Buta no Liver wa Kanetsu Shiro

An arrogant scientist awakens in the middle of a muddy pigpen, and the last thing he remembers is eating a raw pig liver and collapsing in the subway. He quickly gathers that he has turned into a pig and is now in a strange fantasy land. As he struggles to grasp reality, a young girl named Jess comes to his aid. Jess happens to be a Yesma—a discriminated class of servants distinguished by their telepathic abilities and the silver collars around their necks. Despite his inappropriate thoughts about her, Jess makes sacrifices for his sake, and the pig resolves to repay her the best he can within the limits of his new body.

But Jess' generosity does not absolve her from the prejudice the Yesmas face daily, and the pig begins to suspect that Jess is in greater danger than she thinks. While he wants to visit the royal capital and beg the king to change him back into a human, the pig realizes that he cannot simply turn his back on his kind savior.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Jess Main

Kusunoki, Tomori Japanese

Pig Main

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Eise Supporting

Hayami, Saori Japanese

Ceres Supporting

Tomita, Miyu Japanese

Brace Supporting

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Rossi Supporting

Takahashi, Shinya Japanese

Notos Supporting

Itou, Kent Japanese

Wyss Supporting

Inoue, Kikuko Japanese

Kilins Supporting

Souma, Kouichi Japanese

Eavis Supporting

Hashi, Takaya Japanese

Takahashi, Masayuki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Tateishi, Yayoi Sound Director

ASCA Theme Song Performance

Myuk Theme Song Performance

Reviews

Feb 5, 2024

RedThunderS

Recommended

I like this anime for the character's charm, the simple story, and the fun and unique idea of a man being turned into a pig. The art style was good and fit with the anime. The storyline didn't have too many cheches, but I will have to say it will get dark at some moments in the anime. The characters in the anime react to situations and events in realistic and clever ways. Being a pig he needs to plan out how to get out safely without or Jesse getting hurt.

The series has some minor flaws, but if you enjoy a silly isekai, I ... would recommend this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Feb 8, 2024

_Voyager

Mixed Feelings

Tonally dissonant and poorly produced, but an intriguing story with some surprisingly hard-hitting emotional high notes.

ButaLiver appears to be a typical isekai of the 2020s (this time the twist is that the protagonist is reincarnated as a pig), but rather than giving him some kind of overpowered skill that allows him to cruise along the plot with ease, the setting puts our hero in a difficult spot with very little to work with. The heroine (unfortunately) still falls back into a stereotypical mold and is way too comfortable to put up with the hero's oftentimes wildly inappropriate inner thoughts. He simply came across as crass ... and his monologues were rough, blatant attempts at meta-humor and self-deprecation. Still, he made the most of the bad hand he was dealt with and became somewhat more likable and endearing with time as he overcame challenges alongside our heroine. I was not expecting this level of character development from the "pig isekai".

The show also felt strangely dissonant. At some moments, we're getting some playful slice-of-life content with bland fanservice, while at others we get some heavier exposition into the much darker backstory of this world. The tonal shifts can be abrupt and offputting. Still, one can appreciate how the story stands out from other similar ones in being crafted to have an overarching goal that our protagonists genuinely sought to achieve while overcoming real crises along the way. The story also remembers that there was a "real world" besides the isekai (what an innovation in this day and age!) and the protagonist remains tied to his pre-isekai past. Without going into spoilers, the ending (which viewers were made to wait for) and how it linked to the real world was a pleasantly surprising twist, if roughly executed.

The emotional high notes in this story also somehow resonated despite the tonal dissonance of the direction and lack of production value. Perhaps it is the bleak setup of the world; the sheer insurmountability of the challenge that laid before our protagonists; and the marvelous talent and skill of the main voice actors.

ButaLiver was a bumpy but interesting ride. It wouldn't hurt to savor a different flavor of isekai among today's bland offerings, even if somewhat undercooked.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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May 11, 2024

x_mk_x

Not Recommended

The majority of people that have decided to watch this anime probably did so due to it's absurdly ridiculous name and premise and I was no exception, even though I watch a relative big amount of the typical isekai anime I can't watch them all so many pass under my radar or I simply decide not to watch but after reading the premise for this anime my curiosity took the best of me and I decided to start the show as soon as I could. The first episode starts the story in the exact way most people would assume the story would go given the ... premise, however in the following episodes the story deviates into an interesting plot that was not expected.

Plot: You will find the plot of this anime to be pretty innovative based on the whole"turning into a pig" premise alone, however even outside of that I found it to be innovative with how they decided to present and unfold the events and with the world building of the show. The story starts with our mc being reincarnated as a pig and meets Jess, a girl who supposedly is of a different race that are treated with disdain and are forced to be servants to humans, however the "Yesma" (the race of Jess) have a very special ability, they can read mind which is the method our mc uses to communicate with her. After meeting her our mc finds out that all Yesma are obligated to head on a dangerous journey towards the capital on their 16th birthday and now it has come the time for Jess to head out on said journey so he decides to accompany her and make sure she gets there safely to the best of his abilities. The way the story flows with them traveling across the land makes it so that we are presented with the world building in a very natural way and can really showcase how good the world building of this anime is. At first this world seems very fun and lighthearted specially with Jess's attitude to it all but with each episode we are shown hints of how dark and heavy the world they are in actually is. Sadly, the world building is amazing as I said but it is the only quality of this show I can wholeheartedly say is good since the plot itself started ok but quickly got really underwhelming falling for clichê plot-lines and the ending for this season was outrageously bad, so much so that I would've instantly drop the anime if it wasn't the last episode.

Art: The art style chosen for this anime is the standard for basically all generic isekai show out there, nothing to boast about but not bad either. The animation on the other hand was lacking throughout all episodes although it was still bearable, the episode with the major fight that was hyped up throughout the course of the story was specially bad it felt like the studio ran out of budget and decided to animate the fight scenes on PowerPoint I am not particularly demanding in terms of animation but it was seriously making me not enjoy the episode or what was happening at all. After that horrendous episode the animation picked back up to it's previous average status.

Sound: The opening was decent, honestly better than I expected for such an anime, it is very fun, upbeat, has a great repeatability value and is definitely playlist worthy. Even though the opening is good it got heavily outshined by the masterpiece that was the ending song. The ending was not only better than the opening as a song but it also has much more emotion to it and alludes to the dark undertones behind the story, it also has an arguably better repeatability value and is overall one of the best anime songs I've ever heard. The voice acting was good as it always is in anime but I would like to highlight the decision to have two different voices and deliveries for the mc's speech in order to indicate whether it's him talking in monologue or talking to Jess, I imagine this is also something done on the source material but I am not sure as I haven't read it.

Characters: There are only 4 characters in this anime that are worth talking about which are our mc, Jess, Notos and Brace since all other characters either didn't have enough screen-time or they didn't do anything with the screen-time they had. Our mc is the typical anime pervert protagonist who is a "loser" in life and suddenly gets thrown into the crazy situation we see, even though he is the stereotypical trashy unlikable character beneath all that we can see he is quite honorable with strong ideals and motivations: he tries to help Jess and do anything he can even when there isn't much for him to do as a pig without having any type of reward or personal gain in mind going to the point of even putting his life at risk for her. It is also through our mc that we are alluded to the dark injustices of this new world since all other characters are native they treat everything we see along the way as normal and ok and it's with the mc and with his real world views and ideals that such moments get questioned. All in all I find the mc to be a well-rounded character with some flaws which is something a well written character should have, has some comedic moments and is used excellently to present the world the show is set in and the main messages of the anime. Jess is a more straightforward character but is still very well written since she serves as a blatant contrast to the world the story is set, even though everything in this world seems to target the Yesma, everything in Jess's life seem to be going horribly and it seems as she has no way to better her destiny she is always very happy, kind and innocent. Overall, Jess is a relatively one dimensional character but in conjunction with the plot and world building of this anime she adds great value to the story as a character. Notos had some potential as a character when he is first introduced, however he ended up as a very superficial character with not much going for him outside of his backstory. Lastly, Brace is a very interesting character and adds another layer to the story and atmosphere of the anime, however her plot-line felt rushed making it have less impact on the viewer.

Overall: The world building carries the whole show into being relatively decent, the plot started strong but ended up not delivering. The art was below average specially during fighting scenes but it is still watchable. The intro and ending songs are great. The two main characters seem really well thought out and fit perfectly in the show, however the anime lacks good secondary characters and even though some had potential they weren't properly developed. All in all the show is nothing life changing or that you need to watch but it is decent to mindlessly pass time if you are bored. In spite of all this, I could only give the show a 4/10 specially with that ending, if not for that ending I would probably have this show as "mixed feelings" or "recommended" and with a much better rating of around a 5/10 or even a 6/10 depending on how good this hypothetical new ending would be. The ending was genuinely horrendous and it felt like a slap on the face to the viewers since the whole last episode was emphasizing the difficult decisions in life and a "no matter how hard we must move forward" ideal but in the very end of the episode it just flips itself on it's head, contradicts the whole aspect of the episode and makes the entire story feel unimportant. If I knew the ending would be so bad I wouldn't have ever even started this show or I would've dropped it so, sadly, I have to set this anime as "not recommended".

~Heat the pig liver~

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Pig vs Dog mechian - Jul 21, 2023	11 replies	by SofiaBulga »» Apr 14, 3:00 PM
	Why so many people are hating over this Great anime? ( 1 2 ) Weird-but-true - Jan 3, 2024	59 replies	by SofiaBulga »» Apr 14, 2:46 PM
	Poll: Buta no Liver wa Kanetsu Shiro Episode 4 Discussion Stark700 - Oct 28, 2023	40 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Feb 25, 4:02 PM
	Poll: Buta no Liver wa Kanetsu Shiro Episode 3 Discussion Stark700 - Oct 21, 2023	46 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Feb 25, 9:11 AM
	Poll: Buta no Liver wa Kanetsu Shiro Episode 2 Discussion Stark700 - Oct 14, 2023	41 replies	by RGreatDanton »» Feb 25, 12:54 AM