Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest, which I am going to call Arifureta for short, is another isekai anime where our protagonist was somewhat abandoned/sacrificed in order to save other students from a beast. He survived by venturing deeper into the dungeon and also learned a cold hard truth about the world. Not really caring about the world, he proceeds to go on a journey to find a way back home.

(Picture Source: Anime Herald thru' Google Image Search)

First of all, I am actually quite surprised that this anime has quite a lot of negative reviews. I honestly thought that it is a well received anime and one of the more popular ones since they keep advertising it. Well, it probably could be just in my country, I guess...

On the other hand, I am also not exactly surprised that the anime adaptation of this story isn't the best because what I have learned over the years of comparing the anime and manga is that if the manga cover has a drawing that looks too loli, the story is going to be another word of poop.

(Picture Source: Goodreads thru' Google Image Search)

The other anime that has the similar style which I can think right off the top of my head is The World's Finest Assassin.

(Picture Source: Goodreads thru' Google Image Search)

The reason I said that such stories may not be the best is because the focus seems to be on the girls rather than the story development itself. It is practically a harem building genre. I mean, just look at this anime!

(Picture Source: CharmingRice2037 on Reddit thru' Google Image Search)

Practically every women in the story will throw themselves onto the sole male protagonist because he is "the one" for them. Like... aren't there other male characters? What are they? Invisible?

Granted, not every harem building genre anime are terrible; some do have good stories like The Emnience in the Shadow, Seiken Tsukai no World Break, and How A Realist Rebuilts The Kingdom.

That being said, there are a couple of characters in Arifureta that has understandable motives for being part of Nagumo's harem, for instance, Miyuu's mother, Remia.

(Picture Source: Bilibili thru' Google Image Search)

Anyway, I think I have spent too much time on this harem topic, but if you have read some of my reviews, you would know it is one of my irks amongst some other things. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a bit of those that I dislike, but modern anime nowadays just love to push the limits of such genres.

Back to Arifureta. If you ask me for my honest opinion of the story, I would say that I actually enjoyed it. I am not a manga reader so this is a 100% purely on the anime itself.

Before writing this review, I did a quick glance at the other reviews on this site, and boy, they really have no nice things to say about this anime. One of them really nitpicked on the logic of Nagumo's thinking in the first episode. Now, at this point, please note that there is going to be SPOILERS, and also my purpose of writing the next part isn't to start a debate, but to shed a different perspective in contrast to that particular review (the one about the logic).

In the story, Nagumo and his classmates were summoned to this world and each of them were ranked based on the abilities they received upon arriving. Nagumo possessed one of the weakest (and possibly useless) abilities which garned some mockery from his classmates. Let's not forget that back in modern Japan, Nagumo was considered a wallflower of sorts in his class, and the only reason he was bullied is because one of his classmates, Kaori, was the only person who spoke to him. Oh, also to add on, Hiyama has a crush on Kaori and was also the person responsible for bullying Nagumo.

Fast forward to the fateful event that changed Nagumo forever. They were battling against a beast in a dungeon, and Nagumo bravely stepped forward to fend off the beast with his abilities, giving his classmates time to escape to safety. When it was time for Nagumo to run, his classmates covered and protected him by casting long-ranged spells at the beast. However, one of those spells hit Nagumo squarely in the chest, which caused him to fall deeper into the dungeon.

When Nagumo regained his consciousness, he realised he was surrounded by higher level monsters who sees him as dinner. So he built a shelter with his ability, and because he was all alone, coupled with years of enduring the bullying, and also being ocstracised by his classmates, he lost it and started to develop hatred for his classmates (at first).

So this is where the reviewer started nitpicking the logic. They criticised Nagumo for putting the blame on Hiyama for blasting the spell at him which caused him to fall deeper into the dungeon. They said that how could Nagumo know that it was Hiyama when there are other classmates firing the same spell?

The answer is, no, he doesn't need to confirm the fact that it was Hiyama.

We have to look at this from Nagumo's perspective. Remember that Nagumo was constantly bullied by Hiyama back in modern Japan. As an otaku himself, he definitely have read stories about being reincarnated and/or isekai-ed to another world and the protagonist of those stories had a much happier life. Since he has now become one of those fictional stories, there is hope brimming inside him where he thought he would no longer have to suffer as a wallflower or as the victim of Hiyama. But the ability Nagumo received made Hiyama target him even more, which not only dashed any hope of a better life, but also a punch to the gut.

Jump to the part where Nagumo is facing the beast, I would say that the reason Nagumo stepped forward to deal with the beast despite his weak ability is both selfish and a kind act. Selfish as in had he survived and rejoined his classmates to safety without falling down the bridge, he hoped his classmates would treat him better. But we all know that didn't happened and Nagumo took a spell directly to the chest.

▶ (Video Source: anime hype on YouTube)

I can't find the full scene but you will noticed that in a short part of the video above, he started to snap and questioned "why must it be me?". If you watch the actual scene, Nagumo will naturally realise that the reason he was in the current situation is because of the "misfired" spell. He didn't care if it was an accident, but he just wanted to put the blame on someone. And who did he put the blame on? Naturally it would Hiyama.

You may ask me, where is the credibility in what you have claimed? How can you be so sure? There is no logic that Nagumo would narrow it down Hiyama.

Well, I am not saying that it is 100% a representative of Nagumo's thought process as I am obviously not Nagumo, but I can guarantee that it is 90% the thought process as a survivor of bullying myself. It doesn't have to be logical. But it would make sense for me to place the blame on my bully even if my bully isn't the one to fire that spell at me.

Now, I have to remphasize again that I am not writing that to raise an argument or debate, nor am I trying to gain any sort of sympathy points. One of the reasons I wrote that part is because the reviewer has over 100 likes on his review, and I felt it would be good to provide the perspective of a bully victim on why he placed the blame on everyone else especially Hiyama.

I am just going to stop here because I know my review has gotten a bit far too long. I wanted to give a different perspective but realised that it took up too much of the review. I know there is no word limit here but our human attention span is really quite short. I will combine my personal opinion and thoughts with season 2.

But if you want a quick opinion of whether it is worth watching, I would say I actually enjoyed it. I would guess that the reason this anime had negative reviews is because most of them had already read the manga version. But if based on the anime itself, I would say just go for it. You may be surprised.