To preface my review, I will inform you that I have not read the source and have very limited knowledge of how well this fares as an adaptation. I’m grading merely what I’ve seen in the animation.
Sometimes it’s important to watch shows like this despite the warnings because it allows you to understand why their predecessors were so great. It allows you to separate the wheat from the chaff. It hammers home the fact that not everyone can do the job, and also informs of the troubles in the day-to-day workings of anime production. This is yet another “Tonsuki” disciple hoping to make their mark. To their chagrin, they fail so abominably in this adaptation that I shudder to even undertake the due diligence of inspecting its source.
Unfortunately I really wanted to like this one, it all began with the classic Sunday afternoon feast of an Isekai opening. Licking my lips, my belly full, my eyes lit up preparing for the goodwill of the evening. It continued somewhat tolerably till around the seventh episode. I describe my experience during that prominent episode as “the advent of doom,” ushering in nefariously the ominous memories of disasters like PNL 2, GGLR 2 etc. In short, a total pacing disaster. Not to mention the kind of script writing which paralyses the mind like the labored and precarious beating of a diseased heart. The culmination of these troubles climaxing in the nuclear wasteland of that 13th edition (Extra episode of doom).
So what kept me going? The show periodically hinted and even delved slightly into taboo themes and thankfully without the usual virtue-signaling finger wagging.
In the colorful amalgamation of themes that were brought forth, I saw a beacon of hope in it’s crowded narrative. Namely topics like moral depravity, age-gaps, adultery, that’s all light work for me. For any plot that tackles realistic elements, aiming for a mature audience, going down this road is a welcome surprise. The next step is making it all “make sense”. I don’t know whether the source is far better at this, but that’s another way in which it fell below the line. There was a fair amount of “quirky’ developments that fell upon their heads almost immediately, they had me questioning whether it was satire, purposeful irony or such things as; whether someone’s wife was that same person’s daughter. Particularly there was this eerie obsession with open cuckoldry as an undertone but seemingly imminent reality.
As I recall the events of this show, what came to the forefront was the glaring farce of the magical system, namely the lack of one. For the MC, his abilities are of course “OP” to no one’s surprise. His powers answer to a so-called economic “limitation”, that restriction progressively becoming a formality during the show’s runtime. The general magic system works by being the “chosen one” and with possession of a grimoire. That means complex, formidable spells with supposedly dire consequences are readily used by a child who purely browsed the pages of these hard covered super-weapons. Picture this, a child who recently discovers magical aptitude, skims a few magical books of power. No training, no practice, no mentor, no rules of realization, finite mana reserves, scales of use. Basically an afternoon in a library, fast-forward to the close to immaculate renditions of said powers in the midst of the uncharted domain of a life-and-death battle. Mind you, this is a child, and with such sudden and proficient use of potent magic in such critical circumstances and with no prior experience, you would scoff at such a thing. The second half is rife with such vile writing. The major problem is generally just too little time spent explaining this system as it’s dwarfed by the MC making a mockery of it, the incessant prattle of the side cast, and the endless wave of satiric developments.
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What warms my soul in shows like these is immersion.....
Following the trend with the rest of my review you’d imagine here that sustained thoughtful engagement in this show is impossible. From hair scratching dialogue, to sonic boom pacing and lest we forget driving SUV 4x4s through the paved streets of medieval-Esque towns and cities. It’s a truly tough one and it takes you out of these dream-like experiences like a morning alarm. Continuing on, we have the MC spending months to years in this fantasy world and prowling the world in a pristine white dress-shirt untucked with his sleeved rolled up, his navy blue slacks and coffee-colored dress shoes. All this to say he’s a polar-bear in Arlington Texas. We have a kingdom, but it’s a complete sham and proceedings move forward jokingly. A King and Queen present but the “princess” speaks more than both of them. Declaring war on a kingdom but the matter being resolved before break-time. They just don’t care anymore about captivating us, everything is a comedy routine, we aren’t allowed to take any of it seriously. We can’t feel any tension nor have moments that provoke us that aren’t vapid exhibitions.
Of course, we cannot forget the MC. He’s a lukewarm one, not too bad, not too good. A victim of the very slippery potentiality of the harem, he is inevitably drowned in the oily swamp of it. The writers, editors and of course directors up to no good yet again. Girls beget more girls. That’s how these shows work, that’s how life works. King Solomon started with a few women he was dealing with and ended up with a battalion-like numbers, It never ends. What started with a healthy juxtaposition of elements between the modern day and a fantasy world with the basis of older civilization, turned into the preposterous drama of a coop of hens with that one “lucky” guy at the center. Commonly you’ll see the narrative, goals, and direction of these works thrown by the wayside, abandoned for the very “necessary” batty babbling of these brood of hens. Usually at least in this poor exchange we are thrown some pity fanservice, but their paltry attempt wasn’t nearly enough to warrant these poor developments. Yes the side cast are mainly girls and to be honest, they steal each other’s light. None of them elicited anything from me because in the erratic bursts of character they were rationed it only further severed apart the continuity. This is most strongly pronounced in the 2nd half of the show.
##### Heard of sleeping on the couch? I've got an even better one, this pitiful brother is sleeping outside his own house because of these chicks...
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In my usual fashion with fantasy, I class all shows by the best show that represented this similar theme. In this case “Tonsuki”, so how does it compare?
At the top /anime/156067/campfire-cooking-in-another-world-with-my-absurd-skill
Watch Tonsuki, then if this still doesn’t discourage you watch the first 7 episodes and leave it at that. It seems my reviews of some of these isekai are all advertisements but comparison is how we learn and improve.
