It’s a dark time for the supercontinent of Landia. This land had been divided up into several independent nations, which have been controlled by different races such as humans, elves and dwarves for time untold, with the northernmost region of the continent known as the Demon King’s domain. These nations had previously coexisted peacefully for as long as anyone can remember, but the demons have become restless, and have started pushing out to expand their borders through conquest. The Gran Chaos Empire has pledged to fight the Demon Lord, but in exchange, they have tasked the nations under their protection with supplying either money for the war effort, or some other equal resource. For the Kingdom of Elfrieden, this means summoning a hero. They bring over a young adult male named Souma from some mysterious fantasy land called “Japan,” but as soon as he begins asking some very obvious questions about their plan, they immediately fold under the weight of their own incompetence and appoint him their king, so he can do all of the “ruling” and “rebuilding” stuff that they’re too lazy to do themselves. Tasked with the responsibility of rebuilding the kingdom that abducted him, Souma will find that bringing revolution to the ignorant masses is actually kind of insultingly easy.

When I was looking up the production history behind How A Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, I was genuinely surprised to see that it was produced by JC Staff, as it looks like nothing that I would commonly associate with that long tenured, established and respected studio. True, I can’t say everything I’ve seen from them has looked good, but the worst one that comes to mind is probably Ookami-san, and that show just had a really headache-inducing aesthetic. But then I started looking through JC Staff’s long, long production history, and among the staggering number of pies they’ve had their fingers in, they’ve had the sole animation production credit on more stinkers than I feel comfortably listing. The only one I’m going to shine a spotlight on is Ikki Tousen, a notoriously ugly anime that, wouldn’t you know it, was directed by the same man as Realist Hero. Unlike JC Staff, Takashi Watanabe does not have an impressive reputation. Out of what I’ve seen, his most impressive works are probably from the Slayers franchise, and as much as I love Slayers, their visuals have never been their best quality.

As for the rest, Ikki Tousen? Aria the Scarlet Ammo? Fucking Freezing? I can’t say for certain that Realist Hero is the only isekai he’s ever directed, but it is the only isekai I’ve ever seen that looked just as much like ass as Ikki Tousen did. Now, to be entirely fair, the animation probably looks passable if you’re not really paying attention to it, but the only way that’s going to happen is if you’re either watching the series while playing on your phone, or you’re just so engaged and entertained in the story that the visuals take a back seat in your mind, and if that’s the case for you, I think that’s awesome. For me though, it was unavoidable. I do believe an attempt was made to direct around these limitations, but the attempt was not enough, as you are constantly barraged by frozen panning shots, keyframes being shaken to create the illusion of tense action, and gimmicky visual gags. When there is movement on screen, it’s either really minimal, or it’s just uncanny as hell in the janky ways people move.

The animation is pretty bad, but the designs are okay, I guess? The characters and settings look visually pleasant enough to pass muster, I don’t recall anyone looking over designed or garish, and the few CGI assets are used well. The drawback to this is that while everything and everybody looks attractive enough, they don’t look interesting or unique. Souma himself is literally the most bland and generic looking isekai protagonist I’ve ever seen. Tall and thin, spiky brown hair, a face you’re seen a million times before, he is literally introduced wearing a white dress shirt. The animal people look like your basic animal people, the dark elves just look like random character models with their skins darkened(with the exception of Aisha, who looks like she was straight up stolen from a Final Fantasy or Fire Emblem game) and I swear to God, there’s a cluster of about seven corrupt nobles who show up at various points n the story, and they all have the same face. There are a few small details about Landian culture that are kinda interesting, but nothing about it from a visual perspective is ever going to stick with you.

The English dub was a Funimation effort, and it’s as good as you’d expect. I don’t think Alejandro Saab has ever played an isekai protagonist before, unless you count Spider isekai, where he was just one member of an entire class that got transported, but it can’t possibly be a challenge at this point, right? Most isekai protagonists are basically the same character, and by 2021, Saab probably knew exactly what kind of performance the role called for, and he delivers it adequately. Much like Josh Grelle in Smartphone isekai, he seems to relish any opportunity he can find to overact and give his character more personality, which I support. I also found Morgan Garret’s performance as Juna Doma to be really pleasant and silky smooth on the ears. The one issue I had was that there was a lot of really awkward dialogue exchanges, like with people using stilted phrasing that didn’t sound believable in context, especially when discussing their motivations for war. I don’t know if that was a direct translation, or just bad writing from the adaptive team, but it did get kinda laughable at times.

So, for the last six months or so, I’ve been on a bit of an isekai kick. There are seemingly millions of these long-titled shows out now, and yet there are so, so many I’m unfamiliar with, so I’ve been seeking them out at a pretty high frequency this year. The verdict is, like any other genre, their quality has differed dramatically. I’ve loved a few, I’ve hated a few, I’ve had mixed feelings for a few, and so on. Unfortunately, the last two that I watched before this one were atrocious. Arifureta was a cringey edgelord harem self-insert fantasy, and How Not to Summon a Demon Lord was fucking gross, hitting it’s lowest point where only an episode and change after a villain was thwarted in an attempt to rape his sister, the fucking main character actually raped a very young looking girl who was a recurring servant character. Still, neither one was bad enough to put me off of isekai entirely, and after about a week, I moved onto this show. And let me tell you how much of a relief it is, after all of that, to watch an isekai anime that’s also really bad, but in a more pleasant way.

Going into this series, based on the title, what was I expecting? Well, in this day and age, with the social and political climate being what it is, there are certain words that have taken on new meanings, and some have kind of become red flags. When I hear someone referred to as a ‘realist,’ my first expectation is that they’re going to be one of those ‘facts and figures’ people, who say really shitty and bigoted things and then attack you for getting offended by claiming you’re just too weak to face reality. He’s not an asshole, he’s just a realist, and his beliefs are just the way things are. Not the kind of person I would typically want to spend any time with, to be sure, but as an isekai protagonist? That would be something new, at least, and it would probably be way more interesting than what this anime actually wound up being. There are a few elements of this in the story, but the overall product is nowhere near as aggressive as that, even if it is way more stupid and derivative.

For starters, the main character of this anime is nothing. He is literally nothing. Well, maybe not nothing, he's a textbook Mary-sue. The only thing we know about him, period, is that he is a student who has no family. We don’t know his interests, or his history... Hell, from the first season alone, we BARELY know his sexuality. The only thing that’s ever established about him is that he’s a nice guy, and he’s smart. Or is he? It’s kind of easy to look smart when the people you’re helping are so blisteringly incompetent at even the most basic aspects of their lives that random trivia you happen to know is enough to revolutionize their living situations. For a quick example, in this world, the dark elves have lived in a massive forest for centuries. They ask Souma why the forest is starting to die off, and he tells them about the mind-blowing process called “Thinning the forest.” I don’t know what’s funnier, the fact that an entire race of forest dwellers don’t know how to take care of their forest, or the fact that we don’t have any fucking clue how HE knew about it.

There’s a particular trend to the writing of this anime that you’ll probably pick up on fairly quickly. The kingdom has problems that Souma is expected to solve, and the answers he comes up with are either jaw-droppingly obvious, or head-scratchingly questionable. I’ve mentioned in previous reviews that it can be really difficult to write intelligent characters, because you have to write them in such a way that their intelligence seems legit to the audience, and there are a lot of obvious traps you can fall into there. Generally speaking, though, if the writing is fucking stupid, then the character will, at best, come off looking like a five year old who hasn’t realized that his drawing being posted to the refrigerator doesn’t actually mean anything. Not only is the writing in this anime dumber than a second coat of paint, it has no self awareness about this. No matter what hair-brained idea Souma comes up with, nobody ever points out how weird it is that nobody thought of it before, and in some cases, the narrative just refuses to explore HOW the ideas work.

Like, I’ll give you not only the best example of all of this, but honestly, the scene that made me decide to write this review. In order to solve the kingdom’s problems, Souma sends out a call throughout the kingdom, asking for anybody who thinks they’re the best at something to come to the castle and showcase their skills for an official position and a reward. Now you may be thinking, “Wow, that’s asking for trouble. Almost everybody thinks they’re the best at something, so there’s gonna be a ton of people storming the capitol to finally make bank off of their minor talents. It’s gonna be chaos!” Or, “Wow, I’ll bet every douchebag who’s ever had a girl politely laugh at his jokes at the bar is gonna be here to claim the prize as the kingdom’s greatest comedian.” Or “What’s gonna happen when a bunch of dudes show up claiming to be the kingdom’s greatest masturbator?” or “Jesus, how many fucking obscure talents are they going to have to deal with? Are they gonna find the best bartender? The best fisher? The best athlete? The best Where does it end?” And I don’t know, maybe you’d be right, but we’ll never find out, because they just time-skip to five people being chosen.

I’m sorry, you just gave me one of the most chaotically stupid ideas I’ve ever heard of in an anime, and you’re not going to show it? I’m not okay with that. I’m currently writing my top 100 favorite anime moments, and out of the three entries that I’m giving to School Days, one of them is the Break Room sequence from the culture fest, because it’s an insanely stupid idea, and the story FUCKING COMMITS TO IT, to some gloriously awful results. And the five picks aren’t that impressive, either. You’ve got the best fighter in the kingdom, except we don’t know anything about her technique or training, or why it’s so impossible to beat, and she needed to cheat to beat someone later in the series. Also, shouldn't they have the best fighter from every style/discipline/weapon? Yeah, you're impressive with that sword, but I'd also like to see the best archer, please. You have a fat guy who of course loves eating and knows all about food, because tropes. I dunno, I personally would have trusted the kingdom’s best farmer to solve the food shortage problem, but whatever. You have a two-for-one with a woman who’s both the most beautiful woman and best singer in the kingdom, despite both standards being highly subjective, I personally would have preferred more vibrato.

You have a girl who can talk to animals and demons, although I don’t recall either skill coming into play as of this season(maybe I missed it?) And the smartest man in the kingdom, who based his decision on whether or not Souma was a worthy king on whether or not Souma saw the value of the fat guy. Hey genius, what if you were introduced to him first, what then? And there’s no explanation as to why or how these particular skills or these particular people were chosen, or what happened to all the other ‘peerless’ people, and I swear to God, at least this season, this show never gets any smarter than this. It has a few interesting ideas, like, I thought it was pretty clever how Souma’s name got accidentally reversed because Elfriedon doesn’t recognize Japan’s naming system. A lot of thought and world-building clearly went into the world-building and magic system, even if none of it really makes any sense and they have to explain most of it to us through some truly jarring exposition dumps. I think it’s interesting that they establish early on that bigamy is a thing here, setting up a polygamist harem situation for the later seasons, but there’s no mention of whether or not homosexuality is accepted, and that’s pretty disappointing.

But my biggest problem with this series is just how good the writing wants to be, versus how incompetent it actually is in its ability to achieve that goal. I can not count the number of times I saw what was clearly meant to be a powerful moment, that utterly fell flat because it was never earned, or because the tone of the scene was off. Souma’s shock at the little wolf girl being able to talk to demons meant nothing, because the potential usefulness of this ability had never been established. I don’t even remember if it was ever mentioned that demons spoke a different language or anything. There’s a moment where Souma’s fiancee Liscia dramatically cuts the ponytail part of her hair off, which is usually a very significant action in any Japanese media, but it wasn’t paying off anything, and I had no idea whether or not that tradition was even a thing in Elfrieden, or if Souma ever told her about it. When Souma has a sad reaction to dark elves being injured by a natural disaster that he couldn't control, his tears come literally out of nowhere from shot to shot. There’s a lot of other stuff I haven’t mentioned for the sake of preserving spoilers, and TOTALLY not because most of this season was too underwhelming to commit to memory, but rest assured, I feel no urgency to watch season 2.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom is available from Crunchyroll in both physical and streaming format, as well as on Hulu. The original light novels and the manga are both available from J-Novel Club.

It’s a real shame this anime had to be as incompetent as it is, because at least in terms of content, this could have been really good. There are plenty of touching stories where an outsider was able to save or even create an entire civilization without their ascent to leadership feeling rushed, dubious or even condescending. I liked seeing Rimuru build a society out of orcs and goblins in Slime Isekai. I liked seeing Naofumi work alongside the village peasants and learn about their hardships. One of my favorite parts of the Mercedes Lackey Valdemar book series was watching Grand Duke Tremain transition from an imperial lackey to the King of Hardorn all by just organically being a kind and sensible person. With Realist Isekai, I see so many disconnected threads that could be attached to each other in just the right way to form a genuinely good story, but that's just not in the cards. It’s by no means the worst isekai I’ve ever seen, in fact it was damn near relaxing after the last two, but I can't recommend it.

I give How A Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom a 3/10.