Saijaku Tamer wa Gomi Hiroi no Tabi wo Hajimemashita.

Born into a loving family, Femicia appears to have a bright future ahead of her. When she finally turns five, the time comes to go to the church to have her skills appraised. However, while she does receive a monster tamer skill, it turns out that Femicia has zero stars for that ability. To make matters worse, society considers those who have zero stars to be harbingers of misfortune; as a result, Femicia is shunned by everyone—including her family.

Soon enough, Femicia is chased out of her village and is constantly on the run. Fearing for her life, she decides to masquerade as a boy and change her name to Ivy. With a goal given to her by a fortune teller to reach the royal capital, Ivy meets and successfully tames a slime, starting an unlikely friendship that may provide a means to get the destiny she deserves.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ivy Main

Suzuki, Aina Japanese

Sora Main

Tamura, Mutsumi Japanese

Oght Supporting

Miyake, Kenta Japanese

Sifar Supporting

Chiba, Susumu Japanese

Ciel Supporting

Mugiho, Anna Japanese

Feton Supporting

Saito, Fuuko Japanese

Lattrua Supporting

Yashiro, Taku Japanese

Rickbert Supporting

Yasumoto, Hiroki Japanese

Seizerk Supporting

Terasoma, Masaki Japanese

Velivera Supporting

Toriumi, Kousuke Japanese

Cao, Cong Producer

Sotokawa, Akihiro Producer

Matsui, Yuuko Producer

Usukura, Ryuutarou Producer

Reviews

Mar 29, 2024

KANLen09

Recommended

The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash - What an inspiring fantasy show of the alternate Isekai option to take note of. Authors, I beg you, please do this more often.

Fantasy and Isekai, they go hand-in-hand, but while the concepts are ever so grandiose, the executions become too great for the protagonists...they just take it up and become the most overpowered people ever. What naive cliché for people to only have that one direction and take charge all of the way, forgetting that there're two sides of the coin. Fortunately, for every 10+ boring, trashy OP fantasy Isekai work out there, there're ... hidden gems that don't need this trope to make its world interesting, and in this Winter season, there's one show like it: novelist Honobonoru500's Saijaku Tamer wa Gomi Hiroi no Tabi wo Hajimemashita. a.k.a The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash, that isn't trash, but a story of bitter, but heartwarming wholesomeness,

Putting the obvious death-to-reincarnation Isekai trope aside, a girl is reborn in another world, where magical skills are everything, but it means nothing without the recognition of its ranking through stars. The more stars, the more valuable and skilled the person is...is what the typical person would be like, but said girl named Femicia, has a Tamer skill, but has no stars, which she is immediately put as a scapegoat for the village she's in: Latomi Village. Everybody has a prejudice against her starless skill, even her very own family despised the fact that she was born with no stars once the truth gets out around the small village, which doesn't take long for rumours to swell around. Facing abuse and persecution all around the village, Femicia makes her escape, only to meet the local fortune teller who takes pity on her by educating and supplying for her needs, until her eventual natural passing, to which Femicia moves on further away to make a living by herself. Femicia's journey takes a turning point in the midst of picking up trash, when she finds a weak and dying slime, only to tame and give it a name. Together, the new Femicia, dubbed Ivy and taking on the appearance of a boy, together with her slime familiar Sora, starts a new journey to pick up trash and make use of their surroundings.

I really feel the pity for Ivy, having to be so harshly neglected and shunned by her home village, everyone does not go easy on her, including her own family. And this is rather enforced throughout Latomi Village where her only source of comfort is the local fortune teller Luba, who takes sympathy and brings her under her watchful wings to teach everything she knows about survivability. The problem is that the entire village also depends on the same exact survivability on her part, since Luba is also responsible for the village's crop fruits, which are its only source of income, and with her passing, the village head gets even more nonsensical blaming Ivy for the loss of her life, and even going as far as to place a bounty on her. The irony of the short-sightedness of the village head to refuse medicine to Luba for siding with Ivy, and even demanding the latter's head when her death affects the village the most, one child's life is insignificant compared to a lifetime of wealth and reputation, these people are simply scum for what they regard. Needless to say, stars do not affect the limit of a person, and Ivy was but a victim in the fire of bigotry.

Once things reside outside of Latomi Village, the situation only gets better for Ivy and Sora. Ivy gains her confidence, although still terrified of the outside world and its strangers, as she begins to witness that Sora can consume more than just tossed and leftover potions, which improves her chances of survivability significantly while roaming around as an outcast, gaining more followers along the way. Not forgetting her tamer skills for a moment, Ivy soon gains another tamed creature to her side: the high-ranking black panther adanadala Ciel.

As for the humans that she meets along the way, there're a fair few of them who would meet both Ivy and Sora, and would be monumental to their influence:
- The Latome Village's Watch guards of Captain Ogto and vice-captain Vellivera. Ogto, a very loyal servant of the Watch, is serious about his job, but is also serious at taking a liking to Ivy and always having fun with her, to the chagrin of Vellivera who usually has a calm demeanor and having to sometimes take control of Ogto before he does his usual reckless things.
- The party adventurers whom Ivy and Sora will join in their adventures: Flaming Sword's leader Seyzelk and prominent member Lattrua; Lightning King's leader Borolda and prominent meber Rikvelt; and The Green Gale's leader Meela and her older twin brothers Tolto and Malma, who serves alongside her. It's definitely a bit of a challenge to try to converse with so many people that Ivy gets overwhelmed most of the time. But as they say, praise the sun, for these adventurers don't just see Ivy as a growing single-digit aged girl (as a boy), but someone who will grow to become a big asset of their lives, not just an errand boy for their parties, but someone who they legitimately see as a potential to become a great starless tamer growing up. The party adventurers may have magical and physical attributes grown with their skills, but none are as reliable as Ivy and Sora, especially the latter, who overtime has an ability to discern who are their real enemies just by close contact.

You've got to really admire Ivy and Sora's survivability of the fittest. Despite the earlier life problems, Ivy got her act together and don on the tropey "character cutting hair" moment, which is pretty much necessitated for her charcter growth. It's the only way that she can get out and move on from her past, while being supported by the fantasy world's "gods" constantly dropping hints for the progress of maturity.

Despite being a studio mainly responsible for in-between and key animation, this is Studio Massket's first fully featured anime series, and just by itself, the production values are simply put, out of this world. In its 7 years of business since the studio's founding in March 2017, it has participated in the animation phases of a ton of shows, too many to count. And within this show, it just shows of the talent from the staff team behind directors Naoki Horiuchi and Shigeyasu Yamauchi (the latter serving as chief director). Though I have the feeling that this is a rather one-off project to see where the studio lies by its capability of taking full-on anime projects in the long run. We'll see then of where Studio Massket will lean towards next.

The music leans into the entire atmosphere of the anime quite well, actually. VA Aina Suzuki did a great job acting as Ivy, and even for her character OP song, it's a very nice song, with even more impressive rotoscoping visuals that are just gobstopping with seamless quality. Tei's ED song "Because" is a rather calm song that displays more of the show's resting, slice-of-life atmosphere, and that's not a bad thing at all IMO.

The one word I constantly find myself with when watching this show is "surprise", because I'm legitimately surprised at how the show finds itself full of drama and fantasy, yet never once be a victim to the vice of absurdity nor of the typical tropes, which if there's one bad thing, it would be that the show is severely underrated. It's just so tender when you see humanity be served on a platter that matures you and the encouragement of wanting to grow for the better, which on the basis of this show, does that to the fullest degree to "purposefully" hit you in the feels as hard as possible.

Seriously, throw away all OP-ness and fanservice. Saijaku Tamer wa Gomi Hiroi no Tabi wo Hajimemashita. a.k.a The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash is what we need for a refreshing take on the over-objectified Isekai fantasy trope, with hints of subservient love and care given with a reason no other than to protect a child's innocent growth, yet not stumble him/her when adversities come their way in one's prime.

A tearjerker's story and sense of purpose, you won't find a better one than in Saijaku Tamer with a slow-paced, yet straightforward story that delivers on all fronts.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Apr 5, 2024

JesterJack

Mixed Feelings

Well-written

Recommended for those who like slow-paced shows with good story building, and character development.

Story: The story is very similar to pretty much any other isekai, but what makes it stand out is the execution of that story. It follows the traditional route of introducing characters first and then giving their backstories but handles each element quite elegantly, unlike an average isekai. This gives a fair amount of time to each of its genres and themes, be it drama, adventure, fantasy, or even isekai. You won't easily find an isekai where you get reminded of the isekai element every episode. But still, some of the ... parts of the stories in later episodes might feel a bit stretched.
7.5/10

Characters: The story revolves around Ivy and there are many secondary characters, and most of them impact Ivy's character development. So none of the characters' introductions feel forced or unnecessary. There aren't many cheesy characters that an average isekai has.
8/10

Art and animation: The studio is pretty new, considering that, they did a pretty solid job on both the art and the animation and one will barely notice any flaws in animation.
8/10

Soundtrack: It has a decent soundtrack that might sound like a classic Disney fantasy soundtrack.
7/10

If you liked Frieren, Campfire cooking you'll like this one.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Aug 21, 2024

AeroGunz

Not Recommended

“The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash” is what happens when You want to write a feel-good story but have no idea how to do it well.

Judging by the positive reviews I’m probably gonna get some flack for this but… This show is pretty bad when it comes to logical writing. A lot and I do mean A LOT of plot points happen only because they have to, to evoke sympathy for the main character and not because they make sense. It uses a lot of the same cheap tricks as “To Your Eternity” but does it more heavy headedly. Let me ... explain…

The plot revolves around Ivy - an 8 year old girl posing as a boy (“Kino’s Journey” anyone?).
When she was 5 she partook in a ritual to reveal her skill and proficiency in it. Turns out our heroine, then still going by the name Femicia has zero start (I guess point in proficiency? That part is also not explained well). As a result her family and the whole village turned their back on her and practically exiled her. After some really bad plot BS she’s forced to run and pretend to be a boy in hopes she won’t get caught by the residents of her former village.
Apparently she’s a reincarnate and possesses her memories from the past life but I don’t think it’s the proper statement. It appears that her former self (or maybe part of it) is communicating with her at some level. They even have short conversations often. That’s not how memories work, then again the way she acts as a child is more in line with possessing those memories. I have no idea why that changes but for most of the show she acts almost like having an imaginary friend who happens to be from another world. It’s really poorly explained and to be fair I could probably think of other options what that voice in her head could be. As a protagonist she’s one of the worst types possible - the type that can do no wrong and the whole world bends over backwards for her (minus the village incident of course). Let me spell it out better. It’s an 8 year old kid, who can’t do anything wrong. Even when she does something really stupid, like… oh I don’t know… walk to a wounded predator.
Her brain damage doesn’t stop there. She witnessed firsthand that Sora (a unique slime, she tamed) is able to heal her wounds and yet was still reluctant to feed him her best healing potion. Yes. It’s a slime that eats magical potions, but only certain kinds.

The “tragedy” that was the catalyst of the whole show is also a bit idiotic. You want me to buy that parents who cared for a child for 5 years would so easily just reject her? I’m more inclined to believe that her siblings would do that, kids are assholes after all, but her own father and mother? I’m not buying it. Mere-exposure effect is a bitch after all. If I have to guess, the author wanted to have a very specific protagonist and wrote himself into a corner of how to logically achieve it. Despite its heavy handedness I guess it works. Not as good as it could be but a start is a start.

Now the second logical shit show. The whole skills and stars system. It’s stated that people have one special skill given by god and stars represent it’s power. Ok. Cool, but.. How does that work? There are people who can run fast but how does that relate to people running without that skill? Do other people can’t run at all? That’s not the case as we see in the show. Does someone who trains and runs for miles everyday could never be as fast as someone with even 1 star? We meet a woman who has 4 stars (apparently a very unique trait) in cooking. But Ivy’s cooking is said to be delicious. How is it compared to someone with a starred skill? The whole system is poorly explained and full of logical flaws. Ivy has zero stars and yet was able to, I guess “tame” is the wrong word for it, “befriend” maybe… a dangerous predator that most tamers can’t tame. How does that work? Don’t give me the crap about the “power of kindness” or some other bs, let’s call it what it is “Plot armor” and “lazy world building”.

When it comes to people Ivy meets during her travels they are… basically NPCs. Most have one trait pumped up to 11 and pretend it’s character. They are there to tell Ivy how awesome she is and basically pump her self esteem. Listen, I get it. Ivy had a shitty episode (no, she didn’t have a shitty life, her first 5 years are portrayed as pretty good and full of love) and it’s good to have a scene where she’s praised and where she can feel that she’s not unwanted, but don’t give me that shit every 5 minutes. It defeats the point of having a story about a hard life and making something from it.

The other thing is that she isn’t really shown to struggle much. She finds a lot of useful things in trash heaps and people she only just met help her out. To the point that the whole of city guards in one of the cities watch out for her and protect her at every step. They must really not have much work.

The last arc really pissed me off when it comes to logic. A 8 year old girl (well… I guess for everyone she's a boy) practically accuses an adventuring party of benign the big bad guys and she doesn’t even have to give proof before everyone just believes her? She’s among a group of adventurers and she just tells them that another group whose members are friends of some of them, work for a shady organization and they just buy it? 8-fucking-year-old-kid! Because kids are known for their detective skills. Listen, I get it. She tells them about Sora’s power to detect lies but she does that AFTER accusing someone and only AFTER the adventurers give her self-worth a blow job. EFF THAT! That's one of the most idiotic if not the most idiotic plot points of the show. After that, they even let her come up with plans to arrest everyone. Are people in the city guard or other adventurers so incompetent that they need a child to do their work for them? It’s a bit like in most Final Fantasy games the world does jack shit and a bunch of kids have to save everyone and everything. No one questions Ivy, her education or even has a conspiracy theory about why a goddamn 8 year old practically plans a SWAT operation.

Sorry to say but the show is full of cliches and cheap tricks. Main of them is Ivy being scared and on the verge of crying. That state is enough for her to summon some kind of deus ex machina to get her out of trouble. Adventurers believed her without proof after she saw her like that. A town guard captain decided to help her with almost everything after he scared her a few times (unintentionally). I can forgive one, maybe two such cases but it goes on throughout the whole damn show. It’s like the writers never read a book in their lives and use only the same repetitive shit You see in other anime and movies nowadays.

Do I think this is a bad show? No. Despite having lazy writing and using cheap tricks to make You care about Ivy the execution is solid. I would even say that there are exceptional moments when the music and visuals work perfectly together. I can honestly admit that there were moments when I actually enjoyed myself watching it. But that’s not the question that MAL asks. The question is “Would you recommend this?”. The answer is no. There are shows that are much better in the writing department so unless You have a preference for shows where You don’t have to think, there are little to no stakes and the whole world bends over backwards for the MC I really can't recommend it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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