Not gonna lie, those first few scenes in the anime chef’s kiss, it’s what comes after (or rather, what does not come out) which is my main issue.

New Saga (originally slated to come out during Summer 2023) is the adaptation of the Light Novel with the same name. In it, Kyle, a human soldier and hero of the resistance, after overcoming lots of hardships and personal losses, finally managed to reach the seat of the Demon Lord. And after dealing the final blow… he suddenly finds himself back in time to two years ago, before any of these events had happened, but with the knowledge and some of the skills he had after all his battles. An interesting premise for sure, where we get to see our main character subtly manipulate the events of the current present in order to, hopefully, lead to a better future, but it’s that extreme foresight which is also one of the show’s biggest shortfalls.

Don’t get me wrong, at the start of the series, it’s quite fun to see the main character be so well prepared for everything. Finding buried treasures to buy better equipment, meeting future companions early than he was supposed to, and weaseling his way out with key players in the events to come, and had it stayed like that for only the first few episodes, it would have been perfect. However, as the show goes on, it loses all steam as there are no hiccups or inconveniences on any of his plans, not even when taking into account that Kyle’s biggest handicap is that he lacks the physical strength and fortitude that his future self had, or that when it comes to his party, they’re all supposed to be just as unprepared as he is (maybe even more so, given that they lack his foresight).

This removes all possible tension and ironically turns this into more of a sort of slice-of-life/fantasy anime with fight scenes than an actual action anime. Moreover, the few times it tries to introduce conflict, sure, it’s for characters/regions that our protagonist knows and cares about, but which we as the audience have just encountered and have no attachment to.

A big part of this is, of course, the fact that this is an adaptation, and thus we were left with what’s basically the setup for the rest of the story. Near the end of the anime, we finally start seeing hints of what are going to be the main conflicts, but they mostly just get introduced and then the story ends before anything interesting happens.

All in all, if you remember that anime as a medium is just an expensive Ad campaign for the source material (and selling figurines), I have to say that it worked as intended. It got me interested enough on the light novels/manga to want to continue; but if you’re someone that exclusively watches anime? You might be better off waiting to see if this gets renewed for a second season before investing any time on it.