Remember when isekai used to be about power fantasy fulfillment, with larger-than-life abilities, worlds, protagonists, and antagonists? Somewhere along the line, an eponymous “they” decided that such an approach to the genre was simply not going to work anymore. It seemed logical that after spending so much time in the fantastical, a new approach would involve settling down with the mundane, where scenarios were more focused on being able to do something simplistic, or solving a mini-crisis rather than one that would shake the foundation of reality with the cool swords and the cool booms.
Cheat Pharmacist’s Slow Life: Making a Drugstore in Another World is an anime I went into with a lot of apprehensions. If you were to ask me why I had even sat down to watch this anime in the first place, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I had doubts about whether the very premise would be decent enough to fill out a 12-episode season, but I suppose that one of the fun things about watching anime is that you sometimes just decide to take a chance on something for the hope of being pleasantly surprised. I could only hope that it wouldn’t end with me staring into the mirror and asking what I’m doing with my life.
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Kirio Reiji, a former corporation worker from his world, finds himself making a living as a potion maker and pharmacist in another world. With the ability to brew various potions, cures, and other aids for ailments, he lives and works with Noella, a wolf girl he once rescued, and Mina, a ghost who lives in the house that the pharmacy now occupies. As days go by, people from the nearby town come into the pharmacy seeking Reiji’s help in fixing whatever it is that’s troubling them. Sometimes, it requires a potion’s touch, and other times, it doesn’t.
Because the show’s premise is so paper-thin, the series wisely avoids having a longer, overarching narrative from episode to episode. Instead, each outing focuses on tinier little stories that are connected rather loosely, or have small threads of continuity that carry over to other episodes. This allows the show to re-use some of the characters seen early on throughout the rest of the show, and even though the characters themselves are not terribly interesting, they afford at least enough material to last about eleven minutes at a time. Whether it be stories solely focusing on the main trio or introducing a new character altogether, each episode doesn’t feel oversaturated or bloated with content, making Cheat Pharmacist’s Slow Life incredibly easy to digest.
Where the characters falter in regard to depth or interest, the comedy does partially make up for this. Because most of the scenarios that bring customers to the pharmacy are so silly, the show can play up the absurdity of the situation to decent effect. Especially since Reiji is the fish out of water in this new world, his reactions to things unfolding the way they do make him serve as an audience avatar, albeit not the most effective one. His reactions are at least somewhat believable, especially as he finds himself getting roped into the various situations that require his assistance. Most of the other characters have one or two aspects to their personality that can be used as comedic fuel. Though most are either a little amusing or at least acceptable (if not overtly funny), there are some running gags or gimmicks that suffer from overuse, with Noella constantly doing her cute “woof” as the biggest offender. I could only hear it so many times before I got sick of it.
As can be expected of someone having a maximized power in an isekai story, Reiji’s potion-making is considered legendary among the townsfolk. Part of the comedic value therein comes from the people desperately wanting potions for things that real-world medicine would never have any cure for, such as healing familial problems or making it so that people don’t need to exercise to build muscle in a healthy manner. In cases like these, Reiji’s potions serve more as a kind of workaround for the problem rather than being a cure. This usually leads to two different kinds of payoffs, with the comedic ones landing with more grace than the sentimental ones. Cheat Pharmacist’s Slow Life works best when it stays in its silly lane, not trying to bite off more than its premise can accommodate.
Despite the skill that Reiji supposedly has for potion-making, we don’t see him ponder over potential ingredients or the actual potion-making itself for any significant time. In that sense, the show misses a few opportunities for further comedic value – potions exploding because the mixture was wrong, the potion accidentally doing the polar opposite of what it was supposed to do, and so forth. This is, in part, due to the show’s first episode already having Reiji established as an accomplished apothecary, so a lot of trial and error is not considered. The potion-making sequences themselves consist mostly of recycled animation of Reiji doing mixing and foot-tapping at his workstation. While basic and repetitive, it doesn’t get old thanks to the happy little music that accompanies the moment. It’s cheesy, yes, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t amused by its appearances.
And “cheesy” pretty much sums up the entire series. In many ways, Cheat Pharmacist’s Slow Life is not aspiring to any sort of heights, opting instead for simplistic entertainment and perhaps the bare-minimum of what a story requires in regards to most things. It’s so bright and happy with its visual aesthetic, character designs, soundtrack, and overall affect that it is not trying to hide anything underneath the surface. What you see is what you get. Does that mean that the show is bad because it is so shallow? I suppose…? But you know, sometimes I want something shallow. I’ve certainly seen a lot worse from shows that aimed low and didn’t entertain me, so I have to give it props for keeping me amused on my Wednesday afternoons.
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Cheat Pharmacist’s Slow Life: Making a Drugstore in Another World is the equivalent of anime junk food – it fills you up just enough to tide you over, but doesn’t offer much beyond its sugary-sweet taste. The series being an anthology of short, loosely-connected stories may not mean much in the way of character development, it may not look or sound the best, and it may not be memorable, but it still offered some smiles to elevate it ever so slightly. It will never enter the pantheon of great isekai, and probably not even good isekai, but given what it is, it could have been significantly worse. I enjoyed it more than I expected I would. What more can I say?
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