Sep 20, 2021
The biggest problem with Seirei Gensouki is that it seems that despite his 'hardships' everything seems to come up Rio. Rather than feeling like you're following along for the ride, feeling the hardships along the MC, it's like you're listening to someone tell the story about their D&D character that never really had to struggle for much. Rio just takes everything in stride, and never actually loses. The one thing that made him interesting, his backstory in the alternate world, could've been reflected somewhere in the story at some point, but they never utilize it.
There's some interesting worldbuilding and characters to play around with,
...
but the story focuses so much on Rio we never really get a chance to see where any of it could go, which is really unfortunate. There seemed to be so many interesting and whimsical characters, but other than some stereo-typical anime humor and fan service, there's no meaningful connection there. There's one point where he actually has some decent interactions with other characters, but we don't see much of them afterwards.
Never do we see any interesting use of any of the important plot elements, the things that you learn through the series could have had some interesting implications, and the entire show just makes extensive use of the 'overpowered protagonist' trope.
This could have been a good show, if not for the poor treatment of the various 'tools' the author had at their disposal. The show uses one 'tool' as far as narrative goes and it is no better for it. Lot of subtle things could've made this into a top tier show, but apparently they were left on the tool bench as the author continued to slam square pegs into every shaped hole.
Final thoughts: I started watching because of an interesting premise, I continued to watch even though I saw some red-isekai-flags, and I finished watching because I thought I could learn something as an author myself: how not to tell a story. So I can't fault this show too much, because it's use of tired and true tropes with decent character design is pretty stereotypical of an anime that's just trying to tell a story. I wish I read the light novel for this, so at least I could have a comparison of tone between the anime and the source. If the anime is anything like the source, then the author needs more practice making the story stand out from the rest of the isekai trash we muddle through.
Overall Score: Mediocre (5)
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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