I'm a little iffy when it comes to isekai. Oh I used to be starchly against watching the vast majority of them, simply because if you watch one isekai you've seen almost all of them. Not to mention that it seems like 7 release every season and they all sound like they have the same plots. There are some isekai I'm interested in, The Eminence in Shadow is a good example after someone sold me on the concept, but the anime that truly changed my perspective on isekai is Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation. With a title like that, I passed on it for about a year, but then I saw a friend post about it, thought "wait THAT'S what it's about?", checked the first episode out and I loved it so much that right after I called 4 of my friends (I think like 2 or 3 more on top of that also showed up) to show them the first episode because they needed to know on the assumption that they wrote it off like I did. It is hands down the best isekai I've ever seen in my life. Everything I didn't know I wanted from the genre, Mushoku Tensei provided. It is outstanding and will go down as one of the best anime of the decade.

Mushoku Tensei is incredible and I recommend that everyone reading this watches it. The Beginning After the End is what happens when you buy Mushoku Tensei off Temu.

I read the description of The Beginning After the End and thought "Oh cool, another reincarnation isekai? This might be worth a watch given that it starts as a baby." Little did I know that the series would be so similar to Mushoku Tensei that it might be a rip-off. The author is...American? Well born and raised in South Korea but now currently lives in America. He has since put out a statement basically saying he has nothing to do with this adaptation, but I can't see his original source material being that much better.

Most isekai begin with the main character, usually some poor sap in Tokyo, meeting their demise and going to fantasy land. Not this one. Our main character is a tyranical ruler. He was Hitler 2 in his previous life. Then he dies, no reason given, and we spend the rest of episode one watching him as a baby. It's damn near impossible to not think of Mushoku Tensei's first episode while watching because of how similar both are. Rudeus spends the episode learning how magic works because he thinks it's cool. When he uses a spell powerful enough to smash the wall, it takes everyone aback because it's the first real action we've seen. It's not until about 18 minutes in that he finds out how uniquely strong not using incantations is. The Beginning After the End decides that telling is better than showing and lore dumps about the world being divided into three kingdoms and how its basic magic system works. This two year old toddler masters Ki energy and blasts a hole in the wall because he's the all-powerful main character! The whole time the character's former voice is speaking in the most try-hard edgy deep voice. I watched the show dubbed (which everyone does a good job, they're not the problem) so I checked the sub and yeah it's the same problem in any language, no matter if it's Makoto Furukawa or Christopher Wehkamp.

The story gets better, but that's only because it started at rock bottom. When I started this show I thought I was watching one of the worst anime I'd ever seen. By the end it had upgraded to "bad". The series starts off insufferable, and it ends the season as "boring". ANY praise I can give this series is done tenfold better in Mushoku Tensei.

Now's as good a time as any to talk about the animation. I'm someone who's very forgiving regarding poor animation in an anime. My focus is on the story and characters. With that being said, wow this is bad animation. Quite representative of the show to be honest. It's usually barely tolerable but will have moments that make you exclaim "ooo that looks bad". Studio A-Cat are best known for doing 3D CGI work on projects for other studios, but welcome to the modern anime industry you're making full shows now dammit! Everything they've put out has low user ratings so I assume it's a combination of not picking good projects and giving them subpar animation.

Do I recommend The Beginning After the End? Hell no. It's not even funny bad, this just sucks. I will continue to hatewatch this into its second season because I have mentally prepared myself to sit through 2 cours and that's what I'm going to do. Doesn't mean you should. Anything engaging with this series is done better in Mushoku Tensei, a show that I highly recommend even to people who hate isekai. Mushoku Tensei is everything I never knew I wanted from the isekai genre. The Beginning After the End is exactly what I assumed the isekai genre was.