Tensei shitara Ken deshita

A nameless sword wakes up to discover he has been reincarnated from his former life as a human. With his power of telekinesis, he moves around this new world, acquiring several skills and abilities. When the sword comes upon a forest filled with monsters, he meets a young girl fleeing from a beast. Grabbing the sword, the girl easily defeats the monster. After introducing herself as Fran, she names the sword "Shishou" and officially becomes his wielder.

The two set out to become adventurers, but unfortunately for Fran, she is a member of the Black Cat Tribe—a Beastkin group with a bad reputation. No member of this tribe has ever evolved into a mightier beast, but Fran plans to be the first and achieve her parents' dream. As Shishou promises to remain her sword until she attains her goal, they form an unstoppable partnership of impressive strength.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Fran Main

Kakuma, Ai Japanese

Shishou Main

Miki, Shinichiro Japanese

Amanda Supporting

Koshimizu, Ami Japanese

Nell Supporting

Ookubo, Rumi Japanese

Gallus Supporting

Tsuji, Shinpachi Japanese

Dungeon Master Supporting

Sakaguchi, Daisuke Japanese

Elevent Supporting

Yamamoto, Shouta Japanese

Dovy, Jean Supporting

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Allsand, August Supporting

Aoyama, Yutaka Japanese

Krad Supporting

Yamaguchi, Tomohiro Japanese

Takimoto, Rei Assistant Producer

Kawasuzuki, Ibuki Assistant Producer

Kotaka, Tatsuya Assistant Producer

Hieda, Kouki Assistant Producer

Reviews

May 20, 2025

Autumnium

Recommended

Reincarnated as a Sword is an isekai that is worth watching! The anime is about a man who gets sent to a fantasy world, reborn as a... sword! While the premise is, well, different from your typical isekai anime, the story itself shows to be rather interesting!

We follow the sword Shishou (Teacher) who decides to become both the teacher and weapon for a cat-girl named Fran, and the two set off with the goal of evolving Fran to be the strongest Black Cat!

The anime has pretty decent animation for it being a seasonal isekai, though, there are a few small times where the enemies ... of the show are 3D-rendered (Although it's only a small select few times). There are some great animation moments, especially during the fight scenes.

The one thing I really liked about this anime was just how cute and funny the bond between Shishou and Fran is, the interactions between the two are some of the best moments of the show, especially during Fran's learning moments (and Shishou's level up moments)!

Overall, Reincarnated as a Sword is a great seasonal isekai to watch, especially if you like cat-girls. 9/10, would rewatch again.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Apr 15, 2024

Legolaspt

Mixed Feelings

The premise and execution are surprisingly good; the fight scenes are quite good, the jokes land well and the animation is gorgeous. In general Tensei shitara Ken deshita is a lighthearted fun experience, something to turn your brain off and enjoy some action + comedy, and I find the comedy notably funny.

That being said, Tensei is not perfect. There are lots of expositive dialogues, and the presentation is very lacking. What I mean by that is that the story is fun and interesting, but it is presented quite poorly in regards to the storyboarding.

1st example of poor presentation: The show starts with a scene that, ... in chronological order, is the post-climax scene from the end of the same first episode. In this scene, the viewer is greeted with an expositive useless monologue by a narrator; and then the show immediately proceeds to a flashback. This may be the single worst first minute in television history. There was no need for this, and presenting the first episode in chronological order, without a narrator, would have been a much better and, honestly, obvious choice.

2nd example of poor presentation: The 2nd episode starts with an expositive powerpoint presentation.

3rd example of poor presentation: Episode 1 kind of repeats the same scene - the mc killing random monsters - over and over again, instead of progressing the plot or showing us more interesting scenarios.

4th example of poor presentation: Episode 3 has 4 scenes in sequence about buying stuff - which is half the episode - and these scenes are ok, but 4 in a row is too much, you gotta space them out or the viewer gets bored.

This pattern of weird storyboarding continues throughout the show.

obs: The idea of of presenting the ending of episode 1 - or smthg similar - as the first scene is to be used in order to provide a hook for tension, suspense or intrigue, so this scene must be mid-action, instead of the calm post-climax first scene presented in Tensei shitara, which also has an obvious path between the flashback and the fastforward, thus providing no tension or suspense. For good examples: American Beauty, Fight Club and Jujutsu Kaisen.

Also, the difference between telepathy and inner thoughts is not clear, which makes understanding certain scenes a bit of a hassle.

Now, I like that the Mcs are not overpowered and frequently struggle, also I like that the anime is somewhat dark.

Futhermore, the mcs are good characters overall. That being said, they are not perfect and there are some scenes in which I believe either one or the other should be acting different according to their characterization. Moreover, the worldbuilding is the generic isekai - it does some things well and others not quite so.

Tensei Shitara also does a great job of executing and of being creative in the ideas it puts forward. Creativity in the details is a major selling point of the show - both the combat system and worldbuilding are generic, but implemented with creative details, with much thought put into, making them both more interesting and fun.

Unfortunately, the last arc is somewhat weak and even more cliché, and it ended the season on the wrong foot, lacking plot development. Also fan service is quite rare, but when it is present and regards a child, it gets quite uncomfortable.

In the end, I would recommend watching a single episode to see if you enjoy the comedy and, if so, I believe this is a good watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 18, 2025

Asdfaeou

Not Recommended

Overview: Stop ruining potentially good Anime by flooding it with your kinks.

Premise: MC is guy in normal modern world who dies (hit by car? Don't remember, not important) and gets Isekai'd to another world. This is a "MC is aware of Isekai Anime" brand of show, so he understands the situation fairly well. He is reincarnated, however, as a Sword. A superpowerful one with all kinds of powers and abilities, as well as sight and ability to talk telekinetically. He comes into the possession of a Cat-Girl (Fran) after he frees her using one of the powers he gets from ... slaying a beast (all beast have crystals at their heart, their abilities are kept there, by slicing the crystal, he can absorb the power if he so desires). Fran's entire goal is to "evolve into a stronger being" something no Cat-Person has ever done, and she becomes powerful wielding the MC. The plot of the show is their various adventures together.

Characters: Mc is...fine. He's self aware, so that's interesting. He understands the world he is in, and is excited by it, he isn't particularly annoying (more on that later) but he's not very interesting beyond that. Fran is... less fine. Not horrible, but definitely the less enjoyable of the two. I'll get into my first major complaint about the show here. The entire thing is written like it was inspired by the SubReddit "ImThirteenAndThisIsDeep". The general premise of introducing new characters is showing them doing bewildering outlandish things, then giving the backstory of the person so you have an "ohhh! That's why" moment.... except it's never good enough. The outlandish is TOO outlandish, and the writers do nowhere near a good enough job of giving you the rationale of the characters actions and feelings. An example of this is with Fran. They set you up with this character trait of hers that she is wholly inspired by and sure of her goal to evolve. So much so that, when anything is in her way, she isn't much worried about it. She is so confident that she will reach her goal, and she believes so much in herself and MC and their bond and ability the any trial ahead of them she wants to immediately tackle with the full belief that she'll come out on top. It's very endearing to start. A lot of times shows are dragged down by the disbelief of such a character that it drags the show down as you watch them be a stuttering doormat when in reality they are overpowered. Why do I say it feels like it is written by a thirteen year old congratulating themselves about how deep they are? Well, one episode, Fran meets a character who is a specific race of creature that like, racially dominates her race historically, and she IMMEDIATELY turns into a weeping pile of sorrow and disbelief and is basically frozen in place as she is getting beaten down and humiliated. But there's like...twenty seconds of exposition to explain this. There is NO lead up. She goes from six episodes of confidence to blubbering baby in a matter of two minutes. It's just BAD writing. THEN MC like gives her a pep talk for ten fifteen seconds and she flips out to an entirely OPPOSITE emotion of outright rage and she tears the life from the person she was basically groveling at the feet of seconds earlier. It's absolutely bewildering, and I cannot believe no one on the writing team stepped and said "This looks like the first draft of an edgy teenager play, lets reshape this a bit". As you watch more of this show, it will become common place, because now I'm going to talk about my LARGEST gripe about this show...

...it genuinely feels like the writers had a bunch of kinks they wanted to express in this show. So many scenes become so cringe it's actually difficult to keep watching. A fairly major character acts EXTREMELY disrespectfully around Fran, and basically tells her to call her "Mother" and tries to baby her and stalks her, and it's all laughed off, when in reality it's the introduction to the character who is important to the storyline and plot. It feels like they TRY to fix it on the back end, she becomes very important and very powerful and does a lot of good, and becomes close with MC and Fran, but she's still spoiled milk, because they did such a terrible job introducing her. Humor is humor and things are funny and whatnot, but it feels like whomever wrote this had no sense of tact about it. There are MUCH worse shows in this regard (I'll be writing my scathing review of "I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World" very soon), but this show really was offputting for this reason. I can't recommend it as a watch, and I'm unsure I'll watch the second season when it comes out because if it's more of the same, it's just not worth it. Seeing how/if/what Fran evolves into just isn't enough a draw for the show to cover over the MANY scenes that are just out of place and too "I live life a 100" for it not to be off-putting. It's a real shame too, I liked the first few episodes, and there was a lot of promise.

Some random other annoyances of mine to finish this out:
1. The show explains in the beginning that as a sword, he has ten slots reserved for abilities, then like...FORGETS THAT? Because MC uses a massive, endless library of abilities, and the ten slot thing never comes up again.
2. MC is protective of Fran but like... as a dad? Which is strange (I mean she is a kid, but he's a sword trying to like dad mode her and its very awkward) THEN they have a scene where she bring the MC in the bath and cleans him and he's all blushing and it's just....you haven't given yourself the leeway to make this joke.
3. They do not explain the noble guy's ability well at ALL, then they make him both a dolt, and yet be able to make a large scale scheme? It does not match up, and it just adds to the feel that they wrote in the moment without much regard to previous plot points. VERY thirteen year old writing.

Conclusion: If you're down with anime tropes, and embrace the weird connection Anime sometimes have with sexuality, this is the show for you. If you're there for plot and character growth and the like, steer clear.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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