Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou

Have you ever been excited to watch a dumpster fire? You know, that special kind of train wreck that reaches so bad it’s good territory, or the legendary "schlock" status”? It’s rare to find such titles in the current anime market, as Big Order and Inuyashiki are some of the last ones out there at the time of writing. Most bad anime are just frustrating or boring, especially when it comes to the prevalence of bad isekai anime. With episode 1 at least, Arifureta seemed to have done the impossible. It had become something so legendarily awful that it would be remembered as the best ... so bad it’s good anime of the year. Imagine my shock, my awe when we were told that isekai finally had a Big Order to call its own.

Imagine my grief when Arifureta quickly went from the most gloriously awful anime of the year to the worst I’ve seen all year. Barring a few tolerable moments, the more the show went on, the more dreadful the experience became. Even when I thought I grew numb to whatever the show threw at me, it would always find a new way to make the viewing experience worse. I felt betrayed, as did fans when the premiere dropped. Now that this anime has ended, it’s time I get a little payback.

Let’s start with the least awful aspect of the anime, that being the music. The background OST, whenever it's actually present, is either fairly decent or downright awful. A lot of these tracks (inserts included, of which there are four and only one of them works) don’t even fit the scenes they’re put in half the time. Let that put into perspective how low a bar I’ve set for this anime. As for the OP, it’s trash with an obnoxious saxophone and weird autotune, as well as an awful trap beats section right before the chorus. The worst part is that the moody piano and violin combo at the beginning makes the track inviting, like a siren or a succubus luring you into your untimely demise. Barring an admittedly decent insert song in episode 5, my only other compliment to the music is that the ED, “Hajime no Uta” by DracoVirgo is actually pretty good. One could call it a generic sort of soothing ending theme meant to give the viewers a breather after whatever whirlwind any given episode puts them through. On the other hand, with vocals and instrumentals this inviting, I don’t care. It invokes something sweet, almost nostalgic at points. That said, one can only be so positive here given that we are talking about one of the worst anime anyone cares about this year.

Speaking of worst things I’ve seen all year, the visuals in this anime are some of the worst to come out of 2019. The character designs (the better ones, at least) are inoffensive enough but that should not be my highest genuine compliment beyond some of the girls being attractive. Even then, the MC’s design is so ridiculous that it’s almost endearing. Sadly, the insanely bold and bright colors damage even that, especially when you consider that the show has to swap from these characters being barely visible in a cave so dark you can barely see a thing, to bright daylight. The contrast with all this in mind is downright eye-searing, so much so that I often needed to squint to the point of closing my eyes in order for my eyes to stop hurting. When you couple this with how poorly drawn, borderline melted their faces are at times, and how comically the show likes to distort the main character’s face, it all just becomes an aesthetic nightmare. It takes 5 episodes for us to reach a setting where the color palette works to the point where the characters aren’t too dark or bright to look at. Even then it sometimes crosses over into squint territory whenever the lighting remotely increases, and the colors are so much brighter in the side characters that they almost feel too bright in the dark labyrinth. To finally get away from the color and brightness complaints, we have the monster designs. They’re ugly as sin both in 2D and 3D. The 2D animation itself is...there. Don’t expect to see it too much and even then, it feels stilted whenever it is there a lot of the time. There are moments where it’s unbelievable like when Hajime unveils his giant rifle in episode 4 and you can see the wrappings linger and only move once every half second. I am not exaggerating. There are two factors that influence the awkward feel of the 2D animation, and they’re the three most noticeably awful aspects of the production: editing, direction, and CGI.

The CGI is child’s play for any anime fan to pick at. The models and are so bad and jarring that any scene with them automatically looks like shit. Their movements are practically nonexistent as well, just being thrown and dragged around wherever the anime pleases. The worst part is that this Berserk 2016 and Overlord-tier CGI is almost as abundant as the 2D visuals of the show, and if both are done terribly, imagine how horribly they blend together. Actually, by the time we get to the hydra in episode 4, it’s safe to say the CG in this anime is Skelter Heaven tier. The abysmal directing exacerbates the problem, as entire shots and camera movements make absolutely no sense, especially in the OP, which is such a monumental train wreck of horrendous visuals and transitions it’s impossible for me to do it justice. Whenever the show isn’t forcing head-scratchingly bizarre shots, everything is just lifeless. The action has no choreography whatsoever and for some reason, the shots have absolutely no flow to them, especially in the first episode. This is where the editing comes in. Characters are constantly teleporting for no reason and while yes, the MC learns a quick step teleportation power, that’s entirely different from the characters randomly and abruptly being in a completely different location or part of a scene for no particular reason. Characters look one way and other characters, monsters, or objects are moving from somewhere other than where the characters are looking at, causing whiplash as we scramble to piece together what’s going on. Entire scene transitions amount to nothing but a fake-out before the same scene abruptly cuts to flashback or to present day. I don’t even wanna tell you how the show fucks up visual gags with shitty zooms and cheap “animation”. These problems are a constant with the show, and while they do enough damage to the visuals as is, they’re also inherently an issue with presentation. Bad presentation can really damage one’s narrative, as this show proudly demonstrates.

The writing in this so bad on so many levels that we have to tackle it in three different ways. First is how the presentation turns the first episode into an incomprehensible shitshow. Then we have how the presentation turns the entire narrative into a jumbled mess. Lastly, there’s how the writing is generic at best and frankly pathetic at worst. I won’t even come close to hitting everything but there’s more than enough for you to get the gist of these issues several times over. I hope you enjoy my extensive coverage and journey of this hellspawn.

For starters, the main character just assumes someone sabotaged him because one of the magic laser blasts in a volley of magic collided and ended up hitting him cuz it was misfired, and because we (barely) see a guy smirking for a brief second. First off, how in God’s name did the MC even see the guy while being assaulted by bright lights, one of which basically hit him? He couldn’t. On top of that, since he could have only seen the volleys of light, and the visuals communicate that one of them just ran into another and hit him due to that collision making it go off course, how did he not see it as anything other than an accident? Sure, he was on death’s door before becoming the white-haired, gunslinging edgelord we know now so of course he feels resent for his situation and would like to blame someone, but the anime presents it as if he knows exactly what happened. WE barely know what’s going on, which is a problem in and of itself! This is a common problem throughout the show, even when it temporarily stops being borderline impossible to follow...at least until the penultimate episode tries its valiant hand at in medias res storytelling one last time and making time and events impossible to follow. There’s almost no context or connective tissue between scenes in this first arc, and entire episodes throughout.

My condolences to anyone who thought they could get into the franchise with this anime because context is not a concept this show understands. Sure, it presents a ton of flashbacks that technically explain on some level how the MC got to where he is, but we have no context for why he and those who teleported with him are doing what they’re doing, or how many of them got there. We barely even know jack or shit about the most basic aspects of the world or character relationships because the anime doesn’t bother explaining any of that and we’re just hit with contextless, incohesive montages, and sequences of characters fighting in dungeons. The sheer lack of personality beyond the most basic of caricature characterization only worsens the issue. Even worse is the fact that the flashbacks are erratically placed, sometimes appearing after a scene that necessitated the flashback beforehand makes a transition, sometimes without any transitions to speak of and without the scene prior even requiring the flashback in any capacity. Vital pieces of information are either relegated to throwaway lines or downright nonexistent, so it’s not like rewatching a second time or thinking about it more will suddenly illuminate everything for you. Doing so somehow leads to more questions. That, in turn, forces you to assume things and go out of your way to try to figure out where anything is in relation to its environment, which kills any semblance of joy you could have just laughing at how jumbled everything is. This is the premiere of your anime for God’s sake! If you want to start in medias res, you have to do it in a way where things make enough sense by the end of it that it isn’t a disorienting, incoherent mess. Otherwise, you end up with this glorious train wreck, one I wish lasted longer than a single episode.

Immediately after episode 1, the show just becomes this obnoxious, tiresome mess as it swaps between perspectives no one gives a shit about, not even going far to make the action sequences with our now mental protagonist exciting in the least. Hell, he loses all of the hilariously crazy edge he had to him, just becoming a no-nonsense tsundere character who points out predictable tropes in this cliche fantasy land while purposely going in the opposite direction of where he needs to in order to even begin getting home. He fell to the 65th floor and instead of going back up he goes down 50 floors in a 100-floor labyrinth. Soon after you start to question that, he reaches what seems like the 100th floor in order to fight a boss and free a vampire loli caricature before they head down even more floors to the actual 100th floor. If that doesn’t make any sense, don’t worry, none of this does! Hell, even when they answer why he’s going down with him wanting to get stronger, we have to ask...why is he even bothering when all he has/wants to do is leave and have nothing to do with anything? There are other easy contradictions and logic problems to pick at within this whole excursion, but you get the point. Also, the way they cut between this and the scenes of the other characters coming back is dreadful as there’s no cohesion, and again, they barely expand on the important context we need to understand what is going on and why, just dumping more and more lore on us and presenting more abilities that are sometimes inconsistent cuz we need the MC to do something cool, or otherwise seemingly irrelevant to what he should be learning.

Speaking of inconsistent, it takes until episode 3 before the show settles on establishing a concrete personality for our MC-kun, or Hajime, if you will. It didn’t even set one up to be broken in the first place because that would require competent writing. We’ll touch back on that real soon. Episode 4 has an insufferable number of death fake-outs which include a contrived scenario where the main character gets blasted nearly to death and only after the monster trying to kill them fires again several seconds later does his partner put up a force field. Said force field is also inconsistent about attacks getting through it and then the rest of the fight sequence is told out of order for no reason. The pair also arbitrarily kiss multiple times because we need nonsensical faux emotional beats, as if there aren’t enough in this episode. I could go on about the asspulls, inconsistencies, and forced drama for the sake of emotional manipulation, but you get the point.

Pacing is another gigantic issue with this anime. Apart from how badly episode 1 utilizes flashbacks, the show has a dismal time deciding what to show and when. It often skips or montages relevant progression, like Hajime’s journey towards being an “edgelord badass”, or the offscreen training his classmates did after their collective failure in the first episode. We don’t even see how or when Hajime gets everything he needs to complete his character design, as we’re instead forced to assume what happened. The two month time skip in episode 5, the fight the classmates have with the enemies they had trouble with in episode 1, and the aforementioned incoherent ordering of events in the second half of episode 4’s big emotional action sequence serve as further examples of how bad the pacing and storytelling is past the first episode. Nothing feels earned from any emotional standpoint due to both these storytelling reasons and the general lack of decent writing, whether that be the classmates in episode 5 overcoming the CGI monsters that gave everyone hell in episode 1, or any of the big moments in episode 4.

All of this sounds bad enough, but it gets even worse when you understand what this anime is trying to be. It’s a light novel adaptation with intents on providing wish-fulfillment via presenting a dark, brooding, angsty yet (selectively) compassionate main character for angsty teenagers to relate to, all while surrounding him with character archetypes, including tons of waifus. They somehow managed to fuck this up so spectacularly that it actually fails at being just generic and trite and becomes an absolute disaster. I’ve complained about shows that fail to even be generic like The Asterisk War, but that was solely on the writing being so broken that it manages to fuck up the easiest of things and make no-effort plots feel convoluted and nonsensical. Arifureta is so horrendously constructed and presented that it’s actually incomprehensible at times. At best, I can say that this show technically did succeed at creating a bunch of archetypes like the classmates and harem girls our main character, Hajime has to deal with. They still didn’t even succeed at properly establishing, breaking, then revamping our main character. Also, no one is even remotely likable, and their interactions are obnoxious, which seems like a given. The only interesting thing about Hajime and the first girl he gets with is that both of them suffer some kind of abandonment and betrayal issues, but again, both characters are hollow, and nothing is told well so it’s difficult to care. Their lack of chemistry makes the emotional character and relationship moments of episode 4 particularly jarring and laughable. By the time we get the gag of Hajime accidentally clenching Yue's butt in bed, I knew that if they told this story properly, it would still be a disaster. It wouldn’t be as corrosive as it is now, but it would still be a tiresome, badly produced, practically broken mess of a show I’d want nothing to do with. If they stuck to making a hilariously jumbled mess that goes all-in on that “edge factor”, then it would be at least amusing. No one wins when the show fails at going both ways, as if the second arc didn’t make it clear that no one involved is coming out of this ok.

Once the first arc concludes after 5 episodes, the series doesn't exactly get better. While the remainder of the show isn’t as broken as the first half (including this sixth episode), it basically stops trying to set itself apart in any way, shape, or form from its contemporaries minus the one small plot thread that lingers throughout, that thread being Hajime’s bitterness towards those who betrayed him. From here on out, the main duo shuffles between absolute pieces of shit and begrudgingly compliant assholes that do things because they’re strung along by the slowly emerging pieces of Hajime’s harem. Obviously, asshole characters forced to lay off the edge and do something worthwhile don’t have to be intolerable but given how annoying the rest of the harem is and given how broken the existing caricatures are, the experience becomes significantly more corrosive than ever before. The conflict the second harem member introduces at the start of episode 6 gets resolved, and the rest of the episode is just montages and dicking around before the main characters have to leave. Said second member, Shea, is her own level of destructive at first. She’s not only annoying on her own, but she brings out a new level of dickishness within the main duo that makes their early interactions some of the worst I’ve seen in any harem or anime period. The interactions do get better rather quickly given that the very next episode gives Shea a time to shine, so at least that’s one bit of positivity in the midst of this sea of bile. To quickly leave that reprieve, I’ll mention that backstory is also pointlessly shoehorned in as it has no connection to anything. It might be one of the most insufferable backstories I’ve seen since it only exists to hamfistedly reinforce the idea of “the outcasts coming together and not being so alone in this world” and tell us Shea’s goddamn name. It’s almost as soul-crushing as the episode itself whose only purpose is to introduce a new, big-tittied waifu, and to set up a point which our main characters will have to return to before completing four more labyrinths which the previous episode established. This is our end goal for the show, and where even many fans of the source material feel the show has gone to shit. Need I say more?

Actually, I do, so I’ll just go through the second half of the show in a more rapid-fire fashion. This review is overly long as it is, and that’s without devolving into a ton of nitpicks like how Shea arbitrarily has a change of clothes somehow between two scenes early in episode 7. Said episode is probably the best episode, as we actually get to see Shea beating people six ways to Sunday and prove her worth to the team after all the shit everyone and their mother gives her. It actually reminds me that sometimes these characters have the potential to be compelling, even if the blatant fanservice gags feel shoehorned in at times even considering her appearance and purpose. On top of that, the way they get jettisoned out of the second labyrinth (yes they got there already because pacing is not something this anime cares about) is actually pretty amusing. From then onwards, it’s back to getting the Steph treatment for her, as if using the absolute worst character dynamic from No Game No Life but with a character who is actually obnoxious this time makes it better than when the aforementioned 2014 anime did it. Episode 8 is a tedious reunion episode with some of Hajime's peers, albeit not the ones he has any beef with. Outside of the arbitrary bit of moment a tertiary character has with Shea, the only bit of note is Hajime's equally arbitrary lore dump he gives as a reason to why he won't come back with everyone. He doesn't even care about this, stating to the person offering him a guaranteed way home that he just wants to find some maverick keys so he can leave. It would have been more interesting and in character for him to just say that he wants nothing to do with some of his classmates.

Episode 9 has a moment meant to make Hajime give an angry pep talk to someone about life, which is meant to be an emotionally resonant and inspiring moment, except dismal pacing, a lack of time, and a lack of exploration of this side of Hajime renders this scene moot. Tio Klarus (ok, why do the subs not match the MAL or AL names again?) makes her appearance this episode to round out the “I love Mr. Edgelord Man” party. She’s the masochist of the group, which we learn firsthand in the most embarrassing sequence I have dealt with all year. Apart from all the masochism nonsense, her nice design, and the fact that the anime can’t keep her nail size consistent within the first scene she’s in her human form, she’s boring and obnoxious. I’m done with the episodic play by play. You get the point and I refuse to cover any more of this now that we have all of the relevant characters out now, 2/3 into the anime’s runtime. You can already deduce that there’s nothing left to talk about and that it’s yet more obnoxious LN cliche gauntlets and insufferable character interactions from the diet version of the Konosuba cast and friends. There’s a bad guy and then another evil lord to be stopped, and we’re gonna meet Kaori and her female swordsman friend from early in the series again because they love Hajime as well and we need to fully assemble the harem by the end of the series all while getting sidetracked with more side quests and lolis! This review is long enough as it is, and I’ve wasted enough of both your time and mine! Fuck everything and everyone! Time for final thoughts!

The saddest part isn’t even that this is one of the biggest anime of its season. It’s that this show was delayed by a whopping 15 months. Imagine how much worse it could have been if we got to see it in its original state! The fact that the original author stated "Every time I was sent scripts and storyboards for the anime over these past few months, I writhed in pain in my room” back in January of 2018 makes that bizarre, alternate reality all the more tantalizing. Perhaps it could have been less incompetent given how there was a different director and team before the shift. Perhaps it could have been even worse given how bland the art style of the original plans looked. Still, it’s hard not to feel bad for everyone involved, fans included. At the same time, it’s hard not to point and laugh at what a dumpster fire this show is before later hating what it became. What it became is a bland, fugly, shitty isekai with nothing to offer but shock value from seeing blood and gore and a crazy turned boring tsun jerkass with a heart of gold. I’d actually recommend watching Re:Zero at that point, disregarding my disdain towards that show. You might even have a better time with Shield Hero, I dunno. Just don’t watch this, not even for the occasional bright spot it may have. Obviously, the manga and LN readers aren’t happy, and people like me who wanted that ironic entertainment are left just as disappointed. Barring those with Digibro’s specific tastes, it pleases no one but the most accepting of anime fans who just wanna see a gunslinging underdog get a harem. The only remaining exceptions are those who are willing to trudge through anything that has the theme of defying a world that hates them, and those who adore the art of baffling, broken direction. If that doesn’t meet the criteria for “so bad it’s horrible”, I don’t know what will.

I wish this was just a single episode OVA instead so we could have ourselves a modern-day Mars of Destruction. It would probably have even worse reception, but it wouldn’t be this pathetic or worthless, and I wouldn’t feel like a donkey after watching it. Now I’m left angrier at myself for being duped than I am at this piece of shit for promising ironic entertainment in a fantasy subgenre devoid of any kind of entertainment value, and then spitting in my face. I’m angrier about that than I am about the show frequently throwing away or otherwise undercutting the potential it constantly brings up for itself, as unbelievable as the phrase “this show has potential” might seem to many here. The review you’re reading right now is the only reason I finished this humiliating train wreck which has been mildly amusing (dare I say endearing) at best and unbearable at worst. Perhaps this show wanted to make it clear that I’m not allowed to have fun with these types of shows anymore, and that any bright spots like the occasionally decent character moment, are just flukes.

Eh, what can you do? Even Big Order stopped being funny bad at some point.

Written and Edited by: CodeBlazeFate
Proofread by: Peregrine

The disappointment of the season. Worst anime of the year. An anime that should never have existed. No matter how many insults I throw at Arifureta, I'm afraid it will never be enough to convey just how loathsome I consider this atrocity.

There are several levels of bad isekai anime. You've got the disappointing kind like How Not to Summon a Demon Lord. Then comes the horrible kind like Kenja no Mago and Isekai Cheat Magician. And then you have Arifureta in a league of its own with not a single competitor in sight. It's so bad that I watched it every week just to ... make myself feel better. I assured myself by saying that anime watching can't get worse so the only way is up. And yet, every week, Arifureta hit new lows that I didn't imagine were possible.

Arifureta literally means "common" or "mundane". But in the anime community, this word is now going to be referred to something which is terrible beyond measure. I think I've watched a decent amount of anime, and in all of those, only a couple of shows even come close to Arifureta in terms of the dreadful watching experience I've had. Arifureta has set the standard as high as possible for a show to be absolutely and unreservedly appalling. This is the kind of show that the rating of 1 on MyAnimeList exists for. An anime series that has no saving grace; something that might make you question why you watch anime at all.

Even after having suffered through 13 episodes of this tragically forsaken show, I can't quite point out what it was or what it wanted to be. I doubt the creators or the studio had any idea either. It's an isekai but what did the author really want this to be? A harem? Yeah, because all the new girls want to fuck Kazuma as soon as they meet him.

The premise of the show has Hajime and his class transported into a fantasy world in order to save it from some sort of disaster that's about to occur. In one of their expeditions, he's betrayed by one of his friends, falls into the abyss of the dungeon and that's where his changes start. He's a weak little boy before falling and then by eating monster's shit and meat, he obtains their powers.

When I was watching the first episode and all of this happened, I honestly thought that the second guy that I was watching wasn't even Hajime. By just eating and drinking some crap, his entire body changed shape, his hair color changed and even his voice wasn't recognizable. Damn, what a transformation. He goes from a weak little guy, who wants to look after his friends, to a strong, monster eating maniac who only thinks about getting stronger. His transformation also boosted the shitty level of his character. He was a normal shit guy before he changed and became a stupidly powerful but even shittier guy afterward.

Suddenly, we've got this overpowered, invincible "protagonist" (if you can even call Hajime that) who's going around the abyss, killing monsters with his guns and snipers, eating them and stealing their abilities for himself. You've gotta be kidding me! How did he even learn to create guns?! He was nothing but a support-type before, and now he's suddenly this all-knowing, omnipotent genius. Terrible, absolutely terrible and irredeemable writing.

So, what was the author thinking when he wrote Hajime? That's a question I'd like answered. His personality changed more times than there are episodes in the season. It's not unpredictable in a good way, no. It's embarrassingly predictable, but it just fluctuates between a guy who wants to save his friends, to one who cares about no one but himself, to caring about a vampire girl he'd just met, to having a dream of going home while caring about no one, to not caring about his former teacher, to caring about his former teacher, to not caring about the friends before his "transformation", to caring about them. It's kind of a cycle that repeats itself in every arc. His attitude towards the people who help him (except towards vampire loli of course) is stupidly obnoxious, and this doesn't change.

Since the second episode of this abomination, the characters that are introduced are nothing but objects to praise and aid our amazingly charismatic Hajime. Let's begin by talking about the naked girl tied to, and hanging from the chains in the opening: Yue. After being saved by Hajime (how surprising), the only reason for her existence is to suck up to him. She doesn't have a single personality trait worth mentioning. She really doesn't. All she's done is help Hajime defeat monsters and get jealous when other girls get close to him. I honestly don't have a clue what else I could write about her.

Moving on to the other characters in Hajime's "party"; first, we've got Shea, a bunny girl whose sole goal in life is to fuck Hajime. Yeah, not much else to her character either. Then, we've got a masochistic dragon girl who'd like to fuck Hajime. Great. And did I mention that Yue wants to fuck him too?

The only character who was even barely relatable, or bearable for that matter, was Kaori Shirasaki, one of Hajime's classmates who'd been transported into another world. She's the character whom Hajime tried to save when he fell and for that, she's shown to bear great responsibility. The emotions she goes through are interesting to watch as she goes from blaming herself to firming her resolve in finding Hajime. Alas, she didn't get too much screentime after those initial few episodes. And even if she did, I doubt it would've made much difference to the overall experience of watching Arifureta.

The full name of this piece of shit show is "Arifureta: from commonplace to the world's strongest". What it fails to mention is that this change happens in the span of one episode. Since episode 2, no enemy's even posed a challenge to Hajime. He and his party members are the only characters on the good side who're not totally useless. Everyone else who's not introduced as the enemy is shown to be weak; pathetically weak. Then, Hajime will appear, act as if helping them isn't his problem and eventually be convinced by one of the girls to help them. And then, we'll see our great hero pull out his guns and shoot down the bad guys with little to no effort. All while the animation hurts your eyes and makes you wonder if you're really in 2019 and not in 1969.

The other characters are so pitifully useless that it made me wonder how the world wasn't overtaken by demons and monsters before Hajime had his little demonshit-eating transformation. I know I've made this point a few times already but I just can't stress enough how stupid and weak anyone else that's not in Hajime's party is.

If there was one anime where the studios deserved shit for their terrible, lazy and disgraceful commitment, this would be it. I don't like to shit on writers or production studios, but for once, I can't say that the deplorable plot or storytelling is the only major reason for an anime to be the crappiest of crap. White Fox and Asread are both massive production studios, especially White Fox. Believe it or not, this is the studio that has produced shows of the ilk of Steins;Gate, Katanagari, Akame ga Kill, Hatarakou Maou-sama and Re;Zero. I'm not a fan of Re;Zero. In fact, I hated it. But that wasn't due to the fault of the studio. The production was top-notch in each of the anime series I've mentioned above. However, for Arifureta, both of these studios share the blame. Big time. I'm not kidding when I say that even Maou-sama Retry! which was produced by a no-name studio had better animation than Arifureta at times. And there's no excuse for this. Absolutely none. The opening was decent as far as the sound goes, however, nothing is noteworthy in the audio aspect either.

If you don't already know, Arifureta was scheduled to air in Spring 2018. Apparently, the production was already underway but because the author of the light novels didn't like what he saw, everything was scrapped and the anime postponed till Summer 2019. The utter lack of responsibility by the producers is mindboggling. They scrapped a series because they didn't like what they saw and the final product of what they "liked" is this abomination. I don't even want to imagine what the thing they scrapped must have been.

Some of the action scenes were so pitifully animated that it hurt my head just watching it. Imagine playing an action game at 10 FPS. That's how awful these action sequences were. This was a result of terrible visuals and sound combined with horrendous direction and a lack of planning. The worst part of the animation is the CGI of monsters, dragons, skeletons, etc. Basically, any enemy that wasn't human had CGI which would make the games from the 90s and early 2000s look great in comparison. Everything from their movements to their appearance was a pain to watch.

Do you want to see a female dragon having a massive rod inserted into her ass? Do you want to see a bunny girl kissing the main character fervently when he was trying to give the girl a mouth-to-mouth CPR? Or CGI so bad that it looks worse than a 1990s game (Heck, even those games had better CGI than the monster battles in Arifureta)? Do you want something to vent your frustration on? Do you want to see what your beloved medium of entertainment looks like at its worst?

Even if the answer to all of the above questions is yes, I'd still not recommend this. It's easily the worst isekai I've watched overall. I may have watched some with just as bad story-telling and characters as Arifureta, but they at least had okay animation. Arifureta doesn't tick the box for being decent in any department, be it characters, story, or animation.

I feel like I'm watching someone grind in an MMO.

This is garbage and I say this as a person that likes the isekai genre.
The thing is, they kinda forgot about the "isekai" part. There's no transportation to another world in this anime because for some reason they skipped it. The pacing is terrible, instead of things playing out as they should they put everything into flashbacks, confusing everyone. And honestly that might have been their goal considering that if you haven't read the source material, nothing in this adaptation is going to make sense. I'm 4 episodes in and if I hadn't read the ... explanations by ln readers, I would be completely lost.

This anime has two major flaws. The first one, is obviously the animation. CG that makes Overlord 3 look good is the norm here. The opening doesn't even have any animation with barely any art, just quickly finished pictures of characters without their faces.

Second, the pacing / story. Sitting through episode 4 was torture. The whole episode was just 1 fight against an unnamed enemy creatures. And that's how it has always been for the most part. The MC just killing random mobs and looting them, sometimes I feel like I'm watching someone grind in an MMO. Because they're monster npc they have no personality and it's just not fun. I'm not saying that fighting against monsters has to always be boring, it COULD have been fun, had the animation been good. But 20 minutes of 1 fight with animation straight from a PS1 game.. oh god kill me.


The whole anime just moves too slowly and that it's number 1 problem. At this point I doubt we will even see him finish the dungeon before the season ends.

Most people seem to be really hating the series for having the 1st ep be a power struggle than the keeps getting cranked up with power. I won't deny that it's unlogical for an anime MC to be getting ridiculously OP by the second however I think most of you are judging before waiting to see what happens. As he mentioned in the ending of the 5th episode he could end up facing god-level threats, as a maverick yes he is OP as it stands but he could get annihilated by gods. On top of all of that this anime gives you the fan service ... (Well more of it is the fulfillment of romance) then most shows. Most shows will string you along until the very end and then some times not even show exactly how it goes, I'm not sure about everyone else but I hate that feeling. (Shield Hero is a good example of what I mean, Raph x Naofumi) P.S. Just because of the fact that he is in love now doesn't mean that won't change. As we've seen before his classmate is seriously in love with him when they are reunited it could mean that sparks fly because of the loli. I'd recommend waiting before everyone jumps down the throat of the maker of the anime, also calling the show trash / whatever seems rather unreasonable. Please wait until we see what happens before you predict the future and write it off as a bad anime.

How should I say this…my first impression of this abomination is: Did studio Asread go creatively bankrupt of anime projects? Is that why they keep producing garbage after garbage all these years? Watching Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou feels like injecting yourself with a lethal dose of poison but you won’t die. Instead, you’re lying there in a pain of agony trying to move on to the next life.

To be honest, I had low expectations before the anime began airing. Red flags were already raised when they made an announcement that the show would be delayed to this year. Normally, people would assume that it’s ... due to production issues and management. However, I don’t buy it. It sounded more like the show didn’t have a well-planned roadmap to begin with and serves more as a mission for cash grab.

Onto the show itself, it follows a similar trend with most isekai in recent years. You know, the protagonist gets transported to another world, taking on the role of a hero, and is given the task of saving the world. The seventeen year old Hajime Nagumo is a type of protagonist you can literally find in just about any isekai anime these days. The plot involves him getting weak stats in a world of danger. To make matters worse, he almost dies after falling into an abyss. After meeting a vampire girl named Yue, he begins to take on this world with her in this dark fantasy adventure. Does this sound exciting? Absolutely not and there’s plenty of reasons why.

First and foremost, there’s absolutely no way we can ignore the atrocious CGI quality of battle scenes and monster designs. There’s some anime that managed to make it work but this show is a fallout of the most hideous models I’ve ever seen in recent years. Every fiber of my being dislikes how the battles look and feel. It’s like one of those early access games you find on Steam where the developers completely abandoned their project after being bombarded with negative reviews. Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou shapes up to be some of the worst looking character designs this season. The fourth episode is a clear example of this. It reminds me of watching one of those Sharktopus trailers on Youtube where everything becomes a meme. Even the author of the series expressed his dislike about the show. To quote what he said, “I writhed in pain every time I was sent scripts/storyboards”. When you have the author disliking their own adapted work, then we have a problem.

Yet, the problem doesn’t stop there.

The scripts and storyboard itself doesn’t make a great impression either. It’s quite the opposite. Hajime’s transformation from a weakling to an anti-hero serves almost no purpose except to make him more badass. His character development is so fast that there’s pretty much no room to improve his character. It’s easy to assume he changes after meeting certain girls in his life but the writing there is meek at best. There’s forced romance between him and Yue that shows the two trying to survive in this apocalyptic world. Not to mention, Yue herself has almost no personality and goes through a similar quick change after meeting Hajime. There’s even one episode where she literally jumps into Hajime to show her affection. What happens after that? You can let your imaginations decide. The storytelling itself also has a lack of direction as I never felt it served much purpose.

The character cast itself is just a cluster of poorly made adventurers. Besides our main leads, we have Shea Haulia, the girl who dresses like a slut with rabbit ears and a bubbly personality. No one can take her seriously especially when she acts like a 4 year old crybaby. The anime doesn’t focus on her development but instead inserts her character as a harem groupie. On the other hand, Kaori Shirasaki is introduced early in the show as somewhat of a normal character. Unfortunately, she has perhaps the dullest personality in the series. Again, the show doesn’t commit on developing her character and by the end of the show, I almost forgot she even existed. Later in the series, we also meet Tio who apparently gets turned on like a masochist. When you have such a poorly written main cast roster, you can forget about the supporting cast such as their annoying teacher Hatayama Aiko. What a disaster. To top it off, this is a 13-episode series based on a novel that ran for hundreds of chapters. Anyone with a functional brain would instantly tell you that there’s no way we can get an acceptable adaptation. Even the episode themselves suffers from pacing issues and there’s no emotional attachment you can feel about the characters, story, art style, or anything.

Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou is an amalgamation of every trashy idea wrapped up into one little package. To recap a few, there’s the atrocious animation quality, faulty character development, the ineffective storytelling, and overall lackluster writing. Character relationship seems like a wish filling fantasy rather than anything realistic or tolerable. People tends to call this type of show generic or cliché but this anime is worse than that. It’s the fact that you feel absolutely nothing once you’re finished with the show besides hoping to get your time back. Sadly, you won’t.

Tl;dr This series is a disaster. If you really want to give Arifureta a try read the Manga or the Novel.

May contain spoilers;


Oh boy, where do I begin with this mess. When I saw this was in production by White Fox 2 or 3 seasons ago I was reasonably hyped for it to come out. White Fox has done reasonably good to great work on other series that I have been reading long before an Anime adaptation happened and with only minor nitpicks at some plot rearrangement with my full understanding that Manga and Anime are essentially marketed to separate(but still overlapping) ... audiences. So I tempered my anticipation with a fare amount of reasonable change but than I watched the first episode... and now I'm past the 4th episode and I'm dropping this series there. This is a total betrayal of the series as well as burning some reputation White Fox had(at least with me) over it.

The good;
Sound design is excellent and clear, all the voices sound appropriate for the characters so far and the opening song Flare by Void_Chords is now a permanent resident on my playlist for just how kickin it is.

The bad;
Hajime's character is completely different from his manga persona, being changed from a traumatized(symbolized by his Marie antoinette Syndrome after eating his first monster), angry, ready for bloodshed at any moment attitude that made him such an antihero of the manga to a mostly neutered re-humanized tragic protagonist. He has, for what I've seen so far, been completely defanged.
Yue has been altered from the much more capable if slightly bratty counter balance to Hajime's ever encroaching psychotic break. She's now a much more meek and soft spoken loli character who seems to be present more for the shows marketing than for the actual story, which is a blatant betrayal of her character when you learn that her roll in the manga is being the primary force that keep Hajime from murder on reflex.
And if these 2 are any indication of character design for the show I have no positive outlook on how Shia or Tio will be played, both most likely will be shoehorned into more marketing rolls as their characters barely resemble who they are in the written works.

The Ugly;
Most of the show. That's not a joke. For a pseudo-RPG Isekai style series the biggest draw for me was the dark and hard art style that really accented what was happening in the story. But Hajime looks flaccid and weak, Yue is still sporting a fur towel(probably because Waring Hajime's trench coat wouldn't be TV appropriate, even though its a staple part of her character design after she gains her own set of clothes), and the monsters being in CG being the biggest design mistake. They look nothing like their manga counterparts and look either ridiculous our outright pathetic(in the case of the Gale Bear and the Hydra).

If you where coming into this series completely blind, with your only knowledge of it being its MAL score and synopsis, you would probably passively enjoy it and give it a 5 or a 6. If you started this series because you read the Novel or the Manga and where hoping for just another way to enjoy the series from a studio that HAS done good work in the past, than like me; you have been betrayed. Read the Manga or the Novel and hard pass on this Anime.

This anime is really bad. Everything about it is horrible. The CG is horrible. The acting is terrible. Every frame looks confusing as hell. But if theres one thing that Arifureta does well, is that it makes you laugh. The ugly looking CG and the confusing scenes are absolutely hilarious. Of course in the first few minutes of the show, you are just left confused. But after you start expecting it and take the whole thing as a joke, it is the funniest thing ever. This is very similar to Garzey's wing. But unlike Garzey's wing, where only one episode was really funny, this show ... consistently finds new ways to be awesomely horrible. Best comedy show of the year, no of the century. 10/10 guarantees laughs any day.

Also Yue is hella hot

I can see why people hate this show but I actually enjoyed it. Of course this show was definitely not perfect. It had many problems. Minor spoilers if you haven't seen it.

One of the problems was the animation. I didn't like that they used CGI for all the monsters, it just made them look all weird and not intimidating. I did like the character designs so I will give them props for that.

The second is how it started. I have read the first light novel and will be reading the rest soon, but how the show started was much different from the light novel. They ... didn't add new content to the anime that they light novel didn't have, its that the anime started when they were in the new world and that not how the light novel started. Light novel started with them at there school, anime really doesn't show anything about them being in school and I think they shouldn't have done that.

What I did like about this show is the story. That is what made the show watchable for me. If it wasn't for the story, I probably would have drop it a long time ago. They story is interesting, its not like every Isekai out there.

If you have trouble with animation not being that good then you shouldn't watch this anime. If you like a good story even if it is a bit jumble up then you should definitely check out this anime

After watching 4 episodes of this show, I got to say that the story and character so far has been really well. However, the way they use that ultra cheap 3D animation on some enemies, just ruins it all... i find it hard to look away when it all looks so goofy at times. I understand that it might be to much work painting it all, if you dont have the budget for it, but in my opinion, i would rather see some less detailed monster, than a horrific attempt on a 3D monster in a world where everything else is painted.. hopefully there wont ... be 2 many 3D animated enemies in the episodes to come

Arifureta is an awful anime.

BUT! Underneath its anemic story and banal characters, there’s something you might not expect…..More. F—kn’. Awfulness. In fact, one needs to descend through 65 layers of crap before anything worthwhile reveals itself. Prior to crossing that bridge, however, let’s dissect the multitude of flaws with this ‘cookie-cutter,’ cliched Isekai.

As is the case with any self-proclaimed Isekai, Arifureta features an unimaginative main character — Hajime Nagumo — who starts off as a weak bitch, but eventually levels up to a Pirate/Terminator/1800’s Banker/NSYNC Justin with the frosty tips/phony bad-ass, to fight cannon fodder on his way ... to his eventual harem (trope #1). A harem that he has no interest in, of course, because ‘no guy wants to be chased’ (trope #2), they want to do the chasing. Which, speaking honestly, makes sense, but is thrown out of proportion when every ‘gorgeous’ babe flings her virginity at Hajime.

Aside from being a chick magnet (trope #3), Hajime has ‘game breaking’ powers (trope #4) that allow him to swiftly acquire new abilities — and bitches — by eating monsters (a sadistic copy of “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime’s” absorptive powers). His only aspiration is to escape the dungeon in which he finds himself in (trope #5) and with the aid of his OP powers (trope #6), he was all but assured to accomplish his goal — rather easily, I might add. In addition, he is shown to be a clueless jerk throughout the series (trope #6), and will deliberately hurt other girls feelings for the sake of comedic relief. Eventually, though, it is revealed that Hajime’s brooding, uncaring disposition is a veil to cover up his ‘heroic’ deeds; a classic anti-hero (trope #7), with none of the redeeming qualities.

The other main characters in Arifureta are classic tropes that have been utilized numerous times. Yue is a flat-chested, tsundere (trope #8) who is standoffish to everyone except Hajime (who she willing takes her clothes off for). Shia is a well-endowed furry, with a membership to the Hajime groupie club. And Tio is a pervert who uses her boobs as clickbait, in hopes that Hajime will delete his cookies on her.—Ewwwwwwwesome!

In terms of the animation, I was going to equate it to a smelly turd, but that would be an insult to all the smelly turds that didn’t reek half as much as this. The 3D animation of the dragon (Tio) in episode 9 was so awful and jankey, that I wanted to shove a metal rod up the person’s ass who animated dat shit!…Wait, maybe that’s what they want. The character designs were generally weak, and the backgrounds were unremarkable. You may be wondering, then, what silver lining could anyone see in this unmitigated disaster?

One word: nanar.

Which, according to ‘urbandictionary.com,' can either refer to the most beautiful girl in the world or a movie so bad that it is good. Seeing that Arifureta does not have Margot Robbie, however, we’ll have to go with the latter definition. Therefore, Arifureta finds itself in the company of ‘Batman & Robin,’ ‘Skelter Heaven,’ and ‘Mars of Destruction,’ for being an unintentional laugh riot due to its exquisite repugnance. The fact that Hajime shot a bear and ate his arm in front of him, should be sufficient to validate this claim.

While a preponderance of Arifureta’s hilarity is derived from unintentional circumstances, there are moments that are deliberate and well planned out. They are few and far between, but when they do land, they are pure gold. In episode 8, while eating his lunch, Hajime decided to shoot a guy, for no other reason than being annoyed by him (mind your f—kin’ manners, son!). Then, in episode 10, instead of being benevolent to Shimizu (an evil wizard) and giving him a second chance, Hajime straight-up murdered that dweeb, because…he was an evil wizard (duh!). Which is an interesting phenomena, in and of itself. Because while Arifureta built itself up on classic tropes, it displayed a willingness to break them from time to time, especially when Shimizu called Hajime an edge-lord straight to his face (causing Hajime to foolishly look behind his shoulder, as if Naofumi from Shield Hero would be standing there). Of course, Arifureta’s deconstruction is nothing compared to Neon Genesis Evangelion; nevertheless, it was effective in its own way.

With that all said, we have quite the predicament on our hands. On one side of the equation, we have the unmistakable stench of a putrid iskeaki that is laden with tropes, inane battle tactics, and horrendous animation; and on the other side, we have an (un)intentional comedy that intermittently points out the flaws of the isekai genre, itself. Arifureta is simply too objectionable to be called ‘good,’ but, at the same time, too funny to be called ‘bad.’

Let’s call it: Ewwwwesome! (5/10)

"Masterpiece Novel got misunderstood because of the bad adaptation"

Arifureta is one of the few series that got really popular in Japan by just a novel, it got 3 Audio CD before the anime announcement and the sell is so good when compared to other popular anime series

for the Anime, it got really bad storytelling on ep1 (much better on ep2+). for the animation and visual side, it around average and it still enjoyable

for those people who have been told or heard that "the author is so picky about the staff so the anime got delay by 1 year and the animation got worst lol" well, ... trust me the current version is thousand times better than the first version

give the manga a short, if you want more then the light novel, if you want even more then the web novel.
I swear with my life, it worth your time

This really doesn't seem like anyone's cup of tea to be honest. But I didn't mind it so much. The animation isn't a problem for me, as it is for some. So if you're not too picky on that, then you won't be bothered by that supposed flaw.

The characters aren't that bad either. Sure there are issues. But if we just focus on the main main cast, then it's not a problem.

My only real problem with this show, is that it's pacing is a little eeeeeeeh.

I will say, if you're going into this and expecting something like Shield Hero. Then you're mistaken. It's ... not a bad anime, but wouldn't say it's great either so far.

Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou (2019)

This anime is being slated by many people out there. If you go into it with an open mind ignoring the fact of the guns, vehicles, crazy weapons at times and the CGI which is not the best then it is a good enough series.

A bit different from most Isekai in that after our main character gets betrayed because a cute girl likes him he is thrown into despair and becomes like a villain. He builds up a group (all girls, of course, so a harem). He then gets insanely strong very quickly but that is not unusual but ... you do see his despair and hate grow. He actually takes up a girls offer of love which is uncommon and recognises the other girl's feelings towards him which again is uncommon. He fights to get home and is OP.

The art used in the series is good enough for the most part but the CGI used is a bit old in style. It is similar to the DanMachi CGI for monsters but it comes off a bit worse since DanMachi has a superb story and the rest of the art is great. It is watchable though and you can still enjoy it even with a bit of lacklustre.

The sound used is alright. The OP and ED are good for the series. The sounds used throughout are nice and the Voice Actors were selected well.

Characters develop well enough. The main Group with our protagonist get the backstories and the critical points that led their lives to this situation. We also get our other heroes the rest of the class develop where needed and know intentions very quickly.

The show itself is enjoyable. It isn't a typical Isekai like I said. It has a protagonist who RECOGNISES a girls feelings and is although OP at least he starts off weak and you can understand how things changed as he goes on.

Season 2 is announced so all the haters need to see that enough people do enjoy the show and hope that is enough credit to get people watching this first season.

Production horror, disagreements between newbie novelists and production staff, and horribly bad animation. That's all I have to say about this trash of a shitshow that if handled correctly, it could really turn out to be a decent show, honest to God.

When this show was greenlit for an anime adaptation in 2017, the Isekai trend was just taking off, and seeing the massive successes and failures of shows we've seen up until this point, it seemed like all was destined for good. Alas, novelist Ryo Shirakome, being a newbie in the anime industry, you could say that it was part of his fault when the ... production staff at White Fox didn't had the prowess to showcase his work properly. Remember, Goblin Slayer was White Fox's upcoming work in Fall 2018, so in light of multiple shows made by the same studio, to understand how shitty this situation was, he scrapped it all and went under Asread's direction and the production staff was refurbished and the deadline to finish this show's production in less than a year. That's how we've known this show by its interior and shoddy work these past 3 months.

But before that, stating another case, the whole story plot was also butchered to the max, for most LN/manga fans of this series to cry foul at skipping content, which for context, is essential to understanding the world-building within the fantasy elements of the show's overall feel and look, that gives it a good setting. Instead, the production staff cut too many corners and just went for gold rather than work their way progressively. The notion of "act first, think later" doesn't work AT ALL well with such mediums.

However, with that being said, the characterization is what suffers from the same plague of the show. Even for both the MC, his shenanigan of a group, plus the other worthless classmates who got transported to another world for no reason other than to dispel the evil forces within that world. This is made even more compelling that the MC, 17-year-old Hajime Nagumo, is the "cursed" one, the powerless one with no skills to boot, whilst all the other classmates are blessed with powers. Being abandoned for the support role, his unfortunate destiny from being commonplace and beating his way up to becoming the world's strongest is in progress

And meeting him is the (seemingly) "harem" of girls he's come to team up with, range from seemingly strong to being irritating to the point I would want to compare this to KonoSuba (you know, Kazuma and Co.). Yue, the sealed vampire of the labyrinth, once touted as a threat to the entire dungeon and the people of the world, Hajime never saw her as one that he could exploit (after his days of fighting monsters alone for time millenia), but rather one that is meek and be a worthy teammate and a great (love) support alongside one another. Bunny Girl Shea on the other hand, she is literally a dickhead version of Darkness with the mix of Megumin, both in prowess and capability. Even though she, like Hajime, is unfortunate that her anthropomorphic species got plummeted by monsters too, and is left to fend for her own with the rest of the suriving bunny demihumans. And whaddya know, joining Hajime is the only way to ensure that she can come out as strong as both him and Yue. To add another insanity to the mix, Tio, the anthropomorphic dragon with an ass SO BIG it's completely visible to Hajime for sticking his rod in. I mean, WTH. To add more claims to her, she is just as I thought: a much more raunchy version of Darkness being attached to Kazuma...er I mean Hajime. Despite her OP powers similar to how Yue wields it, as much as she is a bastardised version of Darkness, her clicheness doesnt really "hole" up all that well.

And don't get me started on the classmates. Bastards in their own way, only looking out for themselves at the beginning, to forgo without Hajime, and then reaping the intense karma that is his OP self being more capable than them all combined.

Studio Asread, which primarily does ugly and bastardized 3DCG work these days, this show harkens me back to the previous work they did, which was Lord of Vermilion (and look how that show tanked and bombed hard, just read my review about it). It seems that the people there didn't know the baseline of a decent production, even though they had less than a year to refine this show to the novelist's standards, plus TV production also. And before you ask, White Fox's involvement is just with the scraps of the done animation, all else is Asread. So I'm really hoping not to see their name in the production space again.

The only praise i can give this show to, is the OST. Especially the OP, Void_Chords once again deliver with a powerful song, and plus that, a fully English song I've come to expect since the days of Princess Principal, and it's just as great as I thought. The ED is average, only fine though. The battle scenes (or the BGM rather) is one of folly, another area of forgettable production.

Even though a sequel has been announced, I'd really like to give ANOTHER chance to this series if it was remade, reworked and redone by a different studio and production staff, because that would have made ALL THE DIFFERENCE. For now, I can only say that I've wanked my time with this show hard, and hoping that Season 2 will make it justice once again. PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, make Arifureta great again.

The best isekai paint honest portraits of otakuism. Classics of the current movement like Re:Zero and Mushoku Tensei use the isekai premise to examine what their otaku protagonists want, what they need to grow as people, and how aspects of their otaku identity can help and hinder that growth. They present a holistic understanding of their subject matter through the lens of isekai.

Arifureta paints a portrait every bit as honest, though not on purpose.

Do not mistake my recommendation for a positive critical assessment. By the standards of any reasonable critic, Arifureta is terrible. It’s a juvenile power fantasy with all around horrible production values, and ... no thematic depth or interesting plot mechanics to compensate. But a straightforward critical assessment misses most of what Arifureta has to offer.

Manga and light novel authors have a surprising amount of control over adaptations of their work. Due to a quirk in Japanese copyright law (Moral Rights or jinkaku-ken), authors often have the authority to approve or disapprove adaptations and fan works.

This is often a positive force, it’s what allowed Takehiko Inoue to hold out on Slam Dunk adaptations until he could personally sit in the director’s chair - the result being The First Slam Dunk, the best sports anime of all time. Arifureta represents the opposite side of that coin, having swapped studios from the reliable White Fox to the reliably terrible asread. last minute on the author’s demands.

To fans of Arifureta, this was a horrible curse that doomed the anime to failure. I won’t deny this made the anime worse, White Fox’s isekai adaptations most proximate to Arifureta’s production, Re:Zero and Cautious Hero, are both impressive technically, and that quality would no doubt improve Arifureta in a straightforward critical sense. But Arifureta is not an anime that cannot be assessed straightforwardly.

I could write pages on how bad Arifureta is, but I’m not here to do that. Nobody is interested in hearing a teardown of Arifureta. I’m here to make a much more difficult case, to zealously advocate for Arifureta as one of the greatest works of garbage media ever crafted.

I try to be fair to fans of works I criticize, so to fans of Arifureta: I get it.

After 25 episodes + 4 OVAs, I kind of love the cast’s dynamic, and the larger plot isn’t a conceptual failure. Hajime is fighting god, and his class is fighting in the war that god puppeteered. That’s an interesting structure. I understand what a good version of this might look like, but Arifureta is not that show.

Arifureta’s garbage CG, consistently off model characters, underlit backgrounds, and bland art direction make it impossible to take anything it presents seriously. That takes the uncomfortable edge off all of the show’s uncomfortable edginess. We watch the protagonist kill people for no reason, and are able to laugh at it since it’s so incompetently presented. In a backwards way, the poor production makes the show more enjoyable.

Much of the edginess stems from our protagonist, the coolest mf ever, Hajime.

He’s so badass and edgy that he just kills people for no reason in like, every episode. He declines every side quest he’s offered, waffles about if he should bother saving hundreds of lives at minimal personal cost. Then he accepts every one anyway. And that occupies about 20% of the show’s runtime. You could say that’s real annoying, I say that’s just the cost of edge.

You see, Hajime was betrayed, shot into the depths of a labyrinth by his bully. Then he got his fricking arm blown off by a bear, and had to start eating monsters raw to survive, and that gave him sick ass monster abilities, and made his hair white for some reason. The production staff made the striking choice to make monster blood piss yellow btw. He also gets a demon eye at some point (like Rudeus Mushoku Tensei), but I forgot why.

His whole class thinks he’s dead, except for this one healer girl who had a crush on him pre-isekai, who made a promise to protect him or something.

This is a genius set up for escapist wish fulfillment. Isekaing his entire class allows Arifureta to tap into the high school social dynamics its presumed target audience is escaping from, and making them all think he’s dead creates fertile ground for interesting encounters when he reunites with them only for them to realize he's become the coolest mf ever and has a harem and a daughter and is willing to murder people for no reason and has a cool ass eyepatch and has 100 cool ass guns and a fricking pile bunker and a motorcycle and a humvee and white hair and a 13 inch penis (presumably).

The personalities in that harem are pretty cool too, epic even. Not going to bother describing them though, would take too many paragraphs.

There’s more to this anime than Hajime and his harem though, supposedly.

Right, plot. Arifureta’s plot is impressively shameless, and I really only need one anecdote to illustrate that, so here’s 6:

Hajime's bunny girl companion almost drowns (after randomly seeing a talking fish) so he mouth-to-mouth resuscitates her, only for her to leg lock him out of nowhere and start frenching him.

Hajime beats a dragon by shoving a pole up its ass, then the dragon starts talking and moaning + begging him to stop, but he pushes it further in (he doesn't give a fuck). This is all in front of his teacher and classmates by the way. Then the dragon turns into a human and joins his harem (serving as resident Darkness clone).

Hajime rescues a mermaid child from a ring of slavers (who somehow kidnapped her from a city in the middle of the ocean). Then he jumps into the sky carrying her and says “look at these fireworks” and blows up all of their hideouts. The mermaid child then stops calling him “onii-chan” and starts calling him “papa”. Upon conclusion of this arc, all of the Hajime harem members simultaneously ask him to impregnate them.

Hajime mouth to mouth resuscitates his teacher (whose legs start squirming around halfway through), then he shoots his classmate in the face as he's already bleeding out. His harem congratulates him for this gracious act of kindness (shooting him means his teacher won’t feel responsible, or something).

The bunny girl gets covered in slime then nutted in the face by dungeon traps.

There’s also this one part where Hajime is throating meat in a dungeon, really chowing down, and that one goofy running sound effect plays. That went hard.

What goes harder than the meat is the soundtrack, which combines electronic and jazz elements. That works surprisingly well with the light dark fantasy vibes. That’s like, the single genuine point of praise you’ll find in this review.

The note this anime ends on is truly remarkable. As Hajime drives into a random desert on his magic humvee with his full 4 member harem + mermaid daughter, he narrates the following badass (definitely not cringey) line:

"All who get in my way are my enemies, and I kill all my enemies, even if they're a god".

I just wrote that from memory, so it’s probably wrong, but as an indiscriminate killer myself, it speaks to me.

This batshit insanity props up all of the boring set dressing surrounding it. We never get opportunities to think about how hollow the world building is, or how almost every character outside the main harem has no defined personality. Any time you’re at risk of getting bored, an explosion happens, or an inexplicable fanservice scene, or Hajime shoots someone in the face in front of all their friends.

In its bumbling ineptitude, Arifureta paints a more honest portrait of garbage isekai and the wishes of contemporary otaku than better anime could ever hope to match. If Re:Zero and Mushoku Tensei appeal intellectually and critically, Arifureta appeals on the basest lizard brain level. If you’re the type of person that works for, it’ll be fun as hell (at least when it isn’t boring).

You should absolutely give it a watch, especially if you’re one of those annoying people who thinks Luffy should just kill all the villains, you’ll get a real kick out of it.

This show doesn't know what kind of show it wants to be so it left it so that it could be any kind of show. You find out that it is an isekai and that the entire class was transported, but you dont see the actual isekai event. It is like playing an rpg where someone else has played the first few levels for you and you are just continuing from there.

Story is horribly done including the attempts at comedy and fanservice.
The art is below average.
The characters don't feel unique. Especially the main characters.

The best way that I can describe this anime is ... that someone is trying to take their favorite parts of all the anime they have watched and put it all together, but they also missed several details

This is an isekai that is so poorly done that I created an account to leave this review so that others don't waste their time.

(no spoilers)

Alot of other reviews already mention how badly this story is explained,
It's isekai but you don't even know because they skipped it, character development is insanely rushed, it takes only one episode for the entire character development to shift which is unrealistic and pulls you out of the story to say the least...

Anyhow lackluster story aside;

Imagine the worst CG you've ever seen, and then this anime does it worse, fight scenes feel like you are watching a plastic doll on a screen.

Just when I thought this anime could not possibly get any worse, episode 6 is a recape episode. Yeah, because I totally forgot ... what happened 4 episodes ago? This anime is a good contender in my worst anime of all time ranking.

Arifureta..... This anime was actually really enjoyable and it is very luck tat it ended u[p being this fun to watch. Yeah, the story could be better it's not very special and it feels kind of rushed, but I still love this show I think I heard they only had like half a year to make the show because The original creator of the manga didn't like how they did it at first. So they had to start over on their own I can respect the hustle.

Story 7
The story isn't fully there its just does feel kind of empty sometimes and there are some ... plot holes, but not as much as there should be. The story does feel rushed at some parts but the show makes it up with there characters.

Art 10
Obviously art is subjective I think it looks really nice the animation studio did a good job with that. the art looks very smooth. I think nagumo looks the best out of all the characters, just because I haven't seen anyone who looks like him. There probably is someone in another anime that does look like him but I haven't seen them.

Sound 10
It sound like any other anime. But when it come to OP, ED, and OST Arifureta has one of the best it has a classy jazz feel to it. The opening is one of my favorite it is in English and I miss English openings. You don't see those often anymore. The ED is good too, It is not as good as the OP or the OST but it is still exceptional. The OST Is very good I like the saxophone that plays when nagumo fight one of the monster.

Characters 10
Characters can also be subjective. My favorite character is Nagumo, it was just really fun watching him I like his attitude in the anime. He doesn't spare the enemies and I can respect that because I hate watching a show and The Mc just lets the enemy get away. Some OP anime characters are not good in my opinion, I don't like kirito or the guy from Isekai Wa Smartphone. The other characters are good too but I think Nagumo carries the show.

Enjoyment 10
I enjoyed this show the whole time I was watching it. I love the concept of the Mc getting betrayed by their allies Thats probably the reason I like shield hero. I finished the whole show in one day. I don't do that for a lot of animes. It was just enjoyable for me.

Overall 9
I was impressed when I first watched this, obviously a lot of people don't like this show and that is perfectly fine. Overall I loved it and I'm excited for season 2.

"Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest" certainly lives up to its name: it's about a commonplace synergist character named Hajime, who can't fight and basically can only transmute rocks, and his change into an OP gun-toting badass killing machine straight out of Devil May Cry! There are a ton of isekai (transported to another world) anime that have been coming out lately, but I wanted to let you know that you'd be missing out if you skipped Arifureta! I've seen the 5 episodes that are out so consider this a preliminary review.

Story: 5/10. This is as generic as an isekai gets: Hajime and his homeroom ... are transported to a fantasy world and are fighting so they can return home. Actually, the fact that his whole class comes with him is a novel concept, but sadly they don't go into that much. Hajime is separated from his class early on and so the class basically becomes background characters. Hajime is betrayed by some people early on and eventually adopts this "screw the world" attitude, similar to Naofumi in Rising of the Shield Hero, but Shield Hero just executed this idea a lot better. See, Naofumi was accused of an awful crime he didn't commit, which basically ruined his life in this new world and turned everyone against him, giving him pretty good reason to be surly all the time and not trust anyone. By comparison, Hajime really doesn't have as much justification for this attitude.

Character: 7/10. There was a lot of missed potential here. It this show had actually developed every member of Hajime's class and showed how they were dealing with life in this new world I'd probably give it a 10/10 for doing something I haven't seen in an isekai. Sadly we only focus on Hajime and Yue, the male and female leads. Hajime is a bit of a bland OP isekai protagonist you've seen before, but his action lines and scenes are so cool it's hard not to like him. My only gripe with Hajime is his sudden shift in personality (and hair color) from episode 1-2. I feel like if the show had slowed down and taken its time with his transformation from wimp to badass it would've been a lot better. I really like Yue, the adorable loli vampire, who can still be a badass in her own right.

Art: 6/10. The art and animation is done by Studio White Fox (of Goblin Slayer and Re:Zero fame) and it looks good for the most part. All of the character designs are appealing. I really like Yue's design with her golden hair and piercing red vampire eyes. I love all of the monster designs, especially the seductive plant monster in episode 3. No, the main reason I had to drop the score is because of the intrusive BAD CGI that is used for certain monster battles. In particular I am thinking of the hydra Hajime and Yue fight in episode 4, that looks like it walked out of a PS2 game. The jump from 2D animation to bad 3D CG is so jarring I'd say it puts Berserk (2016-17) to shame! It's that bad!

Sound: 9/10. The soundtrack in Arifureta is superb. I remember turning up the volume during fight scenes because I loved the battle music so much. The OP deserves special mention because it is simply gorgeous and one of my favorite OP's of all time now. Arifureta's theme features sexy jazz/sax music accompanied by beautiful English vocals that never slips into "Engrish" is you know what I mean.

Enjoyment: 8/10. Honestly there are things in this show that either don't make sense or aren't explained well. Why didn't Hajime die from blood loss after his arm got ripped off? If eating the monsters you kill in this world gives you a power boost, why doesn't everyone do it? Shouldn't there be a ton of white haired gun-toting badasses like Hajime then? Anyway, none of that matters because you're gonna watch this anime for the sick action and sexy music, and "turn your brain off" like I did. During this season of isekai anime, I recommend the "Two-Hit" mom isekai for a comedy show, but I choose Arifureta if you want action goodness.

I was gonna give Arifureta an overall score of 8/10 but when I thought about the terrible CGI in certain episodes, and I remembered just how damn confusing and poorly paced episode 1 was, I had to dock it down to a 7/10.

Our main character is transported from another world to one of fantasy with his class. In this world he gets a somewhat useless magic skill and has to fight in a labyrinth. He gets betrayed by one of his classmates, falls down a deep hole causing everyone to think he is dead and this is where our main story starts. Im rushing through all of this because the show does too.
In this hole he is forced to eat monsters to survive, he learns that eating monsters gives him more and useful powers so he goes on a killing spree to get more powers and we ... follow him from there.

The story is hard to follow because it is as if they are trying to get through 5 chapters of the source material every episode. On top of that according to manga readers they are cutting a lot out. At this point people watch it more to make fun than anything else.
That and it has a 300 year old loli.

What also doesn't help the show is it's cgi. It is as if they does not even try to blend in with the 2d characters and background including the characters weapons. It is very uncanny, if you thought you saw bad cgi before you didn't know how low the bar could be.

Overall, keep your expectations low if you watch this and treat it more like a weird comedy. That or read the manga because that was popular before this anime.