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May 16, 2023
An Isekai wish-fulfillment male power fantasy, cranked up to eleven. Iseleve starts with an interesting premise of a protagonist who can freely move between this world and another, which is a rare sight in the Isekai genre. But that's where the originality ends.
TL;DR: Bad storytelling, flat, one-dimensional characters, lack of plot direction, zero world-building, bundled up with pretty-looking character designs undermined by bottom of the barrel directing.
The entire story is based on the main character's incredible ability of happening to be in the right place at the right time. He does nothing of his own volition other than react, heroically of course, to the situation
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unfolding in front of him. He saves multiple damsels in distress simply because they happen to be assaulted or nearly killed right next to him. He stops criminals because they commit crimes right next to him. He gains the ability to use any magic he can imagine because he just happens to find the cave where the greatest sage in the other world is buried. I know the dude leveled up his luck stat a lot, but come on. This isn't just uninspired storytelling, it's lazy, boring, repetitive, and genuinely off-putting. Let the protagonist decide to do something on his own for once!
Unfortunately, the issues don't stop there. While the main character is two dimensional at best, the rest of the supporting cast barely qualifies as one-dimensional. Girls are only there to be saved or protected. Guys are only there to make the protagonist look good. "Villains" have zero actual motivation other than the fact they hate the protagonist. The world revolves around our main guy. Oh, and around how handsome he is. Did I mention how handsome he is? Because he's handsome. Really handsome. Jaw-droppingly, heartbeat-skippingly handsome. Fashion-model level handsome. Otherworldly handsome, even. Does that get the point across? No? Don't worry, the anime will remind you of this fact every 30 seconds, with crowds of girls whispering behind the protagonist's back, or just staring at him, their drooling mouths agape. Which I get is meant to be a stark contrast to how he starts off as - fat, ugly and socially rejected, but this is just taking it too far.
As for the rest of the story... well, there is none. There is no end goal. There is no main plot unfolding. There is no world building. 7 episodes in and all I can tell you about the other world, spoilers included, is that there's a forest with monsters, and a kingdom with a princess somewhere nearby. Also, the other world functions like a video game, because of course it does. Our weeb minds couldn't possibly comprehend complex magic systems or power scaling without stats, skills and item descriptions. It's all very original and fresh.
I'd say the single redeeming quality of the anime is its art style. The character designs are beautiful, and whoever is drawing the faces and especially the eyes deserves a raise, as all female (and even most male) characters are stunning to look at. When they actually show up on screen, that is, because the compelling art style and beautiful characters are marred by a severe lack of animation and mostly static poses, 3D rendering for the protagonist in the relatively sparse action scenes, but worst of all, bad directing.
And here we get to the crux of it. Itagaki Shin, the chief director in charge of Iseleve, is notorious for his works on other 3D anime we all know and love to hate, such as Berserk 2016 and Kumo Desu Ga, Nani Ka?. Other than bad 3D, which thankfully is used sparingly in Iseleve, Itagaki's influence can be felt throughout every scene, especially when the characters are just talking, which is most of the time. Bad compositions, speaking characters are often nearly completely obscured by a character's back or hair, or they are partially cut outside the frame or sometimes not even in the frame (seriously, are mouth flaps that costly to animate?), constant extreme zoom-ins, lack of depth or perspective, constant unnecessary camera pans, awkward or downright jarring cuts - you name it, Itagaki's got it. By now you may realize I'm not much of a fan of his work. Rather than build on the art style and try to elevate the work above its bad writing, his directing drags it down into the abyss. At least unlike in Berserk or Kumo Desu Ga, the quality of the directing matches that of the story.
In short, if you're looking to indulge yourself in a lackluster power fantasy, harem-building Isekai with a bad protagonist and worse supporting cast, go watch Sword Art Online or something. Though few of the anime fitting the bill would have as visually compelling characters as Iseleve, fewer still would be as bad an experience as this dumpster fire.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Mar 14, 2021
The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter is, in short, not a good show. Lazy copy-pasted story writing, lackluster animation and one-dimensional characters will make you realize your time wasted watching it would have been better spent doing something else. Like sleeping.
Story: 2/10
Calling it generic would be a compliment. This is the same "fantasy world with game elements" setting we've all seen a million times, but without any stakes - no threat to the world, no challenges to overcome, it's basically a day in the life of an OP main character, who can become more OP by being lewd. That's it, that's the entire hook.
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It's basically just ecchi for the sake of ecchi. Which is fine, but when the story is so boring, why not just watch hentai?
Art: 5/10
The character designs are the only thing in this show I would consider serviceable - not great, not at all original, but at least somewhat competent. However, backgrounds and locations are uninspired and forgettable, and the animation quality varies from sub-par in earlier episodes to abysmal in later ones.
Sound: 4/10
Honestly, nothing stood out to me as either good or particularly bad. I can't for the life of me remember a single background track, but the occasional stock cartoon sound effect can be a bit jarring.
Characters: 2/10
The only reason I'm giving this a 2 and not a 1 is because of a certain legendary adventurer, whose name I can't even recall, but at least has some character to her. The main character is your run-of-the-mill harem protagonist, having no trouble committing atrociously lewd acts like social standards just don't exist in the world, while remaining completely oblivious to everyone else's feelings, all the while miraculously getting placed on a pedestal as if he were the most eligible bachelor in the world. And the rest of the cast? One dimensional embodiments of character tropes, every single one of them.
Enjoyment: 2/10
When the main character comes face to face with a deadly threat and you find yourself thinking "oh good, he might die", something's probably wrong. I've unfortunately found no enjoyment in watching this series. It feels like it's actively insulting the viewers' intelligence by throwing worn out tropes together and trying, and failing, to weave a believable excuse to why it makes sense for the protagonist to nibble on his childhood friends' ear until she climaxes, in the middle of a fight. No, I'm not kidding. The humor also falls flat for the most part, with most of the jokes not even managing to eke out a chuckle, let alone a good laugh.
Overall: 3/10
If you like the harem/ecchi genre, you might find something to enjoy in the lewd scenes. But more than likely you would just find yourself feeling somewhat uncomfortable, as even those aren't particularly good. There are much better options out there. You know, ones where you actually care about the characters, the world, or the story, or heavens forbid, all of the above.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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