue.

The plot is flat-out boring - with some hints here and there to an overarching narrative, all the way to the underwhelming ending, most of the episodes feel like SOL fillers, which ... are, ironically, the best parts of the anime, if any else.
I get that they took their time expanding on it over 26 episodes, but it felt way too slow, and the payoff wasn't worth it, let alone conclusive - of course not.

The characters are... well, they exist. They're a bit too many, even for such a long anime, and none of them sticks out.
Mostly, they're there only to shower the MC with praise and/or give him an excuse to shine - so, yeah, let's talk about the MC. I don't really care about him, his sad backstory, or whatever he has going on - he's cold, apathetic, flat, paternalistic, and boring - nothing but a medium for the audience to project a power fantasy on.
I don't like using the term 'Mary Sue' - it lost much of its meaning after years of abuse from trope-illiterate social media commentators, but it may actually fit here. He's good at everything, minus the few things he's not good at, or at least he claims not to be good at, but such things pose no challenge whatsoever, so rather than flaws or limitations he's to overcome to grow as a character, they're nothing but the nth device to convey how powerful and awesome and skilled he is.

The female lead... she's no presence or personality whatsoever. Her only character trait is that she loves her brother a bit too much and freezes stuff when she gets angry or flustered. That's all. I won't even get mad at the inc*st undertones, because they're so clumsy and on-the-nose that it feels almost like a gag. A boring, unfunny, recurring gag that will leave both the inc*st fans and its detractors unhappy. It's like Sanji being a failed womanizer in One Piece - nobody laughs at it anymore. It's just sad.

The music is forgettable. The animation is decent for the time, but I've seen better.
Now, about the fanservice - you won't find much in this anime, weirdly enough. You see some bras, a hint of ahh, but that's about it. Even the episode at the hot springs is unnervingly polite: it looks like in the show's future, people have become even more puritanical and callous about showing women's bodies. Imagine making a hot spring scene but all the girls are dressed. What even is the point?
Given a couple of eyebrow-raising comments the MC and other chars make about the clothes of some female characters here and there, I am under the assumption that the author of this masterpiece holds some entertaining opinions.
Weird for an anime with inc*st undertones, uh?

I'm still giving it a 7 because at least it was entertaining. Sometimes. Heh, it more or less does its job - if you're looking for a decade-old fantasy-sci-fi anime with lots of episodes to kill some time, this might be the anime for you.