Back to hexashadow13's Profile hexashadow13's Profile

This anime begins with a Demon Lord named Leonis Death Magnus using a spell that would resurrect him a thousand years in the future. However, the resurrection is only partially successful, and he returns in the body of his 10 year old self. Furthermore, his goal of conquering humanity is made much more difficult by the fact that the world has changed considerably to the point none of his old assumptions apply. To put it simply, he comes from a world of fantasy but was resurrected into a world of magic powered sci-fi. Furthermore, the threat to humanity is no longer demons, but rather some ... extradimensional force known as Voids and humanity no longer fights directly with magic, but rather with special weapons known as Holy Swords.

Leo’s first order of business is to gain a better understanding of human society, and as a part of that he ends up joining a platoon of Holy Swordmen, or rather Holy Swordswomen considering they’re all cute girls. At this point this anime sound a lot like a typical isekai, but that’s not quite true. Rather, this falls squarely into the harem battle academy genre that was really popular in the 2010s but has since gone out of fashion. The world building is pretty typical for one of those, with a mysterious force that only teenagers are capable of combatting and everything else is centered around supporting and expanding on that premise.

The plot too for the most part is proceeding how such series usually go for the most part. There’s some grand mystery that is slowly being chipping away at, but as of yet it hasn’t made all that much progress. The ending to the season does try to give a finale type feeling and does produce an ending that’s somewhat satisfying, but as is unavoidable, the season ends with loads of plot threads very openly hanging unfinished. It’s an interesting enough plot, but nothing special. The only particularly noticeable thing when it comes to the plot is the pacing. The first arc which corresponds to the first light novel takes up six episodes and feels pretty slow. On the other hand, the second arc which corresponds to the second light novel takes up only two episodes and felt rushed. And the last arc which corresponds to the third light novel takes up four episodes, and felt properly paced. That unevenness was definitely a misfire.

Still, at this point in such series the plot doesn’t really matter all that much. The focus is moreso on the characters. This anime does a well in that regard, though it’s handling things a bit differently from most battle academies. A single cour is enough for most similar anime to get through introducing all of the main heroines, providing some background on them, and starting their character arcs. This anime goes in a different direction. It does start off the stories of two of the heroines, Riselia and Regina, and each have a solid enough introduction arc and come out reasonably likable. But it provides essentially nothing on the other two, Elfine and Sakuya, who as of the ending are a complete mystery.

Instead of the heroines, Leo has a much larger focus with his background and motivations being explored much deeper than they usually are at this point in most such anime. Overall, he’s a pretty fun MC. He is a combination of the intelligence of a wise old man but the instincts of a ten year old boy, which manifests in lots of amusing ways. Of course this includes how he interacts with the heroines, but also includes some of this other antics, such as as his attempts to portray himself as a demon lord ending up feeling very chuuni-ish. He’s also making progress in a simple but clear character arc centered around him coming to care for the humans around him.

He also has pretty solid relationship development with Riselia, though nothing much with the other heroines. The biggest issue is that he’s keeping who he is a secret from the rest of them, and even when his hand is forced by needing to explain things to Riselia, he dances around the truth and doesn’t really tell her much. I actually like such mechanics most of the time as I love characters that play the fool. However, here it felt underutilized in terms of adding anything of value, but did serve as a roadblock for things to progress in terms of relationship development.

The art and animation are decent enough, but with some major caveats. The biggest is some really bad 3DCG in the last few episodes. There was 3D CG earlier on as well, but it fit in better and wasn’t as noticeable comparatively. The designs overall are decent enough, but none of them are particularly memorable. The OP and ED are also pretty solid in terms of the songs and visuals but nothing too special. The soundtrack also worked well enough but isn’t particularly remarkable.

tl;dr: A solid but typical start to a harem battle academy series.

This anime takes a bit of time to really get going, but ultimately the main plot is about the protagonist, Yukito, creating a new religion in a world without religion. Yukito was originally the son of the head of a cult and died during one of their rituals. This gave him a strong dislike of gods and religion, and thus his last wish was to be reincarnated into a world without religion. His wish essentially comes true and at first he’s enjoying his new life in a godless small village. However, there are some really dark aspects to the world he’s been reincarnated into, and ... the only reason he survives is due to the god of the cult from his old world, Mitama, coming to save him.

Unfortunately, gods draw powers from followers, and seeing as Mitama doesn’t have any followers in the world they’re in, she quickly runs out of power. Thus, in order to protect the village that took him in and the friends he’s made, Yukito begins creating a new religion to power up Mitama while using every dirty trick he learned while heir apparent to a cult. Things get more complicated when powerful being known as Archons catch onto his plan and start implementing their own schemes to gain followers and ascend to godhood.

The writing here is overall really interesting and the world building centered around how the world ended up in a godless state is fleshed out well. The central plot regarding expanding the religion is well paced and develops nicely over the course of the season. Throughout that, the anime details various tools and tricks that have been used to create and spread religions as well as providing some insight into how religion works in general. It’s nothing too deep or complicated, but it does give the writing more weight than if it it was entirely made up.

With all that said, I would like to make it clear that is absolutely in no way at all a serious anime. It is primarily a comedy with a lot of the comedy arising from how ridiculously the serious plot matters are dealt with. It is one wild ride from beginning to end. Things escalate to absurd degrees completely unexpectedly. The writing doesn’t really fall into typical tropes or cliches because things too crazy for other anime are constantly happening. That and due to all the highly visual sexual humor.

Yukito is a really fun protagonist. He’s a terrible person, but in a good way. His first instinct when interacting with anyone is to evaluate how useful they are and try to manipulate them. This is a part of himself that he hates due to it being a result of his cult heir upbringing. He doesn’t have much of a character arc, but he does get some character development in that he starts to accept being a terrible person because it’s necessary for the sake of protecting the village and his friends. With that said, the anime still hams it up in regards to him and tries to make him seem as dastardly as possible, which is usually pretty hilarious.

The rest of the cast are also pretty much just a bunch of lunatics. There’s an attempt at giving some of them serious backstories, mainly the antagonists, but overall I didn’t feel it was all that well written. They still have depth in terms of unique personalities and their bonds with each other. That plays incredibly well into the comedy and is enough to make quite a few of them likable and the group overall worth getting invested in. This season only has a small part of a much longer story so the ending to this season definitely doesn’t feel complete, but the final stretch of the final episode emphasizes the cast in such a way that I’m satisfied with it.

This anime is also very unique in terms of it’s production values. To put it lightly, it’s low budget. However, it seems the anime studio knew what they were dealing with and planned around it very well. They do all sorts of crazy things that may not work for most anime, but fit very well with the absurd nature of this anime. The 3DCG is so bad its actually funny. There’s even a scene where they just took real life footage and pasted anime characters heads over it. A lot of scenes are also randomly pixel art instead of traditional animation.

There may not have been a lot of money put into this anime, but there was clearly a lot of heart, and it definitely shines through. With that said, passion is not enough to overcome all of the anime’s shortcomings, and the bad animation is often very pronounced. Still, I really like the artistic decisions and character designs so overall I really like how the anime looks.

The OP and ED are pretty solid too in terms of visuals and music. I really liked how the visuals changed from episode to episode. The songs I wasn’t particularly fond of at first but they really grew on me. The soundtrack was decent enough but not particularly memorable other than the great use of insert songs.

tl;dr: A very messy but interesting and amusing anime.

The premise of this manga is that the protagonist, Keita, has two older step-sisters, twins Aiko and Riko, who are both trying to woo him romantically despite him trying to maintain their relationship as siblings. And this goes on, three other girls also end up interested in Keita romantically. This sounds like a pretty typical harem type manga, but in practice it is very different. It’s much more degenerate.

While most harem manga are full of things like lucky pervert situations, those are actually pretty rare in this manga. Such situations are unnecessary because the main characters are all full of lust and end up getting ... in much more erotic situations without needing convenient accidents to make them happen. The situations are still largely meant to be humorous, and in general are pretty good comedy, but this stems from what characters intentionally do, rather than what circumstances make unintentionally happen, and is thus a very different brand of comedy. This manga has very little in terms of wholesome romantic fluff, but instead focuses on Keita doing wild things with one or more of the heroines. This gets really really weird at times. The obvious fetish is clearly incest but that’s not even the weirdest. There’s also a lot of watersports and exhibitionism, including a very specific strain of it involving doing things while being watched by parents.

What makes all this stranger, is that despite all this, the focus here isn’t actually the ecchi art. The art in general isn’t that good. While there definitely are parts that look great there are a lot more parts that are just straight up sketches. But more importantly, the art never actually shows anything explicitly. So ultimately the art is just a vehicle for conveying the story and it is the situations themselves which are supposed to engross the reader and not the visuals. This results in things being paced faster. It is also probably why the mangaka put so much effort into coming up with a variety of interesting situations, as he couldn’t just rely on the art to serve as a crutch as it often the case for ecchi manga. That this manga lasted for sixteen years and went on for twenty-five volumes despite the weak art shows he succeeded.

Despite the heavy focus on degeneracy, the manga surprisingly does have a proper plot that takes itself seriously. The crazy hijinks lead to a very strange set of relationships between Keita and the heroines. And it’s not just that a status quo is established and stuck to for the rest of the manga. Rather, there’s progress in all sorts of ways that goes back and forth and through all sorts of twists and turns. Character’s seriously reflect on how they behave and their relationships with others. Most of the heroines have pretty good character arcs and are all pretty likable. Keita doesn’t really have much in terms of character development. He essentially starts and then quits a character arc multiple times, but that too is pretty interesting and to be honest feels very fitting for an indecisive harem protagonist. The ending too is indecisive, but that also fits really well with the overall flow of the story and makes it feel like the status quo is perfectly fine to maintain indefinitely, and thus I was pretty satisfied with it. As a final note, the fan translation is also pretty solid throughout.

tl;dr: A strange manga that focuses on a genuine ecchi story and manages to come together surprisingly well.

The basic premise of this anime is that the protagonist, Wataru, falls head over heels in love with a girl named Aika and actively pursues her for years despite her shutting him down hard the entire time. However, he has a sudden epiphany where he reevaluates himself and what he’s been doing, and begins to see himself as pointlessly bothering and annoying Aika. Thus, he decides that even though he’s still in love with her he’s going to abandon trying to woo her and simply watch her from afar.

At this point one would expect for Wataru to either start building a romantic relationship with another ... girl, or for Aika to then turn around and start trying to get with Wataru. Descriptions of this anime generally seem to suggest that both occur, and while that is true to an extent, neither is the focus of the anime. What then was the focus of the anime exactly? Well, nothing. Most of the events in the anime don’t seem to be substantially contributing to anything. It’s pretty normal in romance anime for all sort of things to happen that one would expect to have a major impact, but for things to somehow essentially return to the status quo. This anime isn’t like that. Instead, it’s mostly events that you would expect not to have much of an impact at all, and as expected they do not.

Wataru has a character arc centered around how him giving up on romance causes him to lose confidence in himself overall that he needs to build back up. Aika has an arc where she realizes that she actually likes being with Wataru and misses him now that he’s no longer trying to spend time with her. However, both of these are incredibly underdeveloped. There are hints of both of their arcs throughout the anime, however neither of them are that concrete or come together properly. They are then just pushed through forcefully in the final stretch of the anime. I suppose that made the ending to the anime somewhat satisfying, but only somewhat due to the lack of proper build up.

The anime spends a lot more time on side characters, but for the vast majority nothing meaningful occurs as a result in their stories either. The only exception is Ichinose who has a pretty clear and well developed, albeit somewhat cliche arc, about her becoming more assertive and independent. With the rest maybe it’s a slow burn that’s building up to something eventually, but as far as this season gets I really have no clue what the writer was trying to do. For example, Wataru’s relationship with his sister is a focus, but the biggest event associated with that is early on before enough context was established for it, and for the rest of the anime their bond is just kind of there.

There are a few girls that Wataru grows somewhat closer to, mainly Shinomiya and Sasaki, but their stories don’t really seem to connect to the main story. If this was a harem type anime where the it was uncertain who the MC would end up that would probably be fine. But here, while I suppose its technically uncertain, the writing makes it really obvious that Wataru will end up with Aika. And thus these stories not contributing anything to the overarching story makes them feel pointless narratively. If there was some good romantic fluff here I suppose they would still have some value, however Wataru just doesn’t seem all that into them as he’s clearly still pining for Aika, so the moment to moment romance is weak too.

Even beyond these macro issues, the writing at a micro level was also pretty bad. The flow of the story is very unnatural. Conversations start and progress in a really strange way, especially between characters that didn’t seem to know each other before the conversation. The pacing is also really messy, with the episodes that don’t matter in the grand scheme of things strangely being the best paced. The art and animation are also only decent, the character designs are a bit dull and repetitive even considering the setting, the OP and ED are just okay in terms of the songs and visuals, and the soundtrack isn’t particularly worth mentioning.

Despite all that, I still found the anime interesting and I even enjoyed most of it. Despite all the aforementioned issues, I still found Wataru pretty compelling in a messy sort of way. And despite Aika’s thought process being terribly conveyed, I somehow did find her struggling with Wataru leaving her pretty entertaining. I also found Sasaki, Shinomiya, and Ichinose pretty likable characters that were fun to watch even if they don’t really have much of a point in the grand scheme of things yet. This anime isn’t the type of anime that is so bad that it’s good, but rather is pretty good despite being pretty bad, if you know what I mean. And I hope you do because I really don’t know how else to describe it.

tl;dr: A very weak anime that’s still reasonably good.

This anime features Usato Ken, a normal high school student that was simply pulled along for the ride when two of his friends were magically summoned by the king of another world. Thus, he doesn’t get special hero powers as those summoned to another world typically do. However, he’s still pretty special in that he can use healing magic, which turns out to be really rare. Furthermore, he gets taken on as a disciple by a woman named Rose who has a very interesting philosophy on how to use healing magic. To put it simply, she pushes Usato through physical training well past what his ... body can endure with the expectation that his healing magic will keep him alive. She very quickly manages to mold him into someone at peak physical fitness, which is perfect as their kingdom is about to be invaded by demons.

This is an isekai, but it has a pretty different feel from most recent isekai. The description may make it sound like the typical isekai premise where a character initially seems to be underpowered but ends up overpowered, but that isn’t quite right. Usato is definitely overpowered in certain ways, but within a very limited scope. The anime caters to that by putting him into situations where he really manages to shine, but does so in a manner that makes it clear that him seeming overpowered is only due to the special circumstances. Rather than the story of someone overpowered, this is more so the story of someone that’s managed to find his place in the world and is thriving in it. Furthermore, this anime doesn’t have any RPG or cultivation mechanics or anything like that, so him working hard and growing as a result is conveyed in a way that feels more natural and down to earth. This makes it easier to get empathize with him and get invested in him.

Usato also has a very interesting mentality in that he’s very much able to go with the flow and keep a level head even in extreme circumstances. This is shown through how he contrasts with the two friends he was summoned with. One of them, Inukami, is the type that is incredibly happy about leaving her old boring life behind and being summoned to another world and is excited to play the part of a hero. The other, Kazuki, has the more normal reaction in that he’s initially incredibly upset about being separated from his friends and family, and even when he gets over that it takes him some effort to muster the courage to actually risk his life in battle.

Both are very different characters that get fleshed out decently enough on their own. But what I think makes them especially great characters is how they interact with Usato to show how Usato doesn’t fall into either of the two typical mindsets. He isn’t upset about things like Kazuki is, but he also doesn’t just see himself as a character in a fantasy story as Inukami does. He’s legitimately able to see the world for what it is and accept his new life and do what he thinks is best within that context. And because of that, he’s able to help both Kazuki and Inukami grow beyond their meandering ways of looking at the world. Inukami’s growth especially came out really well.

Furthermore, Rose is fantastic at drawing out Usato’s potential. She’s essentially a violent and brutish drill instructor. But Usato has a surprisingly rebellious nature and absolutely hates to lose, so he pushes himself to the brink to one up her. And while Rose does seem sadistic, deep down she does genuinely care about him and is overall quite compassionate, so the two ultimately develop a really fun dynamic. The anime has a lot of great comedy, but the parts with Usato and Rose were definitely the highlight. I did think that Rose’s backstory was somewhat trite though, and the episodes focused on her backstory were too slowly paced. Their placement is also kind of strange, which I suppose makes sense as they’re pulled from later in the novels. But they’re critical to understand Rose though, so I think moving them to earlier on worked well.

The overarching plot of this anime is incredibly basic. The humans are the good guys and they’re getting invaded by demons who are the bad guys. The human king and pretty much all humans outside of bandits are benevolent. And essentially all the demons are malevolent. There’s not really any complexity or depth here. There are some hints that there may be more to things eventually, but as far as this season gets there’s nothing too substantial. With that said, this season actually ends right at the beginning of a new arc. Though, I wouldn’t call it a cliffhanger per se as it’s not all that suspenseful. It’s a bit strange that the anime team chose to end it where they did, but the the closest novel endings is in an even weirder points so this was probably as good as it was going to get. Overall I was satisfied with the ending and am looking forward to the next season.

The art and animation are pretty good and the action is solid. The character designs were decent enough but nothing too special. The OP and ED were both great in terms of songs and visuals. I did think it was kind of strange that the ED focused on only Inukami though. The soundtrack was good as well.

tl;dr: An isekai with a weak plot carried by a great cast of main characters.

This is yet another isekai with the focus on the protagonist being overpowered. A Japanese high school student dies while saving a couple girls from an assailant, and reincarnates as Cain von Silford, the son of a noble. The world he reincarnates into is a pretty typical run of the mill isekai fantasy world with RPG like systems. Cain is overpowered in a pretty basic manner in that he just just has really high stats and loads of abilities without any sort of extra gimmick. The overarching plot is also incredibly simple in that there’s an evil god that’s slowly being unsealed that Cain has ... to grow strong enough to defeat, while also dealing with fragments of him that manage to break free of the seal. Thus, story wise there really isn’t anything all that original here.

What stood for me was that the anime didn’t really take itself that seriously and leaned into being really cheesy and hamming it up. I’m not sure if that’s something that was originally in the source material or if the anime studio are the ones that chose to go in this direction, but it works pretty well. For example, the writing is pretty terrible with some really stiff dialogue. But the voice acting often seems to try to be as stiff as possible and it actually ends up pretty amusing. The instances where Cain would do something and multiple people would say the exact same thing in shock was surprisingly funny. Like if it was just a few words that would be whatever, but five people delivering a full on line completely in sync is absurd enough that its kind of hilarious.

Now that’s not to say the anime didn’t take itself seriously at all. There definitely are parts where its trying to convey a proper story and flesh out Cain as a character. These parts aren’t that good, but I think they work pretty well in creating the structure that supports the more amusing comedic portions. Furthermore, the anime is pretty fast paced so even when its just going through a series of generic story beats, it moves at a quick enough pace that things don’t get too dull. This pacing also causes the humor to land much better than it would otherwise. I think the end of the season is the best example of this, in that after the climax to the final arc, it just rushes through pretty much an entire additional arc in like 5 minutes. It’s an absolute mess, but it works well and I was pretty satisfied with the ending.

The art and animation are solid enough. There was some pretty good visual humor at times. The character designs overall I found pretty weak, though there were some good ones too. I really liked Cain’s standard outfit, though I hate his combat outfit. The OP and ED had decent songs and visuals, and I liked t how they tried to make them funny. The soundtrack wasn’t particularly memorable.

tl;dr: An overpowered protagonist isekai with a weak generic plot but pretty good humor.

The second SAO Progressive film picks up with Kirito and Asuna making their way to the fifth floor, which isn’t in the main series at all. This film is a more straightforward adaptation of the fourth volume of Progressive compared to the previous film’s adaptation of the first volume. There is still some film original content, primarily centered around Mito, but for the most part the differences with the light novel comes down to things being cut from the film. That may seem like a problem, but the Progressive films already skipped half of volume 1 and the entirety of volume 2-3, so it’s kind ... of a lost cause at this point.

This film seems to have been designed such that it can be watched after the first Progressive film without having read the novels that cover the period in between. It succeeds in that for the most part, however it definitely has to rush through explanations of certain aspects and characters. As such, while I definitely don’t think its necessary to read the novels in order to watch this film, I would say that previous knowledge of the series and especially the guilds involved would make this film a lot easier to follow as compared to those that have only seen the first Progressive film.

The film follows Kirito and Asuna having to lead a mini-party to defeat the floor boss, because if either of the two main clearing guilds get the last hit drop from the floor boss it could lead to a civil war between them. It’s a solid enough story and the action is fantastic. The floor boss is one of the best battles in all of SAO. However, it very much didn’t feel like a film type of story. It’s just a small part of a much larger story. It doesn’t really have the oomph that anime films tend to. I suppose that comes down to how this film stuck pretty closely to just adapting the original source material while most anime films are pretty much entirely original and thus have room to tell a more self contained story. Overall, I am satisfied with this film, but I feel like it would have been better as part of a proper multi-cour anime than it is as a film, even if it wouldn’t have the same production values.

On that note, the art and animation in the film are just as excellent as the previous film and really shine during the floor boss. The soundtrack is great too. The ED is also pretty solid in terms of the song and visuals. Kudos to them for actually having visuals instead of just the standard white text on black that films tend to have.

tl;dr: An incredibly well made film that adapts pretty standard and not very filmic content.

This film is an alternate retelling of the first two episodes of the main Sword Art Online anime. As such, this is fine as an entry point for the series. However, this review is primarily for those that are already familiar with the main series. This film is based on the light novel series Sword Art Online Progressive, which is a more in depth retelling of the series by the original author, Kawahara Reki, himself. However, it is a very loose adaptation of the first Progressive novel with the majority of content being original or heavily modified. These anime original differences do produce some pretty ... major inconsistencies with the main series. Despite that, it seems that these films are at least somewhat canon to the main series, as the most recent novel directly includes a character original to this film.

The differences are rooted in one core difference, that instead of being about Kirito, this is instead Asuna’s story. It follows her from before she logged into SAO to the end of the first floor. She is accompanied by film original character Mito, who was Asuna’s friend in real life and the one that invited her to play Sword Art Online. This change in perspective changes things tremendously. At this point in the story, Kirito already had a lot of experience with SAO and was highly skilled so he was able to adapt pretty quickly. Asuna on the other hand is a complete newbie who doesn’t understand the first things about MMOs. Mito was a beta tester like Kirito and so she’s somewhat experienced and skilled, but she’s nowhere near a gary stu like Kirito is. Thus, this follows the experience of a more normal player unexpectedly thrown into a death game.

This perspective is certainly interesting. Through showing how panicked and lost Asuna is when thrown into circumstances she can’t even begin to understand the viewer has a better understand of where she’s starting from. Thus showing how she picks herself up and becomes more accustomed to the game is made more satisfying. Her original meeting with Kirito is also better fleshed out with better romantic vibes. Seeing Kirito from an outsider’s perspective is also pretty cool, especially in regards to how he played the villain after the first floor boss. The biggest issue however is Mito. Putting aside that she leads to a host of minor plot holes as that isn’t something I care all that much about, she also diminishes some of the strongest aspects of Asuna’s character.

In the original series and in the Progressive light novels, Asuna seemed like she was someone that knew nothing about VR or MMOs and managed to figure things out on her own, and that’s what led to her mindset when she first met Kirito. At the point this film takes place, she was somewhat of a foil to Kirito in that while they were both solo players they had completely different perspectives on why and how. Having Mito there to teach Asuna everything and help her until she can stand on her own throws significant parts of her original characterization away. What we get in exchange, the friendship between Asuna and Mito, is pretty good. But to be honest it’s mostly just retreading ground that Mother’s Rosario already went through, so it doesn’t really contribute all that much to Asuna’s character. Thus, all in all while I am satisfied with the film, I have mixed feelings on how it compares to the original work.

The art and animation are fantastic, as you would expect from an SAO film. The action especially is amazing and the battle against the floor boss is significantly better than it was in the main anime. The soundtrack is also great, with Swordland of course being the most prominent track. There is no OP, but the ED is pretty good in terms of the song and visuals.

tl;dr: An very well made SAO film with very messy changes to it’s source material.

Darwin’s Game is one of those manga that involves people suddenly being given supernatural powers and then forced to duke it out. Darwin’s Game is a mysterious smartphone app that gives its users a supernatural ability known as a Sigil. They then fight each other for points that can be exchanged for cash and prizes. Battles can be initiated through simply running into another D-Game player and triggering a battle through the app, but there are also major events where players are mass teleported to a location and then given some sort of objective. The game is not purely a death game as it is ... possible to lose without dying. However, the game does involve fighting with supernatural powers so deaths are pretty common.

The protagonist, Kaname, has a Sigil that gives him the ability to summon anything that he’s familiar with. That may not seem all that impressive considering that others Sigil wielders have powers like controlling water or teleportation. However, Kaname is adepts at tactics and mind games which allows him to use his Sigil very effectively. As a result, he ends up somewhat overpowered, but almost entirely through skill rather than through pure power, which makes his fights really interesting and satisfying. He also has a good character arc in the first third or so of the manga, though he doesn’t seem to grow much after that. Still, at that point he is a likable character with a good amount of depth, so he’s a pretty solid protagonist throughout the manga.

The clan that Kaname establishes, Sunset Ravens, makes up the majority of the supporting cast. They have a pretty good variety of powers and work well together so that keeps the larger scale conflicts interesting. None of them are fleshed out all that well or have much character development. However, they have a good group dynamic, so holistically they’re still interesting as characters. There’s also a romance between Kaname and a girl in the clan that isn’t all that deep or anything, but is still pretty cute and satisfying to watch progress. In terms of antagonists, the manga strikes a good balance between ones that are cartoonish villains that are just awful people, and more complex characters with complicated circumstances behind their actions.

The plot overall flows well. The focus is initially is on Kaname fighting in single matches, but quickly shifts to larger scale events and battles. These were well designed and had a good number of twists and turns. Something I think the mangaka is really good at is knowing when to call it quits. A lot of arcs felt like they ended abruptly, but most of the time this was quite welcome because the arcs were dragging on and getting kind of dull. Thus, the pacing is generally pretty good. As is the case with most all death game manga, the plot jumps the shark and becomes incredibly grand scale eventually, at which point the plot becomes somewhat convoluted and somewhat hard to follow. Still, it’s easy to understand the broad strokes even if the finer details are perplexing, so the plot is still exciting and the manga overall is smooth to read.

The ending unfortunately is really rushed and drops most all of the minor plot threads and glosses through key aspects of the major plot threads. It is believed that this is because the mangaka was having health problems, which is certainly understandable. Furthermore, while the execution of the ending is certainly heavily flawed, the ending itself is great. Thus, while certainly not perfect I was pretty satisfied with it.

The mangaka’s is a great artist in terms of style and quality. The character designs are only decent, but the art uses them very effectively. Unfortunately, the artist’s health seems to have had an impact on the art as well. It peaks at around 2/3 into the manga. After that the quality goes up and down, and though there is certainly still some great art, overall the quality is noticeably lower. The fan translation for most of the manga is pretty good, though the translation of the last couple volumes has major issues.

tl;dr: A battle manga with a great protagonist and great pacing, though a pretty rough final stretch.

I will start this review by saying that I love trashy isekai. Power fantasies where the protagonist is overpowered and a dozen girls instantly fall in love with him for no apparent reason are totally my jam. This anime very much one of those anime. The protagonist, Yuuya, starts off as a fat guy bullied by everyone including his family, but after finding a door to a fantasy world he levels up super quickly and becomes a hot overpowered guy. The gimmick that makes this anime somewhat unique compared to the other trashy isekai is that Yuuya can freely go back and forth between the ... fantasy world and his original world, thus allowing him to use his buffed up stats and magic within the context of normal high school life.

This anime does have some good moments that use that gimmick effectively. However, overall the anime didn’t click with me. The biggest problem is that the writing is garbage. Now, I know what I’m getting into with anime like this and I certainly wasn’t expecting much. I frankly have pretty low standards and I’m okay with that. But this failed to meet even those. There isn’t really any sort of overarching plot in either world; Yuuya basically just deals with whatever comes his way. But all of this is dumb and absurdly cliche. That’s not a problem when the focus is on comedy and just showing Yuuya being overpowered. But a lot of the time the narrative was clearly taking itself seriously and trying to give characters depth. Unfortunately, the writing isn’t able to do that effectively for a myriad of reasons, and it all just falls flat and makes the associated parts a bore. If the pacing was better I may have been able to overlook that, but it’s an uneven mess with some parts too fast and others too slow, which makes the anime a drag to watch at times. The ending to the season is also very abrupt and unsatisfying.

Beyond that there were a lot of small things that wouldn’t be that big of an issue in a vacuum, but in combination it just made the anime overall feel off. How the anime portrays Yuuya being overpowered isn’t all that satisfying. There is an emphasis on how his stat boosts change his physical abilities and luck. Intelligence is also a stat that goes up by many magnitudes, but his actual intelligence he doesn’t change at all as a result of that which is an issue because, to put it frankly, he’s pretty dumb. Mentally he doesn’t grow at all compared to before he was overpowered despite his inner conflicts being a core part of the narrative, so it’s hard to really get invested in him and really enjoy his triumphs. The writing also tries so hard to hype up Yuuya that it feels straight up off-putting at times. For example, there is an enormous focus on how hot Yuuya becomes, to the point this results in many bizarre scenes where Yuuya walking around in public causes everyone to stop what they’re doing to stare at him and talk about how hot he is.

Yuuya also performs feats in his original world that are completely absurd for a human to have performed and he does them publicly without making any effort at hiding his capabilities. Despite that no one really seems to care all that much or find him particularly strange. What makes it even stranger is that the theme of power leading to isolation comes up a couple times, but in the context of no one caring about Yuuya’s immense power it just seems out of place. Similarly, at one point it’s mentioned that Yuuya is being selected for something because he’s hardworking and being hardworking is more important than having natural talent. But considering that Yuuya essentially just lucked into all his abilities without having to work for them, that’s downright laughable.

Honestly, I usually would overlook all these issues and still enjoy the anime and consider it at least somewhat good. But the last straw for me was how the production values of the anime are incredibly low. I actually love the art style and though the character designs were a mixed bag, overall I would consider them good. However, the art quality and animation were downright terrible. The issue isn’t even low quality CG as is often the case. Rather, here they apparently didn’t have the budget to do even CG most of the time. Far too much of the anime is just panning over static images and such. The OP and ED are also weak visually, though the songs are pretty good.

tl;dr: An isekai with a somewhat interesting gimmick but really bad writing.