I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World TV Special Review

When last we left off in the TV series proper, Yuuya had defeated his first Vile—Yuti, the divine archer's disciple—and we got a few scenes of in the credits showing what happened next. The first part of this special expands on those epilogue scenes. We see Yuti adjusting to life on Earth—joining a club and making friends—even as Kaori meets the fantasy world side of Yuuya's harem in turn. Then, the special continues on with a dragon, curing Yuti of her remaining possession, and fighting the next member of Vile, the corrupted Divine Fist. And somewhere in there Yuuya saves a kid from getting hit by a truck and the girls of both worlds take a bath together.

Needless to say, a lot happens in this 48 minute TV special—too much. It's like the anime equivalent of reading a wikipedia summary. In two episodes of runtime, we cover what feels like three separate arcs of the story. None of the big reveals or emotional beats have time to land and be processed. It's just a series of events strung together at breakneck speed. Or to put it another way, the pacing is terrible.

There is also some major power creep in the special when it comes to Yuuya—despite the fact that he was already one of the most powerful existences in the fantasy world. He not only tames an ancient dragon, but also gains his own Vile form. Neither of these power ups seem earned either. He didn't gain them by overcoming great trials or experiencing personal growth—they're just things he accidentally stumbled into. This anime is a power fantasy, sure, but he was already ranked just below the physical manifestations of good and evil. Now, with two Vile defeats under his belt, it's hard to even pretend at any sense of tension when he heads into battle.

All that said, there is some good to come out of this special on a story level. Yuti's scenes of acclimating to life on Earth work. She is a young woman who lost her father figured and was corrupted by a need for revenge. On Earth, she is so far removed from those events, she is able to start healing. In between bouts of fish-out-of-water humor, we watch her reconnect with her love of archery (and all it means to her on a personal level) through the school's Japanese archery club. It's a solid evolution of her character and works as a mirror to Yuuya's own journey. Yuti lost her way in her world and finds it again in ours just as Yuuya lost his way on Earth and found it in the fantasy world.

The other thing the special does well is give us a better sense of the conflict between the Vile and the Divine. We get a few scenes in this special of the Vile talking to one another—discussing their plans and goals. We also see why they are currently winning the conflict between good and evil in the fantasy world. While the Divine are expected to be good and moral, they are living beings who can be killed by exploiting that fact. Similarly, as people, they can be corrupted by their own personal wants and desires—be that for revenge as in Yuti's case or by their need to be the best as with the Divine Fist. Free will and human nature are being used to bring down the world. It's a sobering thought.

As with the series proper, pause at nearly any point, and the resulting screenshot looks great. There's a ton of detail in both the foreground and background while the characters' designs are crisp with both shading and highlights to give them some additional pop. It's once the show is in motion that things get dire quickly.

All the budget saving animation tricks are there. There are freeze frames galore where the camera pans across a static image in lieu of actual animation—sometimes with speed lines around the edges or screen shaking to give the illusion of movement in fight scenes. Action scenes cut away at the point of impact, preventing the need for any complex animation. Super wide shots are utilized to make it so no details need to be drawn on characters. Closeups are used so that the only animation needed is the blink of an eye or the movement of a mouth—and having a character's face take up the whole frame prevents any need to draw a background. It's simply an anime that looks painfully cheep in motion—even if the art design and quality of each individual frame feel like the opposite.

Lastly, the music present is a mixed bag. There is no new vocal opening or ending song—or even a reuse of the TV series' themes. And while the background music fits properly wherever it is used, there are more than a few scenes where music is omitted entirely—and not to the show's benefit.

With this TV special, I had hoped that I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World, Too had learned from the mistakes of its first season and was ready to kick things up a notch. Instead, all we have is the same type of deceptively bad animation and a story that is markedly worse due to its pacing. It'd be nice if things would change for the better in the upcoming second season but after watching this, any such hopes are well and truly dashed.