Hazure Skill "Kinomi Master": Skill no Mi (Tabetara Shinu) wo Mugen ni Taberareru You ni Natta Ken ni Tsuite

I would like to preface this review by saying that this is, unquestionably, not a good show. It's derivative, uncontrollably mediocre, poorly animated, riddled with baffling choices, and generally devoid of substance.

However, you should 100%, absolutely watch this show. In the face of uncontrollable mediocrity lies a perfect distillation of the very traits that the anime industry makes monuments of. This is a bad adaptation of a bad manga that was a good adaptation of an utterly dogshit webnovel. We are living in an era where literally anything can succeed, provided it follows enough of the design tropes that currently qualify for an adaptation.

This ... show has everything a person could want. It has "Swords", it has "Skills", it has "A Generic Fantasy World That Exists Solely For The Sake Of Dudes Killing Slimes". This is a world that exists expressly because it saw what everyone else was doing and boldly said "I'm gonna do that, too!". Does it do anything original? Of course not. The main protagonist is utterly uncontroversial and without an inch of depth. The deuteragonist is utterly uncontroversial and has maybe a single centimetre of depth. The girl who the protagonist lives with, and I'm quoting directly here, "for reasons." likes eating food.

However, in that utter dearth of quality lies a deeper secret. An enticing nugget that you deserve to spend an evening with, enjoying its manifold failures in so many ways. There's a moment where, in entire earnestness, the deuteragonist realises that the zombies that she's fighting are actually friends of hers, and flashes back to a scene where they were her first friends. I imagine a better show would likely place that scene somewhere sooner, just for the sake of setting up this moment to be meaningful. An even greater show, perhaps, would take one look at this scene, and decide to place it further down the line, with a twist of the knife of seeing a character we've grown to love become nothing but a minion of evil.

Not so, for Bogus Skill: Fruitmaster. Instead of introducing a scene with pathos, we're given a vague gesture in the direction of emotion, while our characters cry and say goodbye to characters we met only two minutes ago, we're given an even greater gift. Behold, a new world, where emotion is something that characters may experience, while we watch them jitter and jolt through fight scenes that create comedy more than anything else. This show is failing in a way that is deeply deeply funny, and I'm behind it all the way, baby.

My primary argument for this show being something you ought watch is not that it possesses any quality, but moreso that the level of utter mediocrity on display presents a perfect case study of what a total lack of creativity and storytelling can accomplish in today's world. This show makes me laugh, honestly and happily, because it presents a perfect plate of mediocrity, ideas regurgitated for the sake of themselves, like a tumourous blancmange that just keeps growing. The world keeps producing art like this because utter lobotomite anime fans keep watching dogshit like "Solo Leveling" and thinking that because it has some flashy animations it must be good quality.

Apparently it's not time to let go of the idea of a guy who's really strong and keeps getting stronger because of special abilities. So until that day comes, I'm going to cheer for "Bogus Skill Nutmaster", 'cause hell, at least a plate of shit is more honest than a polished turd.

"Bogus Skill <<Fruitmaster>>" was actually somewhat surprising, because despite appearing to be a very generic power-fantasy type anime, it kind of ended up not being that. "Kind of" being the operative words there though, make no mistake.

Unlike other Winter 2025 anime, such as "I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin", which, even for me, was bordering on unwatchable and was so bad I thought I'd end up with brain damage (yet somehow has a better MAL score), this show actually has a fairly cohesive plot.

Once a person comes of age, they are allowed to eat a skill fruit, which gives them, well, ... a skill. These skills can range from useless garbage to something busted OP. They can only ever eat one skill fruit tough, as eating more of them poisons and kills them. So once a skill is obtained, that's basically it and essentially lays-out your life and career.
Our MC "Light" wants to be an S-Rank Adventurer, but after eating his skill fruit, he gets lumbered with a seemingly garbage skill. However, he later finds out that his "garbage skill" has a unique side-effect of allowing him to eat as many skill fruits as he wants.

Now, you'd think the MC would just instantly eat a million skill fruits and stomp on everything and everyone from the get-go, but that isn't what happens here. He only eats skill fruits in very specific circumstances, while focussing on his "Sword God" skill.

There's then an entire overarching narrative and plot surrounding the "Holy Sister", who isn't quite who she first appears to be.

For an anime of this type to have actual character-building and plot-progression is rare and, honestly, deserves some praise. It also shows how much trash I typically watch (lol).


However, I am by no means saying that this anime is somehow a hidden gem, or on the level of some other things that aired in Winter 2025, because despite the actually OK plot (for this kind of anime), almost everything else falls short and cements this show into 5/10 or 6/10 territory.

The MC is bland to an asinine degree. He is incredibly one-note, generic and cliché, to the tune of "I am going to be a great Adventurer", "I am going to prevail", and not a whole lot else.
The side characters are, funnily enough, far more interesting. In fact, even the anime thinks so as the MC barely appears in the last FOUR EPISODES of this Season.

The animation and art-style are definitely "low budget fantasy" too, with lots of slide-show and still-image frames going on.


Overall, compared to other trashy isekai/fantasy shows that aired alongside this, this one definitely wasn't the worst. OK plot and progression, combo'd with a bland MC.
I give it a 6/10 (Fine), but Mixed Feelings, because it would take a fellow trash enjoyer to enjoy this.

Warning: The plot doesn't finish in this season! Yes, you read right, the anime finishes in the middle of the story.

This anime is simply too bad (too low-budget) to have a plot that doesn't finish in a single season. It should have been one of those anime that you turn your brain off before you watch, finish it in this season, and then will forever forget that you have watched it.

Animation: 3/10. They save all their budget for the fighting scenes, but they are still poor.
Characters: 3/10. The MC goes from a nobody to suddenly being OP with no effort, and then his character development ... stales there. The character development is the worst aspect of this anime.
Plot: 3/10. Superficial single-minded mini-bosses; almost no development of the main villain; and uninteresting side quests. This plot is all over the place and doesn't tackle the actual villain in this season at all.

I can't fathom how someone thought this would be a good story to animate... I also can't believe how would they get a second season to be accepted, since this anime is so bad I'm sure they lost their investment animating it.