4/10 -- I disliked it more than I enjoyed it. Extremely light spoilers (1st episode).
It looked interesting to me because the whole plot is supposed to be "Man, adventuring? Not my cuppa tea! I'm retiring!". That's actually pretty unique and could lead to a great story! Which it is for like the first 4-5 episodes, and during those the show is greatly enjoyable. The interactions between the townsfolk are especially well done and feel natural. But then the rest of it is... not good. Let me go through my grievances like a list. Yeah, that'll work. An airing of greivances. That'll work.
- The dude is totally retiring, but you know, he still goes around solving the town's secret/not secret Sackler conspiracy and the gargantuan climatic battle over the last couple of episodes which I won't spoil.
- The whole premise is that the MC is told off by a guy in the party to leave Episode 1 because "he's not helpful ever" and he just accepts this without any issue immediately, despite the fact that when the hero's party is on screen they cannot stop jerking off the MC in his absence, and at one point say he would be the strongest swordsman if his little sister, the hero, didn't have the blessing to be the hero. They also do literally nothing to look for him until AT LEAST half a year since he disappeared, not including the time before the show when he was wandering around.
- The romance which takes up a significant amount of screen time is extremely bland and undeveloped, they both say to eachother "Oh hey, I remember you from when we were together for like two weeks a while ago. We were both madly in love with eachother (not really)!" and then the romantic interest just moves into the MC's house.
- Plenty of plot holes involving major events besides the MC getting booted from the party. A thorough explanation would contain spoilers, so it is not included in this review.
- The MC's little sister/the hero is obsessed with him because he's the only one who ever talked to her and was nice while also being an awkward and psycho monster killer because of her 'blessing', which itself is not bad, but she never suffers any actual consequences for being super duper scary that she makes people draw weapons when she looks at them. All good! Plenty of trust in the hero's party!
- The ending is terrible. Not 'French Connection' tier terrible ending, but it's pretty bad. Nobody suffers any consequences except for the two Filthy McRotten dudes, despite the fact that everyone else but the MC by that point have been grievously wounded. That is pretty standard anime trope, where the people who still attempted to murder their friends or those who sacrificed themselves for their friends get healed and forgiven instantly. (because... ????) But also, the MC who is supposedly of a lower combat power (but not really since he's the greatest swordsman ever (except not really because that's not his blessing)) uses a super technique to end the final climatic battle where it gets really dicey in all of 15 seconds using some bullshit move he pulls out of nowhere. A complete deus ex machina.
- Just like a million other animes, for no reason at all, they shoehorn in a lot of video game RPG elements into the show. Instead of honing their skills or whatever they... gain XP. The only thing that's stopping the show from being an Isekai is that the MC doesn't say he was rebirthed, but it has almost every other trope. Hell, in the lyrics of the OP, they state "born into another world". Were they going to make an isekai but changed it a little at the last minute but didn't redo the song?
- The show is far too talkative, and the scriptwriters assume that the viewer is dumb as rocks. E.g., in one of the last episodes a character says "Oh wow, the hero has no friends and nobody likes her because she's so socially awkward because she's the hero!"... even though that was established many many episodes ago many many times with many many flashbacks... did I mention this show is OBSESSED with flashbacks? No, you can't just take what they say. You HAVE to show it happening flashbacked. And the final lesson is hit over your head numerous times by the characters dialogues. "You don't be who other people want you to be! be yourself!" Wow, thank you, I didn't understand that at all from the 13 episodes before where the MC was also talking about how great it was to retire and be himself!
- Generic moeblob art style. Bo-ring! Wow, it's so nice all these animators used their skills to make an animation that is difficult to distinguish from any other isekai released the same year--no, same decade. Great!
