Isekai Quartet

Who could’ve ever thought we’d get a deformed, chibi version anime from some of Kadokawa’s most popular works? At first, I thought the announcement of the anime was a joke until I saw the actual trailers and promotional images. Taking a look back, I also remember when Overlord and Youjo Senki had their own version of chibi shorts featuring goofball characters doing what goofballs what do. Maybe they were experiments to prepare for this anime. Who knows?

Without a shadow of a doubt, Isekai Quartet is based on characters from isekai shows. The character roster consists of the cast from KonoSuba, Overlord, Youjo Senki, and ... Re:Zero. Collectively, they are united as a quartet of characters in a school life setting where all sorts of shenanigans blooms. As someone who is familiar with all of those established franchises, I do recommend watching them before stepping foot into this. Character personalities carries over and in general, I do believe you can get a better experience if you knew who the characters are. But for popcorn entertainment sakes, you can also just dive right into this little gem.

Even as a crossover, Isekai Quartet stands out as a show of its own. The episodes contains skit stories that are half length. Its main purpose is to humor with the immense amount of comedy that aims to draw our attention. If someone told me this whole idea sounded absurd, I might have agreed at first. That is, I tasted what Isekai Quartet really is and it’s pretty damn delicious. That’s thanks to the drama within that showcases this like a Saturday morning cartoon. To start off, we have several foil characters which translates into some rather noticeable character drama segments. There’s Tanya and Ainz who were once a salaryman in the real world. These two are portrayed as powerful entities that others seems to fear in from their perspective shows. In Isekai Quartet, there’s a rivalry that develops between the two based on some rather absurd reasons. KonoSuba’s Kazuma and Re:Zero’s Subaru came from fantasy worlds as the two manages to establish themselves in their own ways. However, it is easily noticeable how different both characters are. Kazuma is portrayed more as a butt monkey while Subaru evolved as a dark fantasy hero. When you put all four of these protagonists together in the same show, hell breaks loose. I’m talking about the over the top comedy type of hell of course.

With the school setting, the creators aimed to bring as many as possible segments as possible. From school rules to a class talent show, there’s many opportunities for comedy. (yes, there is the infamous “beach episode” too before you ask) Anyone who is familiar with these franchises will also quickly recognize how much their personalities carry over. Make no mistake, every character remains who they are from their respective shows. This includes Overlord’s core characters such as Albedo, Shalltear, and Demiurge. KonoSuba has its own class clowns like Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness. Re:Zero’s Emilia, Rem, Ram, and Beatrice are no strangers when they sit in class. And who can forget Youjo Senki’s adorable Visha? Bringing this legion of isekai characters also means a clash of personalities. Just like at school, there are class leaders and rules. The show establishes the rules early on and as each episode progresses, it becomes more and more evident how some characters can’t follow them. The class talent shows also displays a clash of egos. At the end of the day, the audience is the real winner as the anime accomplishes its job of glorfying popcorn entertainment. In a sense, this is a deconstruction of isekai. Character behaviors are observed in the some of the most outrageous ways possible. KonoSuba’s cast is the guiltiest of this with Kazuma’s antics, Megumin’s explosive personality, and Darkness’ perverted fantasies. However, others such as Albedo, Shaltear, and Beatrice also act on actions that speaks louder than words. My only slight disappointment is how much Tanya has to carry her own franchise in this crossover. Honestly, she is probably the most credible member from Youjo Senki. Even someone like Visha feels like she’s the invisible kid in class if you don’t pay too much attention. Similarly, most of the supporting characters from these perspective franchises is overshadowed by the main cast.

Isekai Quartet ended up being an anime that I didn’t know I wanted. When it got first announced, I thought this would’ve ended up being a big fat joke to further alienate the isekai fan base. It seemed like a big risk considering how much controversy their franchises became for certain audiences. But after watching this show to finish, I’ve seen the light. Be prepared to be enlightened.

I mean it'd probably be easiest for me to put some kind of Avengers joke here for the intro, but I'm pretty sure that's been done to death by this point, so I'll just go onto the meat of the review.

Story:

Alright, so let's give the main cast of Konosuba, Overlord, Youjo Senki, and Re:Zero a random button that just magically appears on their respective doorsteps in order to Isekai them again into a world where now they're forced to participate in high school activities and shenanigans.  What fantasy!  What merriment!  I bet the rights holders were high-fiving each other when they came up with this ... idea.

The story for Isekai Quartet can be roughly summed up by asking the question: "How would these characters react to both the setting and the other characters if they were all put in the same place?"  Each episode heavily spotlights one or two major interactions amongst some or a few members of the four respective casts, cycling through almost every conceivable permutation possible in the high school setting featuring but not limited to activities such as: the Test of Courage, Sports festivals, School chores, Beach episode, and various Afterschool activities.

As such, Isekai Quartet doesn't really present much of anything beyond the comedic factor that comes with smashing together so many casts together.  It's comedy for the sake of comedy and fanservice for the sake of giving fans of these respective shows (and the isekai genre) a bit more extra material to watch even though it doesn't really impact anything in the long run.  Honestly, referential material makes up the bulk of the show, so much so that I'm pretty sure not knowing anything makes this show infinitely harder to watch.

Characters:

In shorts comedies like Isekai Quartet, the essence of these characters are simply boiled down to their base components/memes that most people remember them for.  Aqua's still useless, Shalltear and Albedo continuously poke each other for each other's shortcomings and how they'll never get Ainz, Ram still spits the word equivalent of fire over Subaru, and Tanya still has her...episodes.

This unfortunate byproduct of the shorts medium makes it so that really, there's not much to be said about the characters on their own due to comedy for entertainment's sake.  The main draw of their existences now only comes from the speculation of: "What would happen if Aqua met Albedo?" and numerous other interactions as each episode features roughly two major interactions between a group of 'unlikely characters' and see how they would react to each other.  While not inherently bad, it leaves a lot to be desired because their interactions feel very surface level without much going on aside from laughing at the primary shortcoming of a particular character or talking about seemingly mutual interests and then never interacting ever again.  The best of these interactions seems to exist only in occasional scenes where the main protagonists ask other protagonists questions and comparing their answers to their own realities, but even those threads don't really go anywhere past the one twelve minute block they're featured in.

Aesthetics:

Made by Studio Studio PuYUKAI, a studio whose entire repertoire is basically just these kinds of chibi minisodes, the appearance of Isekai Quartet is very cheap.  It's like they're in Flash Animation since the characters don't really animate all that much and feel very stiff when they move.  This is in part due to the style the show's presented in, as the chibi/rubber-stamp versions of these characters while crisp and clear, doesn't really make much of an effort to be beyond being 'casual' and 'serviceable' for the audience.  

There're a few occasional moments where the series makes an effort to be visually impressive, such as the one time they used Megumin's explosion and the time Tanya loses it, but aside from select points like that, the appearance of the show really isn't all that impressive.  Hell, characters mostly just slide around if they're getting from place to place since animating walking in this style is basically the same thing for the most part.

As far as the OST goes...personally I'm not a fan.  "Isekai Quartet" sung by the VAs of the four series protagonists is this super poppy and catchy song that, since the series is comedy-based, fits with the general tone of the show.  Similarly, the ED of "Isekai Girls♡Talk" has the main heroines (and Tanya...again) do the exact same thing, but changing up the formula by having a more electronic beat that isn't as joyful as its OP counterpart.
 
While these songs are ultimately just pure fanservice, my issue arises how half of each 'song' is just the characters making chide comments about themselves and their series, talking extremely fast while the track of the song is still playing in the background.  To me, this breaks up the flow of the song and it doesn't even really feel like a proper song because of it.

Personal Enjoyment:

I'm positive this show just isn't for me, and I'm confident I've made that abundantly clear in the review thus far...  I'm not big on the Isekai genre in the first place, and even less of a fan when the industry decides to spit out one of these 'shorts' series for the sake of a quick cash grab by throwing in every joke, meme, and reference they can in order to suck in the fans of these series' to be like "Hey, we got something for this show you like, but not really".

Like really, did this need to be in a school setting?  Why a school setting?  Why does everything need to be in a school setting?  What benefit do we get from having them in a school setting?  It's such a boring and overdone idea for a series crossover that part of me genuinely is surprised how much positive attention this is getting despite how lazily made the show looks on top of how shallow they're presenting these characters.  The one thing I'm most sad about however is how they never thought to put make Megumin and Emilia interact with each other once.  Japan freaking loves seiyuu jokes; I'm surprised they didn't do one this time.

If you're a fan of any of the featured series', you will most likely find something interesting about Isekai Quartet to watch.  If not, then in my opinion, it's not worth the trouble.  The show is really just fanservice for the sake of fanservice, and since practically 90% of the show is dedicated to either making fun of the show's conglomerate of a cast or referencing any of the four plots, not watching at least one (or the only) season of each of these shows will reduce enjoyment by at least 25%.

Trash mixed with garbage, fused with dog farts, and interwoven with mindless stupidity.

As a word of caution, I have not seen KonoSuba, Overlord, Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World, or The Saga of Tanya the Evil.--Thus, my perspective is drastically different than a consumer who has seen these Kadokawa Corporation productions. With that said, however, Isekai Quartet is bottom of the barrel entertainment. Perpetuating the stereotype of puerile-based Japanese comedy.

As a word of caution, Isekai Quartet is a perplexing show. I understand it’s a comedy/parody of the Isekai genre, but the abysmal execution leaves me questioning the effort of the so-called ... ‘writers.’ Let’s be honest: this show emulates the writing complexity of Donald Trump’s various tweets. The jokes, if we graciously endow them as such (which we won’t), are reminiscent of those dreadful joke books that your grandfather would read to you as a child to ‘validate’ his ‘hipness.’ Dry, boring, derivative humor.

Not even one episode managed to tickle my ‘funny bone.’ The talent show was talentless. The beach planning episode was coarse — also, it was a real beaaa-itch! And field day was fieldiculous.

Ordinarily, chibi-esque animation (exaggerated versions that exemplify the characters ‘cuteness’) are reserved for intermittent moments of slapstick comedy to juxtapose an otherwise solemn situation. But when the kawaii aesthetic is the predominant art style, it becomes a sensory overload of ‘cuteness’ that diminishes the prospect of laughter. Furthermore, the plot convenience of a magical button whisking everyone away is just a lazy excuse to gather the audience’s ‘favorite’ characters in one location.

As a word of caution, crossover shows purely exist for super-fans to lose their shit as their favorite characters interact with one another. The writers often rely on this dynamic to carry the show forward, without offering any substantive character or plot progressions to occur. And when twelve, ten minute episodes orient around this concept, it becomes excruciating to watch. But…that’s just my word of caution.