Phew. Thank god it’s over. It was like a super generic Isekai utilizing all of the typical troupes you would expect to find in a stereotypical Isekai, only it wasn’t. Main character Al-Wayne wasn’t sent blasting into another world by Trunk-kun; he was already born in the fantasy world as an authentic inhabitant of the world. Without the transportation bit into another world, it strips the series of a isekal genre despite being very Isekai-like in nature.
The characters
Al-Wayne: As the title implies, Al is just a farmer and only wants to be a farmer despite picking up absurd amounts of power just from doing farmer-related activities. This is despite the title insisting he’s only grown a little stronger improving his farmer-related skills. He’s actually grown considerably more powerful; to the point he can throw a carrot at a dragon with the purpose of distracting it for some adventurers to fight off and end up blowing it up. The show already falls into the pitfall of making AI unstoppable from episode 1, depleting most of the tension for the rest of the series.
Al is also completely aggravating as a character, adamantly insisting he only wants to be a farmer even after saving the princess from being kidnapped and has a far more lucrative offer of being her bodyguard presented to him. He even lets himself be nearly violated by orge-like creatures dubbed orcs despite the fact he has the power to eviscerate them quite handily.
Meigis Ys Fal – She ends up being a damsel in distress Al had to save. The least interesting of the harem members.
Helen Lean – The second entry of Al’s harem cementing the series to the trash leap pile of cliché (non)Isekai. She was a little interesting at first, starting off as the receptionist at the adventurer’s guild and giving Al her deceased brother’s old cloak (which somehow fits Al perfectly despite the fact her brother died as a kid and Al is an adult-teenager, but whatever). This enables Al to see the spirit of her deceased brother who dumps plot exposition on him, revealing he and his entire village was slaughtered by a dragon and that his sister is the sole remaining survivor that the evil dragon may want to kill just because he’s evil like that.
This would be a decent setup for an otherwise intense and thrilling arc if Al wasn’t so egregiously overpowered. It completely vaporizes all the tension like hot-air. How the writers attempt to fix this is by nerfing Al’s power and pulling out absurd plot-twists with no forewarning. After Al unceremoniously defeats the evil dragon, it’s then revealed he had taken over Helen’s body at some point and used her to stab Al. As the audience had no breadcrumbs to piece this together, the reveal came across as jarring and forced.
The evil dragon is ultimately defeated by the random spontaneous appearance of a godly character. Really, the only good thing to come out of this arc is that Helen got to keep a portion of the evil dragon’s powers for herself, though she does next to nothing with them so it feels ultimately pointless.
Ruri - The final harem girl is introduced saving Al from yet another orc he really shouldn’t be having any trouble with. She would probably be the best one if she hadn’t joined Al’s tedious harem. She’s the descendant of the hero but doubts herself and doesn't believe she truly has what it takes to be a heroine. Needless to say, Al helps her overcome this and together, they defeat a powerful demon. The rest of her time was spent either helping Al or bantering with the other girls over who gets him.
Al’s Mom – Undoubtably the second worse character in the series. Unbearably clingy to the point of nauseating creepiness. Her introduction was her basically spearing her son all across the district of her hometown before comically circling back to her house and slamming him in the wall, bear-hugging the life out of him. It’s as cringey as it sounds. She was obnoxious, even going as far as to beat up Al’s father on several occasions for daring to come between her and Al and becomes annoyingly jealous of the other girls for being with him.
Al’s Dad – Just a loser wimp letting his wife walk all over him.
Volpe Dorma - The worst character in the series bar none, even worse than Al's creepy mom being a pedophile. He's supposed to be the demon attendant of a little demon princess, which further decimates the already horrific writing of the series. What father in their right frame of mind, let alone a king, would task a blatant predator like Volpe Dorma with his daughter's safety when he clearly has creepy, indecent feelings toward her, from sniffing her clothes and watching her sleep and even bathe? UGH. This is so frustrating. I can't wrap my head around Japan's frankly weird obsession with the quote "lolicon character," unquote. It's weird and gross.
Near the end of the series, the writers introduced Al’s supposedly deceased little sister (whom his family adopted) in a flashback for no further point other than to set up the “surprise reveal” that she had somehow been resurrected by Lord Evil God. (Sheesh. What unique names these are). Once again, the series poorly weaponizes shock-value without leaving any trail of breadcrumbs for the audience to follow along. During the flashback, Al’s parents were conveniently away while a plight occurred destroying their village and depleting their food supply.
Given what we saw of Al’s clingy mother, I find it near impossible to believe that she would journey away from the village for any length of time and leave her precious son all by himself. She refuses to let go of him whenever he returns home for frequent visits. This inconsistency only happened to facilitate the plot. Al was stricken with illness when he read a stone tablet in a cave and in an effort to heal him, his little sister gave him all the food the village chef was sharing out and ended up starving to death.
Obviously, this couldn’t have happened with his parents around since they would’ve just upped and taken them away. The storytelling is really poor.
The flashback does try and rationalize Al’s absurd power as Lord Evil’s doing, but we don’t have any idea why Lord Evil God would bestow him this power or why he wouldn’t remove it when Al began slaying demons and evil dragons. We see the loss of Al’s power in the last episode so it begs the question of why he never lost his power sooner.
Ultimately, this is just a poorly written and cliché mess following all the usual troupes of an Isekai anime while not being an Isekai series without putting a clever or comical spin on them like the hilarious Uncle from Another World. It even ends rather abruptly, too. Another godly character spontaneously appears and stops time so Al can save the aforementioned demon girl from his resurrected sister. His sister just ups and leaves because the reasons, I guess, and after a brief bit where Al discovers he's lost most of his incredible power, it just ends. We don't even really learn how and why his sister was resurrected.
The series must be under the impression it's gonna get a season 2 to flesh this out but with how badly season 1 turned out, it clearly doesn't deserve it. I, for, one wouldn't watch it if it did get a season 2. Season 1 barely held my interest as it was.
Score - Coupled with an uninspiring ost and you have yourself a recipe for bland and mediocre. It’s not dynamic during the action sequences nor is comforting or soothing during the slice of life moments. I can’t even say it’s upbeat and positive when Al begins adventuring. Even the tones of the comedic moments feels like the studio did the bare minimum.
Animation – It’s adequate. Nothing really noticeable about it. It’s lives up to the standards of today’s artstyle.
The only character I can say I enjoyed is the demon postman Ricks and only because he reminds of the postman from the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
Final score: 0/10
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