Hachi-nan tte, Sore wa Nai deshou!

There’s nothing wrong about anime with clichés, even when they have been milked to death. Some clichés are actually cleverly executed in the case of deconstruction of certain themes or plot elements. Character study can also play its cards right and make an anime look beyond what it really is. But when the time calls for Hachi-nan tte, Sore wa Nai deshou to shine, it completely destroys itself and achieves absolutely nothing than wasting our time.

Trying to find anything appealing about this show at first glance isn’t easy. The key visual is covered by generic looking characters and an isekai based protagonist. The synopsis reads ... like most isekai fantasy plot you’ve heard of these days. Oh but there’s political drama! Perhaps that could change the phase of the show, right? Wrong. This anime adheres to what most people assumes and it’s like part of a genetic code. The DNA formula for this show connects the most boring possible themes in the show with an even degenerate cast of characters.

Shingo Ichinomiya is the main protagonist who takes on the role of Wendelin after waking up in a fantasy world. From the beginning, he is portrayed as a character with potential and it’s up to himself to unlock them. Thanks to Alfred Reinford’s tutorage and his own determination, Wendelin evolves into a gifted mage and even forms his own party of adventurers. And if you guess it right now, you’re right. It’s a group of female adventurers and easy to paint them as members of his harem. This is where the show takes the fall as the main female cast in the show is hammered with lazy writing. Let’s start with Elize, the priestess and perhaps most pure member of Wendelin’s party. Here, she’s portrayed with a kind heart but lacks any distinctive traits outside of her healing abilities. Louise, the martial artist fills the role of the physical fighter in the party. Somehow, the show wanted to make her into a comic relief by inserting embarrassing jokes. She also shares a rivalry with Ena, a spear wielding girl with a tomboyish personality. At first glance, she would appear to be someone capable of being a poster girl of the show but as every episode progresses, it’s hard to imagine anything noteworthy to say about Ena. She’s just another member of Wendelin’s harem added for the sake of a harem. And finally, there’s Wilma, a character that I can safely say has no personality. Debuting late in the story, Wilma’s character role brings out some of the worst parts of the show including her gluttonous appetite and offering absolutely nothing relevant. With such a character cast, I’m afraid this show hits the lowest common denominator even for a fantasy isekai.

If you’re in a mood to watch a fun fantasy plot, then prepare for the worst. It’s even less fun when watching these characters engage in political drama between the higher class nobles. One of the more prominent subplot involves a political marriage between Wendelin and Elize. As fate has it, she develops genuine feelings for him and their relationship evolves beyond just politics. But unfortunately, this series doesn’t have time to fully develop that relationship. It instead jumps around between subplots by introducing elements such as martial arts tournaments, hired bodyguards for Wendelin, and other requests such as monster hunting. Between every episode, it seems the show never knows what it truly wants and fails to get us invested into the main story. Viewers will be left with concerns on how weak the plot develops until they just give up. That’s how I felt anyways by the time this anime even reached its half way point. To adapt a large volumes of novels into a 1-cour (12 episodes) anime is nothing but a recipe for disaster.

There’s more than one ways to adapt a show but the studios behind this project didn’t exactly step up to the plate for its character designs or overall look. To appeal the audience, it needed a distinctive character cast even if it means their physical features. It’s sad to say but the show limited itself with a universally dull looking character roster. Every female character has a similar face and molded with lackluster dress codes. Sometimes, the anime tries to bring out their features with decorative clothes but in the end never hits its expectations. Even the monsters look insufferable such as the CGI dragon and the horrid zombies. The only saving grace for the show’s art style is the occasional world fiction that seems plausible at best.

It’s not going to be a satisfying watch. I’ll say this as straightforward as possible but if you want to explore something from the fantasy genre catalog, this isn’t one to aim for. From the lazy plot writing to the uncharismatic character cast, there’s little Hachi-nan tte, Sore wa Nai deshou will offer to the audience. Do something better with your time and don’t recommend this to your friends, or in fact, anyone.

*[This review contains spoilers]*
Another trashy Isekai anime? Are you kidding me? Some people say that for some anime you need to turn off all the logic, but for this anime? You need to turn off basically your entire brain.

You know, I'm not that hard to impress, if you give me an anime where the MC is OP and perfect, gets all the girls, and has enough fan service to satisfy my boner, the anime is automatically more than a 5 for me. So how did this happen? Why'd I give 8th son a 2 even though it meets all those requirements (Except for the fan ... service part)? After I watched the 8th son I went to Isekai Smartphone and increased the score to a 6. Yes, that really happened. This anime has the potential to beat Kenja no Mago and Death March to obtain the title of the worst Isekai anime of all time.

I don't want this review to sound like a rant so I'm gonna get right into the story. The story is just like any other generic Isekai, except this time the MC is actually born into a family of Nobles, a poverty stricken family of nobles. Now let me start from the beginning, the MC is a 25 year old Isekai'd into a 6 year old's body. Apparently his mind is also equivalent to a 6 year old's, normally you'd expect him to act a bit more mature. Up until now the anime looked somewhat unique, until it started fucking itself up. He finds out that he has a really high aptitude for magic. He meets a zombie in the forest who isn't actually a zombie but technically is a zombie because he held a deep regret inside of him that made him a zombie, his regret was that he always wanted a disciple so he could pass the magic he learned 30 years ago to his disciple. Too bad they literally killed him in 2 episodes, fucking 2 episodes. Sadly he was the only likeable character in the whole anime.

And now, time for the classic Isekai trope, the timeskip. It has been 7 years. Keep in mind that the MC is originally a 25 year old, so after the timeskip he is supposed to be mentally 32 years old. Everyone matures when they hit 30, right? RIGHT? Or so I thought... The MC is the same clueless bastard as he was 7 years ago. He goes to the Adventurer's Academy or some shit but he fails at making any friends, because like 90% of the trashy Isekai anime MCs this MC is uncommunicative as well. "Cho-cho-tto ma-ma-tte. Haaaaa? Eugh??" That's all he says in the entire anime, at least thats what I've heard.
The MC is a god damn deaf idiot, he went to Adventurer's Academy but all the other students were intimidated by him, but apparently the MC thought that no one wanted to talk to him because he was weird. Even though most of the time there are people who are loudly saying how they want to impress the MC and shit but he is completely zoned out, he cannot hear shit.
Somehow the 2 girls and that one boy become his party members, and then some other stuff happened, lots of blah blah, boring mid tier fight scenes, and that's about it for the story. I'd suggest you to watch the rest of the shit show yourself, but at the same time I suggest you never watch this anime unless you want to put yourself through misery.

The MC is apathetic to how nobility works, he lived in a family of nobles for 7 years, right? So he must have some sense about nobility, right? Nope, absolutely none. He gets surprised at every little thing and the concept of nobility gets a "holding a torch in front of a caveman" kind of reaction from him.
At one point of the anime, the MC got a choice to literally summon anything, ANYTHING, apparently there was some kind of magic circle capable of summoning anything the user images by using a huge amount of magic power. So what does the MC-kun summon? At first he summons panties, what does he summon next? Tuna, fucking tuna fish, god damn tuna fish, so he can eat it with soy sauce. I'm done with this anime.

The girls in the harem? They are literally one dimensional, they have 0 depth. They are emotionless. I love when the anime tries so hard to make us feel bad for those girls when in reality all of the girls are emotionless plastic bags. 2 of the girls literally gave up their body's to the MC, why? So they can abuse him. They even say it 2 or 3 times how they will puppet the MC after they marry him. What does the MC do? He gladly accepts them as his fiancee along with his other fiancee that he got forced into engaging.

Overall this anime was the worst anime of 2020. Yes, I went that far. I don't even need to watch any other anime of 2020 to say this, but this is by far the worst. It's like it was written by some 20-30 year old man suffering from mid life crisis that has a raging older sibling inferiority complex, throughout the entire anime their motto was "Why should the elder brother get all the good treatment" lol. This anime is vomit worthy. I have already given it the title of the worst Isekai of all time, let me say that once again. This anime wins the title of the worst Isekai of all time.

Now I'll go watch Isekai Smartphone because that bullshit was a million times better than this,

Obvios spoiles ahead but they are so predictable you are not missing anything.
Every season seems to have a mandatory bad isekai, and that season was not an exception. If you wanted something original - look elsewhere, if you wanted something good - same. But let me dive into this pile of trash to show you how bad it is.
First things first - visuals and sound. Generic and cheap looking 2d plus horrible and clunky CGI is a good indication of a badly made cash grab, add some generic soulless BGM and you have a full picture.
Story and characters. It is your generic isekai in all ... of its bad ways. MC that is effectively 40 years old (and he was an office worker, not some desocialised neet) behaves like a 10 years old? Check. None of his previous experience is used? Almost check, cause he brings SUPERIOR JAPANESE FOOD to his new world. He gets everything including OP magic without any effort, gets some loyal friends who lack any personal traits except for one-two gimmicks, slays a dragon that only he could kill even though there was a more experienced mage near (of course that mage could not use required spell), gets some completely stupid reward and high social status, and don't forget a holy maiden as a waifu. All of this with almost no effort, as I mentioned previously. If it is not a generic self insert - I don't know what is. And yes, in one sentence I just retold you most of the plot, the rest is not better, cause MC never encounters any threat to his life or worthy challenge, everyone opposing him is comically bad and evil while everyone supporting him is comically good. Oh, and I forgot to mention that he basically has a harem cause what is an isekai without one?

To conclude I will point out, that this anime is so boring, dull and basic that I can't recall at least one good moment in it. And I have to ask you: do you really have nothing better to do?