The Travesty known as Isekai Smartphone

It’s not often I find an anime that I loathe. Most anime doesn’t even leave an impression on me. I’ll recall my favorite character, one scene or the general plot, but the specifics of the series and its themes will eventually be forgotten. This series has stood out. It’s the best example of the worst of both the harem and isekai genres fused into a single mediocre, mundane mess. I absolutely hate Isekai Smartphone and am writing this review to put my hatred out into the world. This anime fails at basic storytelling with no overarching plot, character development or hero’s journey. By taking the premise that the protagonist can solve every problem with his smartphone, it creates a series with no stakes, no hardships and no way for the viewer to become invested. Once you combine that with its bland world and generic girls, you get an anime that makes my blood boil. So let’s talk about it?

A quick summary of the entire series

Since I wouldn’t recommend this show to my worst enemy, I’ll summarize the entire plot first. Mochizuki Towa (Protag) is killed in some sort of accident and appears before God (who looks like a shut in bachelor) and offers to reincarnate him in a new world and let him bring along one thing. Protag asks to bring his smartphone and God not only does so, but also imbues his phone with magic and a rechargeable solar battery. Protag spawns in the isekai world and is recruited by the twins Linze and Elze Silhoueska (Rem and Ram) to do a challenging quest despite the girls being beginner adventurers. Protag effortlessly completes the quest, so the girls happily join his party. The group then meet the traveler Yae Kokonoe (Samurai girl) who joins them after the Protag defeat some bandits who attack her. After this Protag and Co. do some misadventures and receive an audience with the Duke of the land. Protag saves the Duke from a poisoning plot, so the Duke gives him a lofty estate as a reward. In addition to this, the Duke’s daughter quickly falls for Protag and demands his hand in marriage, which the Duke overwhelmingly supports. A flustered Protag puts off the confession and moves into his new mansion with the girls. Protag and the girls continue doing quests including, slaying a dragon, ending a war in Samurai girl’s home country and finding a floating garden with ancient technology. After doing so, they become famous in the country for their power and accomplishments. The climax of the show occurs when the girls give the Protag the ultimatum of picking one of them to marry. The Protag, terrified at the thought of commitment puts the girls off until ultimately refusing to pick one of them in the finale of the series.

My basic grievances specially toward this series

While I just described what seemed like a potentially interesting story, let me assure you that it’s not. Isekai Smartphone is incredibly dull and mundane in its storytelling. Protag and Co. are almost never in real danger because the world is no match for his smartphone. Apart from one scene, there is no problem thrown at the Protag in 12 fucking episodes that he cannot easily solve. The girls don’t have any interesting quirks or personalities to speak of either. Each one is just a basic harem anime cliché. That wouldn’t normally be so bad, but when every girl (except one) has 0 depth you end up not liking any of them. Thus, the ultimate conflict of the series, Protag being forced to commit to one girl has no emotional weight because you as the viewer don’t care about any of them. This all factors into the most glaring problem with this show, the lack of any real stakes.

The lack of stakes

Isekai Smartphone’s greatest failure is that there are no convincing problems for the protagonist to overcome. This series is unironically most like the anime One Punch Man, where the protagonist Saitama wins every fight with a single hit. In this case, Protag solves every circumstance that threatens him instantly with his smartphone. Need to make friends with some townsfolk? Protag can use his phone to create ice cream! A dragon is threatening us? Its ok Protag can cast multiple spells from his phone at once (more on this later). Literally no conflict is allowed more than five minutes of life before the Protagonist murders it with his phone. Whereas One Punch Man had great visuals and music to compensate for its inherent lack of stakes, Isekai Smartphone has nothing to distract its viewer from the fact that Protag will inevitably use his phone to save the day. This prevents the characters from enduring any real adversary. As a result, none of them grow or develop over the course of the story. Thus, every character remains static and lifeless, which is my next big problem with the series.

Why each and every character doesn’t work

Isekai Smartphone has an underwhelming cast that fails to leave any impression on its viewer. Rather than create interesting characters, they just checked the same boxes that 90% of harem anime do. We have a Tsundere, a Kuudere, a bumpkin/country girl, an Ojou-sama, a little sister and eventually a Yandere. Sure, every girl goes from “who is this guy?” to “I love him”, but that’s commonplace for harem anime and not real character development. As for the Protag, he never remotely grows as a person even after he gains disturbing amounts of power. With that said, it’s time to give every character the time they don’t deserve and explain why they are not compelling.

The Protagonist:
I won’t mince words or be polite, I fucking hate this guy. I’ve hated him from the very first scene of the series. God tells him that he’s just been killed, and he doesn’t bat an eye. He’ll never see his friends or family and again and despite this he’s totally ok with the situation he’s thrust into. Protag has this weird sense of not giving a fuck, but not in a cool way. He’s incredibly pragmatic, but he’s also not badass. Protag has no ambitions or long-term goals. He just falls into successes rather than actively pursuing them. Protag gains the affection of the girls (and pretty much everyone in the world other than the misc. enemies) without even trying to do so. He’s at best a shoddy self-insert for the type of weak male that wants to have a harem of cute girls, great wealth and untold power despite not having any semblance of a personality, meaningful skills or aspirations. The closest we get to a character flaw is that he’s shown texting a girl back on Earth in two separate scenes. However, it’s never hinted at that he likes this girl. Furthermore, Protag never shows any desire to return home (which to the best of our knowledge he cannot do). Thus, the one chance Protag had at character motivation was squandered. This is a truly depressing revelation since it would’ve justified his refusal to pick a girl in the climax, which as it stands we can only attribute to him liking the status quo.

The Twins
The twins are just discount Rem and Ram. I’m not even kidding, Elze is hesitant to trust the protag at first. She also remains hostile towards him until he proves his ability (Ram). Linze is incredibly kind to him from the beginning and maintains a supportive role to the Protag more so than the other girls (Rem). She does so by teaching the Protag magic (though ofc he immediately masters all the spells…) and helping him learn the world’s language (which Rem did too!). Elze is the most basic of Tsundere characters and brings nothing new to the table. The only thing I liked about her is that she fought with giant fists which is at least rare in my anime viewing experience. To be fair to Linze, she is a reasonable character. She confesses to the Protag first and is very nice to everyone throughout the entire series. I don’t have any real grievance with her (mostly because she’s a knockoff Rem xD), other than she doesn’t stand out at all.

Samurai Girl
Yae talks funny (she has a dialect that I assume is supposed to be a Japanese country voice) and eats a lot. She is kind to the Protagonist and easily befriends all the girls. Unfortunately, despite being reasonable Yae does jack shit in this series. She never gets anything close to a real fight, and the few fights she does get end up with her buying time for Protag’s smartphone use. Yae’s primary character arc was the war in her home country, which Protag easily resolves for her. Thus, Yae fails to even be a factor in saving her own country. Literally as I write this paragraph, I’m drawing blanks on what she even did. It’s very sad how much I ended up disliking her character, just because she provided nothing except some country drawl.

Duke’s Daughter and little Sister
To give some credit, the Duke’s Daughter did make me laugh when she boldly declared her marriage intentions. It was a decently funny scene since Protag was flustered, the three girls were all terrified and the Duke was 100% behind it. The problem is that after this scene, the Duke’s daughter (and her little sister who will not be mentioned again because she did nothing…) do not join Protag’s party. As a result, they miss out on all of the subsequent adventures. I think had they gotten more screen time they might’ve been ok characters, but alas we’ll never know.

The Tiger
The best non-harem character in this series is the Tiger spirit that the Protag contracts with. The Tiger starts off as an arrogant and highly acclaimed antagonist. However, after losing instantly to Protag’s smartphone nonsense he becomes a constant source of insight into the world and helps Protag in battle (he also has a cute chibi form!). Unfortunately, the Tiger is a fairly benign side character (so much so, that I forgot he even existed until I looked up a photo of the cast). While his presence is all upside, his support never overshadows the Protag’s smartphone.

Leen (The one good character)

So there was one, literally one character in this show who actually showed some nuance and was actually likable. This was the fairy named Leen who was the last girl to join the harem (not counting the green haired robot girl in the floating garden) in episode 7. In a stark contrast to the rest of the cast, I really liked Leen. She starts off by expressing a desire for Protag’s power. Leen then declares she’ll do anything to attain it, both hinting that she’ll fuck the Protag or fuck him up if necessary. Leen is also the only character who tries to take the Protag’s phone and while she ofc fails to do so, she does manage to keep Protag on edge whenever she’s around. Furthermore, while the other girls fight over Protag in the series climax, Leen doesn’t participate noting that she will surely win in the end. Not to say that Leen is without flaws, as she is repeatedly shown to be conscious of her chest size (washboard flat). While this is definitely not a rare character trait (especially in harems) it at least gives Leen a running gag that sets up a few jokes (namely glaring at/groping every well-endowed side character). With her creepy and dangerous demeanor, Leen was a credible harem member and fantasy character. She filled her role as a Yandere splendidly, while creating an interesting dynamic with the Protag. My only problem with Leen was her late addition to the series. By joining the cast in episode 7 and by ignoring the series climax, Leen effectively got 3 scenes of screen time total. Thus, the best character in this show was completely wasted.

With the exception of Leen, there were absolutely no nuanced or interesting characters in this entire show. Each character lacked an interesting trait or simply didn’t have anything to make them stand out. In an Isekai you need fantastic characters who the viewer would actually want to abandon their world for. As for a harem you need compelling harem members that people would actually call their waifu. Isekai Smartphone fails at both these tasks. To provide some contrast, let me reference two waifus that should be an example for series like these to follow, namely Megumin from Konosuba and Momo Deviluke from To-Love-Ru.

Megumin is a pretty simple character and yet we all still love her. She likes explosions and is passionate about blowing shit up. Despite being a social outcast and completely useless outside of her one blast per day, she never gives up and maintains an unwarranted high opinion of herself. These contradictions make her incredibly real. We all have a friend who’s really obsessed with something and you can only nod and laugh off their absurdity. Furthermore, most people can understand what its like to have a passion or ability that means the world to you but isn’t valued by society. For these reasons, (along with being as cute as a button) Megumin works as a character because she has overwhelming flaws that lend themselves to hilarious jokes and situations.

Literally no one in Isekai Smartphone is as developed as Megumin . Is Elze the greatest giant fist user in the country? No. Is Yae an amazing samurai or even fanatical about swordplay? No. Isekai Smartphone’s cast lacks both memorability and comedic potential. The girls don’t even reply with amazement to the Protag’s smartphone powers after a while. These characters are doomed to leave no impression on the viewer, because they’re all criminally boring.

Momo Deviluke is the rare example of a nuanced harem anime character. She has a clear character motivation: She loves the protagonist Yuuki Rito, but she also has a clear problem. Her older sister Lala also loves Rito and she knows that she cannot steal him without hurting her sister. To this end, Momo comes up with the absurd plan that drives the entire plot of To-Love-Ru Darkness to make Rito a harem so that she can be with him. Is this a good plan? Of course not. It’s a harebrained scheme that Rito rejects at every turn. It also forces Momo to thrust the man she loves at an army of romantic rivals. However, it’s her insistence on this terrible plan that makes her an interesting character. Sure, her strategies never work out and she winds up wrecked at the end of most chapters, but Momo maintains devoted to her goal through and through.

No one in Isekai Smartphone stands out as a romantic option (with I guess the exception of the Duke’s daughter) or shows a devotion to the Protag near that of Momo’s. None of them even try to court the Protag until the eleventh episode. Whereas Momo got 26 episodes for her harem plan, the Isekai Smartphone girls got 2 episodes to infatuate the Protag for seemingly no reason other than they grew fed up with him supporting them all equally. Thus, any rationale for the Protag to pick a girl is completely ruined since there was never any tension between him and the girls until the very end.

Megumin and Momo are here to make a special point. I liked both of them and I think I’ll remember them for a long time. No one from Isekai Smartphone is like that. I’m certain that I’d quickly forget all of them if not for my overwhelming hatred of the series as a whole. That being said, now that we’ve discussed the lack of stakes, the terrible characters and the wasted potential, were there any redeeming qualities to this series?

There are literally three amazing scenes in this whole twelve-episode anime. While I’ve ragged on this show, I can safely say that these few scenes all worked and excited me as a viewer. Now of course, these three scenes totaled maybe 10 minutes and were in no way enough of a justification to watch this show. That being said, it would not be fair if I didn’t take notice of the rare instances of quality in this utter dumpster fire.

The three good scenes in this series

The fight with the ancient robot bug in ep 4
The first good scene of this show occurs in episode 4 when the party fights an ancient robotic bug outside some ruins. The fight is nothing amazing visually, but there was something about it that immediately makes it stand out. As the girls ineffectively attack the bug, protag shoots it with magic from the sidelines to no avail. This is the only enemy in the show that’s resistant to Protag’s magic (at least partially). Elze is suddenly impaled by the bug and falls to the ground bleeding out. This is the ONLY scene in this entire anime where you as the viewer are led to believe that there’s actual stakes in this world. I’m not trying to applaud violence here but watching Elze almost die is what kept me watching this show. It tricked me into thinking that there might be more dangerous fights/tension down the line. Now literally right after this happens Protag’s magic does kill the bug and he quickly heals Elze. Not to mention, there are no other serious injuries or engaging fights for the duration of the series. The reason I applaud this scene is that it was the one time the characters were put in real jeopardy. Had the series had more intense fights like this, it would’ve been much better.

That one scene with the guns

The second, and honestly the best scene in this entire anime was where the Protag created guns. This scene was fucking amazing. After deciding that magic was too much work, the Protag used his smartphone to create actual firearms. He then showed his harem the guns and taught them how to use them. This is the greatest thing that’s ever been conceived in an isekai. I’m not kidding, even as I write this, I’m holding back laughter. Can you imagine any Isekai show with actual fucking guns? These dumbfucks are using swords and shields while the Protagonist has a legit glock. It’s such a great scene. It plays well on the fact that he can do whatever the hell he wants, we get to see these cute anime girls learn how to shoot and best of all, it’s so absurd that it’s incredibly memorable. Now of course this was a one-shot gag and the guns are never seen or mentioned again. However, I want to believe there’s a parallel timeline where the latter half of the series was spent peppering all the bandits/monsters with bullets. It would’ve been stupid, but also so hilarious.

When Protag saves Yae’s whole country
And finally, the last good scene in this show was when Protag single handedly ended a war. The party visits Yae’s home country and finds that there’s a war going on. Yae’s brother tells them that they are hopelessly overwhelmed and will lose soon. This forces Protag to take action in easily the most alpha and stupid thing he ever does. You know how songs on your smartphone have a repeat function? Well Protag can put his magic spells on repeat. He uses this to put Thundaga (or I guess Lightning to be less Final Fantasy) on repeat. Storm clouds brew over the battlefield as the enemy army approaches. Protag’s lightning spell then, and I kid you not kills the entire enemy army...
Yep you heard that right. The lightning comes down, bolt after bolt frying every fucker dead. Now this is terribly stupid, but the reason I like this scene is that it’s the apex of broken shit that the Protag does. He just shows up and easily ends a war. It’s so absurd that it’s just perfect. It’s not even a visually engaging scene and you don’t even get to watch that much of the carnage. However, the mere fact that this happened and that an editor gave this the “ok” is outstanding.

And thus, we’ve finished my indulgent review of Isekai Smartphone, an anime I truly hate. I do not recommend this anime to anyone. A grizzled anime veteran will realize that unlike Konosuba or Re:zero, this world and its inhabitants aren’t worth remembering or following. Furthermore, any harem loving degenerate worth their salt would realize that there are many harems better than this one such as Highschool DxD or To Love-Ru. If you were truly wedded to the awful fusion of Harem+Isekai, this combination has been done by countless series after Isekai Smartphone. I would go as far as to say that Isekai Smartphone is a but a small speck in oversaturation of Isekai anime marketed to desperate young men who want to die to gain easy access to waifus and power. May god have mercy on their souls.

Final Thoughts

So why did I write this? Well to reiterate Isekai Smartphone fails as a narrative. There are no stakes or a plot outside of a mindless accrual of power. There’s no romantic tension until an incredibly forced climax that doesn’t even have a payoff. Except for Leen, every character in Isekai Smartphone is terrible. This series could’ve been a solid One Punch Man clone by making every one of Protag’s smartphone uses over the top and memorable. However, it failed to do so. It remained boring, lukewarm and mundane for 12 episodes. I beseech thee to never watch this series. It’s not so bad, it’s good. It’s not so terrible that it’s apparent that it’s terrible. It’s like getting a 60 on your English test because your professor was too lazy to actually grade it. Did you pass? Yep. Did you tell a story that most people would find average? Yes, you did. But did you accomplish literally anything? No, you didn’t.

Isekai Smartphone is that student who checked all the right boxes, but clearly had no knowledge about the material. I’m certain that the vast majority of people who watched this show will say it was “ok” or that the girls were cute. I ask them to take another look and realize that this series is a prime example of the deterioration of anime. The plot is nonexistent, the characters are paper thin, there is nothing for the viewer to care about. Isekai Smartphone isn’t just mediocre, it’s an absolute failure in every category that one could grade it in. The only thing I can thank it for, is that I’ll always have an immediate answer for that rare question of “what’s the worst anime you’ve ever seen?”