Another great butchering
Twelve short acts
From 62 chapters
Give me Freedom
Give me Campfire
Give me Tonsuki
Lest I Retire…
Thank you for reading my poem..
Whilst I will rant here about what I watched in this show, it’s important to distinguish this show from the manga which is somewhat better regarding pacing, dialogue and characterization. There are few times that the anime outright portrays certain small events or dialogue differently to the manga.
They literally went through a checklist.
- Pikachu-like mascot ✔️
- Pseudo-comedy ✔️
- Pseudo-Tsundere ✔️
- Zero risk taking(including romance) ✔️
- Super-self-insertable Goody two shoes – MC ✔️
- Tensura-like opening ✔️
- Tonsuki creature collecting ✔️
- Random encounters like walking through wild-grass in Pokémon? ✔️
- Magic Wand World Mechanics ✔️
- Game-world NPCs as characters ✔️
- The most ostentatiously daft plot twist imaginable? ✔️
We’ll make him collect herbs aswell, Absolute genius! He’s a gatherer who also does what every other isekai protagonist does.
They literally stitched this stuff together and what’s left is a complete husk of show. The characters go places and do things and there’s no nuance in it, it’s Ludicrous. We have our classic OPMC but this one takes the cake. If you’re sick of complaining about OPMCs with this one at least you can’t complain enough. Just cry your heart out, this guy has to be one the most disgustingly broken MCs ever. It’s utterly effortless watching how his spells are baked on the spot, pulling utterly outrageous law-breaking wizardry like a rabbit out of a hat. Let’s not even begin to talk about the power system that remains an enigma after finishing the 12th episode. Not only is he THANOS, he goes around pretending he’s not. There’s constantly moments where he creates matter out of nothing, followed by pathetic attempts at humility. It gets to the point I genuinely feel like an idiot for watching this show, I mean this guy should at least show some kind of reluctance before he cures the unknown, incurable illness or cleanses the entire biome of impurities.
They take the fun out of everything. Surely they understand that with these shows the fun is in the journey not the end result. Yes the end result must make sense but from the get go, we very quickly understand that sense doesn’t exist in this dimension. Every time they introduce any type of stumbling-block for the MC it’s fixed within the hour. There’s no lessons to be learnt no opportunity for any meaningful development for the characters. I’m not fond of the nature of this MC. Blueprints aside surely they can’t keep making this same archetype of MC. He’s goalless, directionless, inoffensive, giddy, obtuse(dense), addicted to nice worthless gestures. Classic self-insert strategy so they don’t have to spend any effort in advanced characterization and deep and rich stories. The MC then periodically preaches from chapter 1 the modern day guidebook of self-serving sensibilities. The kind of "wisdom" you find all over female social media, utter poppycock.
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Immersion is also something that is misunderstood upon watching this show, this is made abundantly clear when the MC spontaneously activates his magic. His magical abilities are akin to a war crime in writing, he doesn’t have classical magical abilities which usually have strengths, weaknesses, specialization for/against certain elements or for tasks. He possesses essentially reset buttons, clean slating, physics-defying modifications, cheat codes, auto resolves all whilst being tremendously physically strong and durable.
This ends up removing:
- All Tension
- All Curiosity
- All Immersion
- All authenticity of the power system
- All Hardship, gratification and joy
They handicap themselves because they’re awful at writing and it ruins the show entirely. You’re supposed to have uncomfortable moments and hardships so when it’s eventually corrected it creates that satisfaction.
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If you’re a first screen viewer like myself, having undivided attention during viewings, get ready for a real struggle. I’m at a loss for words, a bumbling bunch of events that have the loosest threads between them. The Arcs exist as a means to an end, whatever happened inside them does nothing for the characters and are about as forgettable as possible. During these mini-arcs, there’s barely any dimensions to the characters, what they say or their thought processes.
Despite this poor representation of people they never fail to shove in absurdity and jocularity into each sequence. It’s so pronounced in it’s love of mocking itself that the novelty of it wears off. The more you watch shows like this you start to understand the difference between animated and written/drawn work as well as how closely intelligence is linked to humour. They will almost always choose comedy over proper respected and well executed scenes in these modern works and it just kills the mood. It’s so easy to throw a gag in here, or to do the same obtuse idiot routine. What’s left when you waste time with this stuff is empty-shell characterization and the absence of proper story. Whilst the Anime adaptation magnifies this, the Manga has it still laid bare. On second thought defending the manga might be a mistake it’s still the same foolish plots, and twists that are just an insult to our intelligence.
You are exposed to the sheer monotony of dialogue, till you enter the acceptance phase.
You know a show is bad when you spontaneously imagine the reality of voice actors saying the lines. Particularly this Ayasa Itou, who plays the mascot character, getting paid just saying “Pee, Pee, Pee” in slightly different tones on each of her lines. They mix in a few improvised baby noises, variations of high pitched wails, cries, whimpers and all of it did nothing for me. Usually you are supposed to adore the cute mascots, then you wish ‘oh wouldn’t it be cool to have one of your own’. On the contrary I couldn’t stop thinking about the ways I could put a bullet in this pint-sized screeching terrorist.
If this is what I'm waking up to, put me back to sleep.....
Though I mention the voice actors here they aren’t the culprits, but rather the script writing. They adapted an egregious amount of 62 chapters in these 12 episodes and it’s just too obvious that the script suffered unrelentingly.
Recalling the rest of the cast, the interactions, the banter, it brings tears to my eyes. An assorted waterfall of moments that shook me to my core, evoking vigorous emotions I didn’t think possible. I paused the video uncontrollably several times, I needed a break to take in the sheer mass of expository remarks and curious gestures. I basked in the sweet, sugary relief of those breaks, because it was all complete garbage.
Outside of the MC we have nothing, they should have thrown away this companion nonsense and gone solo the whole journey. At least they could have actually made the MC a real person and given us real development. These characters are NPCs they exist to give fetch quests into puzzlingly, perilous places, tell you unwanted exposition about their worthless lives, then gloriously whisked into salvation by the divine power of the MC. It sounds like a video game, but before we go down that path let’s respect video games, at least you felt life when you read the text boxes.
The more I watch these shows the more I understand why there’s this idea that these Manga/Light novels are an escape. There’s this huge culture of discretion in Japan, that completely disappears when they begin writing these works. It seems that we have ended the last phase of this literature being marketed to sentient minds. What’s popular and what gets shown on screen accurately represents this generation. This correlation extending to the modern classic of the ‘Slow Life’ mantra then immediately betraying it with grand audacious displays of ability and potentiality. I get it, purposeful irony, but surely I’m not the only one who’s tired of this. I also start to understand how writing believable smart characters requires the author to be smart and experienced themselves. This dumbing down of so many shows starts to seem less than an intentional thing, but rather a lack of ability and talent.
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As for the production there’s not much to praise, they showed up, it was watchable and that’s about it. SynergySP join with Tatsunoko Production for the production of this show. SynergySP has worked on 2 previous shows I’m quite intimately familiar with, one is the Good Bye, Dragon life and 8th Son. I’d say the animation is worse than Dragon Life and about the same as 8th Son. I barely observed any dips in quality, and drawn proportions were mostly respected. The sound effects were disappointing, many effects not really fitting the impact, or power. The soundtrack reminds me of video game BGM, it does just about enough to fit the occasion. You’re never curious about it though.
What Pokémon move is this? Roar? Hyper Voice? Screech? Any ideas?
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If you’re interested in the premise, it’s Tonsuki, gone wrong. If even knowing that you’re still curious, check the manga out, do not watch this!
Watch this instead...
/anime/156067/campfire-cooking-in-another-world-with-my-absurd-skill
Tonsuki = Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill.