Leadale no Daichi nite is a bog-standard Isekai full of recycled ideas that it doesn't seem to understand and doesn't want to explore.
That said this series originates from a Web Novel written between late 2010 and 2012 on Syosetu. It was picked up for a Light Novel serialization and Manga adaptation in 2019 ahead of this anime, with an audio book also thrown in there somewhere. The 2010 period puts it near the beginning of the Isekai boom on Syosetu, so maybe it's not as much reusing tropes as it is trying out everything it could think to do with an MMO Reincarnation story to capitalize on new interest.
The series starts with the reincarnation of Cayna into the world of a VRMMO that the terminally ill teenager played prior to her life support abruptly failing, retaining her over-powered game avatar and all of its stats and items. The world of the game is reportedly different from the one Cayna knows, however, as 200 years have passed without player engagement.
Unclear about the developments of the world and whether she might be the only human reincarnation, Cayna shows little interest in answering any of these questions and proceeds to spend numerous episodes aimlessly stumbling into events. The series plays out like a set of writing prompts, presenting a potentially interesting scenario that another isekai might run with and instead ignoring it entirely after a scene (eg. reincarnation depression, NPC sentience and permadeath, development of an MMO skill/item system absent players, players committing crimes and misdeeds). Leadale fails to understand what might make these storylines interesting and instead of presenting its own take on them either ignores the implications or presents the most generic resolution with the weight to suggest that it thinks what it has done should satisfy the viewer.
On top of this it repeatedly fails at humor with inconsistent characters that mostly just scream, bland attempts at "over-powered" tropes, and a general misunderstanding of where and when to explain elements of the world - spending time establishing game systems that it won't use and backstory for things that it abandons. Recurring gags of the show are very superficial and lack any variety in their execution (Cayna being hungover, Cayna being abusive to her children, characters surprised that Cayna is over 200 years old).
Events of the series also happen at a blistering pace with what would typically be multi-episode storylines in another show condensed down to a few minutes. Episode titles such as "A battle, a Victory, a Conversation, and Information" (ep. 8) are pretty much exact representations of how the show operates with all elements being given equal weight and almost no connective tissue to link them together. The series also suffers from implied significance, hinting at something of consequence in the minute prior to the end of an episode only to resolve whatever it was within the first 2 minutes of the next with the remainder of the episode moving on to something else entirely. A lot of this appears to stem from the Web Novel which was written as contained chapters, most of which lack significant detail or consequence to extrapolate to an episode in length and were instead adapted as-is with a misguided attempt to add cliffhangers when a chapter crosses the episode barrier.
There is a semblance of an overarching plot in "restoring guardian towers" that has no described purpose and is given no sense of urgency or importance by the main character. Cayna also lacks any real motivations, and is seemingly disinterested in uncovering more about the circumstances that reincarnated her as well as lacking any real drive to accomplish anything within the fantasy world.
Amidst this blur of activity is also a rotating lineup of characters that only stick around for a few minutes so that the show can repeat the same gag of Cayna surprising people with some display of power or being (irrationally) upset when they refer to her as "old." Surprisingly this element seems to have been significantly played up in comparison to the manga adaptation, which makes Cayna seem less psychotic and more invested in those around her.
The manga, at least in the 10 English-translated chapters I could read at this point, also looks to be a bit more verbose in its explanations of the world and game systems - taking entire panels to explain terminology unique to the world (such as Cayna's "Skill Master" title) that the anime adaption instead seems to just throw around as if it's important and something that viewers should already know.
Ultimately the show for me is a demonstrative example of how to apply every isekai trope in the most bland way possible and without any depth. It's a madlibs-style exploration of a fantasy world with minimal internal consistency and an unclear understanding of what draws people to those types of stories. There's some passable voice acting and animation for what I assume is a low budget, but it's ultimately in service of nothing. The fact that this got an adaption is baffling to me; there's nothing here to work with and I would never recommend this to anyone. It's aggressively bland, lacks anything unique, and falls short of even being mediocre. My best guess is that someone saw the success of other, later Syosetu works that have been picked up in recent years and decided that it could capitalize on that trend. Unfortunately, Leadale lacks the hooks that some of those offer and feels like a much less refined story. Further, nothing was done to correct the structural changes inherit in the change of formats so the series comes off as a scratchpad of ideas written daily by an unfocused author and not a coherent episodic television show.
This kind of melancholic story with a thin lead can of course work, but unlike recent shows that can trace their origins to Syosetu like Kuma Kuma Bear (2014), Slime-300 (2016), Bofuri (2016), or even Infinite Dendogram (2015) it doesn't commit to focusing on involving Cayna in the stories of a supporting cast or having fun with its cast of interesting characters as a substitute for lacking a substantive overarching plot. Leadale instead teases , likely unintentionally, at bigger stories and rides a muddled line between adventure and comedy without doing either well.
/anime/114340/kuma-kuma-kuma-bear
/anime/112608/slime-taoshite-300nen-shiranai-uchi-ni-level-max-ni-nattemashita
/anime/106479/itai-no-wa-iya-nano-de-bougyoryoku-ni-kyokufuri-shitai-to-omoimasu
/anime/107420/infinite-dendrogram
Even within its Syosetu publication era of 2010 Leadale falls short of Log Horizon (2010) in world building, discussing MMO systems, and creating engaging MMO-focused characters or power-trip fantasy works like The Irregular at Magic High School (2008) that are clearly having fun with their premise and can find an audience that enjoys them for that specific aspect.
/anime/17265/log-horizon
/anime/20458/mahouka-koukou-no-rettousei
Ultimately Leadale is another forgettable Isekai adaptation and in a sea of those it fails to float to the top due to a lack of any notable concepts, ideas, characters, or animation. What was more interesting to me was the level to which Leadale falls short at every idea it introduces and the degree to which it seems not to understand how to execute on its own story in any sort of engaging way.
90 out of 129 users liked this review
