Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni.

Initially I gave this a 2. But having finished the show, I was wrong.

This show is deceptively good, it'll have you think it is a terrible show, hence all the bad ratings. However this show is unique in that it goes all out with its premise, which I can appreciate.

Now, why it looks bad:
- Bad art and animation
- Shoddy cliche characters
- Bad character designs
- etc etc
...
Why it is actually good:
I want to start this with stating that a show should be scored not in relation to other anime in general; this show is a flat 0 in comparison to the greats such as FMAB etc. Rather a show should be scored based on how well it does what it has intended to do, i.e entertain, inform, send a message etc.

This show's purpose was to go all out in its premise and by doing so make fun of all the other shows like it that are afraid to break the status quo such as Blade Dance or Asterisk War, which just throw together templates and hopes for the best.

- The show juxtaposes bad shows with its good writing around old and 'done-to-death' concepts and characters. e.g. (ep3 spoiler)
- The MC's appreciation for slime monsters when they melt the girl's
clothes when lesser MC's would just blush and say it isn't right and
promptly get punched.

- The MC's attachment to the morals of his old world and need to come to terms with the societal rules in the new world --> This occurs in the last episode
- The Author's balls when writing this s***

Anyway go watch it, if you don't trust me check my list for my tastes and credibility.

You know, when the main Japanese demographic your anime markets towards ends up hating your anime, then you know it blows chunks. Not even pretty girls can remedy that fact. I should’ve listened to OtaKing. Well, rationality is incomprehensible to anyone involved with this show's existence. If you don't want to see a rant on this crappy piece of work that is the cheap bootleg equivalent to Konosuba and an insult to harems, isekai, and entertainment, leave immediately. The gloves come off and the spell of death is cast.

Creative bankruptcy. It's something that any artist of any medium worth his or her salt should dread ... when creating a work. It's when the art has no soul of any kind, no artistic purpose behind it, meant only for the money. That brings us to our target: Isekai wa Smartphone. This pile of insufferable, bland, incompetent dreck can fuck off for giving harem and isekai shows a bad name (more so than they already have), and for not caring about being a show for people to watch. It has no soul, no drive, and is just an example of corporate greed and a lack of care by literally everyone involved in every aspect of production, outside of the voice actors. It is the antithesis of spellbinding, as it half-heartedly casts the spell of boredom and hatred.

This anime can't establish anything properly. It can't establish magic until way after it was used and even then the system, especially concerning null, is stupid. It doesn't establish the idea of guilds properly at all. The gauntlets, the currency, none of it! Part of it is because its worldbuilding is beyond atrocious, and there are gigantic leaps and lies, so yeah. Oh, here’s an example! When a butler got hit with an arrow offscreen, how? Apparently he and the guys he was with were surrounded by lizards with swords and shields, so that can't work, and apparently part of it broke off and... yeah. Also, inconsistent magic since they say the only way to use magic (except maybe null) was with special designated crystals yet they violate that multiple times. Oh, and the protagonist knows literally every magic ever, including the personal null ones, which are already a bad system due to being contradictory (since they're supposed to be unique but they're recorded in ways that imply more people can use these null spells, but they're each limited to a few people at a time), and heck, the magic system as a while had its own tuned violated constantly with people constantly using elemental magic without a magical fragment catalyst, so fuck this anime’s own rules, amirite?! Oh, and they just randomly and haphazardly insert us into a bunch of scenarios for the characters to quickly solve and have no remote emotional effect on the audience or even have any meaningful things for the characters aside from them interacting and constantly blushing. God, this piece.

Do I even need to mention that this is a generic piece of work with so many of the worst clichés of a typical LN and that it has some of the worst variations on them I have ever seen? Do I need to mention that this is basically an off-brand of Konosuba that actually went beyond an expiration date before airing? No? Well, too bad! What about the setting and story beats? Well, here’s something interesting: we don't know how MC-kun died! Think back to any Isekai you've seen. Re:Zero? Subaru blinked and somehow fake into a fantasy world, unsure how it happened but he was summoned by Satela. Knight's & Magic? Kurata (who we know as Ernesti in the fantasy world) got ran over, though we don't know how he got to his fantasy world. Konosuba? Kazuma died of shock and tricked a stupid cunt “goddess” into coming with him into a fantasy world. Here, well, God tells him that he was stuck by a bolt and then is willing to send him somewhere, we don't actually see what happened to him. It wouldn't have taken long to do something so basic, but look at what I'm reviewing. It can't have a good sweet moment either since it ruins those, even though they don't even work in the first place, but way to ruin your theoretical chance, anime! Oh, and pacing is fucked with this one, especially in the first half. I know I'm just sort of ranting and raving but damn, my brain is trying to scrape this show off of it and none of my friends want to kill this anime, so I have to now. This show has no effort put into anything at all; why should I bother? I would say because I care and because I try to put effort by honestly, my brain is committing genocide against any specifics I can bring up about this nightmare of a show.

I don't think this anime had heard of this term I'm about to say: it's called “characterization”! No character has a real defined personality, especially not the main character, who at best can be defined as the stereotypical boring and weak yet OP AF protagonist, like Ayato from The Asterisk War. By far this show's most disturbing and avant-garde offense is that I actually believe that all of the main women in the show are largely the exact same character with the most minor of different traits. No show to my knowledge has ever done that before. Obviously, these bitches are all trash, especially the tsundere one for being a typical tsundere. I can't remember any real traits from anyone else for this show has staged a coup on my brain!

The other characters are bland and without personality and do stuff you expect, so that leaves us with MC-kun. Oh wait, I said everything about him other than the fact they he gets so OP without any actual progression that it constantly feels like he’s pulling powers out of his ass, and yes, he does get a harem, to the point where all of the members can even travel with him, it's their crowded a harem, and for next to no reason beyond “Dude is nice enough to help and can do crazy things” and not due to anything about his personality or even looks... ugh. His name is Touya, and I learned that over time but it's obviously not worth remembering. Actually, why should you remember a single character's name? Aside from weakling OP MC-kun, I certainly don't! There is nothing standout or remotely interesting about any of them. They also constantly blush and get embarrassed for no adequate reason. They're also all idiots as displayed by the crime-solving scene in episode 4. I only remember something about the blonde 12 year old princess and it's that she acts like a 6 year old half the time. Just...wow. I could go on and on about the character and especially the narrative problems, but honestly, this anime tries so little in any department that it's honestly not worth it.

Veteran studio, Production Reed took the reigns for this and boy did they not do a good job, to put it lightly. The character art and overall animation are both so unbelievably flat, and so is the magic. It's not a pleasant view at any point, it all looks insanely plain, life-draining in fact! The character designs are pretty terrible overall, to add insult to injury. They can even get walking right as it looks like they're often moving both forward and backward in some walking scenes, like the beginning of episode 3. In fact, they always mess it up somehow, and it's just walking! How?! Why?! Oh, and when you see debris in a fight scene, it looks so poorly drawn and it doesn't fit well with any of the rest of the art at all.

Don't expect much animation in the fight scenes either, especially in the episode 7 duel with the awful looking wooden swords; and I thought Akashic Records was bad in that department. You can also see some rather noticeable errors here, like faces being off, the fact that one of the characters who has a sword suddenly had two swords with hilts on her sleeve and not her waist, and yeah, it’s pretty bad and lazy. They also use a lot of visual gag shortcuts that I thought only long-running shounens were allowed to get away with (since no other kind of show uses them and those shows have an insane amount of episodes to have to spread their budget and staff and time etc. on). It's a visual bore with blunders, though thankfully there really isn't any CGI to speak of, since I'm sure that probably would've been handled poorly, just like every there aspect of this show. You know, except it contains some atrocious CGI stairs that have a gigantic frame rate drop and get repeated verbatim later on with a different color and some abysmal fire effects that last for a while in episode 5! You know, because this anime also has to compete for the worst visuals of 2017 too!

The main uniform the girls wear looks awful, especially with those lines in the white part. One of the character designs is blatantly ripped from the princess from Knight's & Magic, whose anime adaptation just so happens to be airing at the same time as this, only she has been aged down by comparison to a 12-year-old. Why are we sexualizing 12-year-olds again? Also, expect some shitty digital close-ups. Lastly, for God knows what reason, they have it so that the eyebrows and eyelashes always overlap with the hair rather than being obstructed by it. This is basic anime shit and they constantly mess that up. Then again, they didn't really try here either, did they? Oh, and there’s a fair amount of reused animation, so that's a sin, especially since unlike Knight's & Magic, this isn't a mecha show (not that I really excuse that show for it either). C’mon, it's 2017! This shit shouldn't be happening anymore! And.. .that's everything for this one. Sadly, this is somehow the show’s best, or rather, its least worst aspect, it only barely.

For what it's worth, the OST on its own isn't actually that abysmal, though some tracks are especially bad and wrong. Sure, none of it works or can even be considered memorable, but what's worse is the fact that almost none of it ever fits with the scenes at all. Oh, and while I'll talk about those cancerous scene transitions a bit later and how pointless and aggravating they are in every way possible, let’s just say that the music makes matters worse in those moments. The OP is the most obnoxious and generic JPop song I have ever heard in my life, especially the techno aspects. Fuck this song, it's not worth naming since it's one of the worst OP songs I have ever heard. Same applies to the ED to a slightly lesser extent; it's also awful and I don't care which of the characters sings it. There is nothing of merit to the music in this show whatsoever, and that almost never happens. If that isn't sad, I don't know what is.

You know, I have to ask: for those out there who actually enjoyed this anime, how? What is the appeal of this? Is it the fact that the main character is OP? Is it the fact that this is a world with magic? Is it the admittedly out there premise? Because... I don't see this as a show that really wants to entertain, like at all. I see no semblance of soul from this anime, no spirit or any enthusiasm from it or anything. It's not even just super bland to the point of feeling like it was meant for passive entertainment like some other perfunctory works out there. It's not like it even really attempts to have interesting, consistent, or involved fight scenes either. At best, it tries to pander with the whole slime nonsense, in ways that should probably be seen as an insult to the intelligence, or at the very least, ways that should be met with shrugs and groans. And as for the OP MC part, why? Isn't it boring to see some guy plow through anything, especially if he doesn't really do anything fancy or especially crazy and flashy, or have any personality to latch into while doing it? Wouldn't you want that kind of MC to have some actual personality or actually show off some crazy epic shit to cheese fights instead of cheering fights without any effort? Wouldn't you want someone like Izayoi from Problem Children over this main character?

So it has come to this: the transitions! Fuck these things! They are nothing but obnoxious time-wasters with blaring and equally obnoxious music, either showing the results of a scene for 5 seconds or what happened already, with these stupid and obnoxious characters and voices doing stupid and aggravating things! You see anywhere from 6-8 of these an episode too! You can no doubt tell this got irritating fast! Why was this included? Why?! For comedy? I doubt it succeeded with many viewers.

So, yeah, this show was boring and vexing as all hell. Not a single moment to enjoy. It doesn't even try so of course I feel unamused to the nth degree. Not to mention that there were a few specific moments (boob grab scene in episode 9 being chief among them) that were especially maddening, so that didn’t help one bit. Some of you might say “Why not just turn your brain off and enjoy the ride?” Because it's so fucking boring and stupid, that's why! If I didn't keep my brain permanently on thinking mode when watching anime, I’d have dropped so many more by now since I would've quit the moment I got really angry bored from watching, hence more of my time would've been wasted! I actually heard people say this was a parody of these kinds of shows: it is not. It image then completely straight and pretends to be mildly self-aware, so that blows. So yeah, this show fails on both levels! Fuck this show, I hate it! I hate it so much!

This might prime some of you to ask: “Why did you watch this obviously bad show in the first place?” Well, some people probably watched it out of interest of the admittedly out there premise. Maybe some wanted a trashy anime to chill to (and likely found themselves still disappointed). And of course, some of us came here just to join hands with a chunk of the community always ready to see a truly and obviously terrible burn and revel in the flames together (I mean, usually the anime suffering that fate deserves it), often coming one by one to see if it is as bad as the reputation hypes it up to be. Not gonna lie, that was part of it for me. The other part was that for all intents and purposes, this did catch my eye as something I thought would just be a below-average at best isekai title for me to watch and feel little towards, at least after I was initially put off by the cover picture. However, I can definitely say that it did deserve the fate I mentioned in the third reason because as I have been saying over and over again, this anime is the very definition of laziness when it comes to this medium.

Anime is a very intensive and passion-filled medium. There are so many titles out there, good and bad, that obviously show a ton of passion and effort in at least some regard. So, when I see an anime as lazy as this get a sizeable viewership while better and more passionate (if not always good) shows like Knight’s & Magic, ACCA 13, and so on and so forth get at best a much lower viewership and at worst the absolute shaft, I get royally angry. People had to slave over this, and no passion feels like it’s coming out, no care put into anything regarding this show. I am so thankful that this show is getting quite a thrashing, and honestly, it needs all the hate it can get. Honestly, unless you really want to watch something without a soul, you should avoid this anime entirely, as this anime is an affront to the medium as a whole. Is it the absolute worst anime out there? No, there are some worse ones out there for their own reasons, but this anime really has no right to exist, and honestly, it is still very, very high up there, both in an all-time perspective and in the perspective of this season alone. It manages to be an affront to the concept of entertainment, and even the concept of a harem and isekai show. Sadly, this season isn’t over yet and there are a few real duds left to cover at the time of writing, so until then, I bid you adieu.

[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS]
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(The Very Definition of a Generic ‘Isekai’ Show)

Noticing the word ‘isekai’ in the title, reminds me of the many related series and mangas that I’ve seen and read. Most, if I recalled, were pretty enjoyable and entertaining. I guess, you could say I enjoy the ‘Isekai’ genre to a certain extent. However, this series just yells with genericness from its lame title and boring synopsis to its dumb-looking thumbnail to its list of genres (i.e. adventure, Harem, Comedy, Magic, Romance, Fantasy) that are commonly found in fantasy romance-comedies. With all this information in mind, I immediately knew that ... this show would be absolute shit. Still, I watched it because I wanted to know how generic it was. So, I took some notes and noticed some common ‘isekai’ tropes:

– Protagonist is killed (in this case, God kills him with lightning) and is, then, transported to another world.
– Overpowered, dense Protagonist with no redeeming features, beyond being nice and kind to everyone.
– Typical medieval setting.
– Standard magical spells and elements (e.g. earth, wind, fire, etc).
– Various races and creatures with different languages (e.g. lizard men, fox girls, slimes, etc).
– Twin female adventurers in love with Protagonist (obviously they have purple hair).
– Samurai girl in love with Protagonist.
– Rich Princess falls in love with Protagonist at first sight, declares marriage, and the parents approve it.
– Exploring ruins (e.g. underwater ruins and underground ruins)
– Fanservice (e.g. clothes dissolving, clothing changing, boob grabbing, swimsuits).
– Typical quests (e.g. collect X amount, kill this monster, explore this area, etc)
– Typical “boss” monster fights (e.g. dragon, “unknown” creature, etc )
– Protagonist gains a ‘free mansion’ and every female lead lives with him.
– Protagonist continuously reusing overpowered skill (i.e. slip)
– Protagonist creates a ‘gun’ in a fantasy world.
– Protagonist forms a pact with the strongest spirit animal (i.e. tiger).
– 'Resisting the Urge to Look at Naked Girl’ Event.
– Slime Event.
– Beach Event.
– Harem Ending.

Yep, we have it all, folks. Some of the most common ‘isekai’ tropes are in this anime. Now, whether that’s good or bad is up to you. For me, it usually doesn’t bother me, but, in this show, it was was more annoying than outright fun.

STORY:

The story is simple and predictable, especially towards the end. Nothing too complex or “deep”, or nothing that will confuse the viewers. In fact, if I had to summarize this series, it would be this: OP main character is trapped in a new world, OP main character encounters many people with many problems, OP character solves the problem with his OP skills and spells, rinse and repeat. Some examples:

Examples #1: the butler is shot with an arrow, but wait Touya can just remove the arrow and heal him back to normal. He doesn’t die and everyone is happy.

Example #2: The Duke’s wife is blind. If only someone had a spell that could heal her and make her see again. Enter Touya, he uses heal. The Duke’s wife can see again, everyone is happy.

Example #3: Evil guy is controlled by evil red orb thingy in his eye. How do we get it? Enter Touya, he uses some retrieve magic and destroys it. Evil guy is defeated and everyone is happy.

For everything else: Touya uses the spell ’slip’ on enemy. Enemy slips like an idiot. It’s Super Effective!

We can keep on going, but basically there is no tension, conflict, or buildup to these events. And even if there was some tension, conflict, or buildup, they will be conveniently and immediately resolved within a matter of seconds because of Touya’s OP spells and powers. In addition, there too many slice of life moments (e.g. Touya making ice cream, making a board-game, making a bicycle, going out shopping, etc) that don’t add anything to the story or plot, they are just there to remind the viewers that Touya is a nice and kind person. Additional problem with this anime include: simple and bland conversations and dialogue, unnecessary fanservice, the inclusion of too many chibi scenes/transitions, and lack of world-building. The lack of world-building is pretty frustrating; our characters never question about the various races and languages, religions, regions of the world, governments, etc. And even when our characters venture to a new land (i.e. Eashen), they never took the time to fully explore or learns about it. And finally, Touya fails to fully use his smartphone for other purposes, besides using it as a map, checking mail/texts, and looking up information, until around episode 5 or 6. And even then, the smartphone is nothing special, it’s just there to enhance his already overpowered skills. But, the most disappointing thing was the fact the anime doesn’t show our main character getting killed by lightning. Would have been more entertaining had they animate it.

ANIMATION:

The background designs, such as buildings, interior designs, forests, etc, are lacking in detail and are just there to show where the our characters are. The character themselves aren’t very detailed either, in fact, one could say that all the main characters have pretty similar looking facial designs, in that everyone has a pointy chin and a rectangle face. They only differ in eye color, hair color and design, and what clothes they are wearing, but that’s pretty obvious. Most crowd scenes just feature static characters, and if there are multiple characters moving it’s usually a fight scene. Now, speaking of fight scenes, the animations for these scenes are a mixture of still and dynamic shots of the characters punching, kicking, or slashing something. And finally there are many chibi scenes, which are cute, but, at the same time, are annoying and interrupt the flow of the episode.

SOUND:

If you have seen Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! and its sequel, then you’ll be glad to know that several voice actresses have a major/minor role in this series. Specifically, Maaya Uchida voices Elze Silhoueska (elder twin), Chinatsu Akasaki voices Yae Kokonoe, Sumire Uesaka voices Leen, and Kikuko Inoue voices Origa. The remaining cast is voiced either by professionals or novices, especially our main character, Touya Mochizuki, who is voiced by Katsumi Fukuhara, a complete newbie starring in his first major voicing acting role. Now, having said all this, the voice acting is okay, not the best, but decent. Moving on, the background songs are just there to convey the characters’ emotion at that given moment; the sounds of swords clashing, magic effects, and many other action sound effects are standard for its genre. Though, I’ll admit hearing the ’boing’ sound effect whenever boobs swayed or jiggled around was stupid and hilarious. And finally, the opening song and intro is your typical J-Pop that introduces all the girls that love our protagonist, and the ending song, also your typical J-Pop, features only one female character at a time. By the way, it's kind of stupid to include two characters (i.e. professor and silver-haired dude) that only made a brief, and by brief less than a minute, appearance on screen.

CHARACTER:

Every character has a readily established character trait and personality that will remain with them until the end of the show. In other words, characters introduced in the beginning will not change throughout the show; they will not have any growth or development and no change in personality. And, for some reason, we aren’t given a proper background story to most of our main characters. For example, our main character, Touya Mochizuki, is nice and kind, is dense and completely oblivious to the girls’ feelings for him, and is overpowered because of God. That’s it. He doesn’t tell us about his former life, nor does he have any desire to do so. Furthermore, he lacks any specific goals or ambitions when he enters the new world, and barely reacts to any situation or event. A very boring and generic character, indeed.

The female characters, despite looking and acting cute sometimes, are no better than our male lead. In fact, most are common character tropes, such as the tsundere, the shy younger sister, the rich princess, the girl that-appears-young-but-is-actually-hundreds-of-years-old, the traditional girl, etc. Moreover, they don’t have any background story (except for samurai girl, Yae Kokonoe), and lack any goals and ambitions, besides wanting to get married to Touya. Everyone else is a secondary character, so don’t expect any backstories or any character development; they are just there to make certain events happen to our main characters.

ENJOYMENT:

I’ll be honest, this show is boring, predictable, and lacking the humor, thrills, and intensity compared to similar shows. The story is painfully generic and lacks tension and conflict, the animation and art is just there for show, and the characters are stale and unchanging. The only entertainment I got from this series was anticipating when Touya would pull the ‘Slip’ card and defeat his “enemies”. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this show, unless you like the original source material and wanted to see the anime adaptation of it, or you are a huge fan of ‘isekai’ tropes.