Isekai has been a theme for a long time in storytelling, and actually have endless possibilities. C. S. Lewis used it in his famous Narina chronicles, and it has been present in anime since the 90´s and early 2000´s with well-known shows like Escaflowne, and The Twelve Kingdoms. But in later years the genre seems to be completely absorbed by stories about geeky men (young and old) with boring and empty lives who get transported to another world where they get super epic powers, and all the other men want to be them and all the girls want to bang them. There seems to be at least one of this type of isekai anime coming out each season the last couple of years, and there only seems be an increase of these self-insert wish fulfilment stories in the LN universe. So, of course with that, some very typical and generic tropes have formed for this particular part of the genre and are used in different ways and combinations in the existing works. Which with the degree of imagination from the author could be more or less appreciated by the readers/audience.
Well, it seems like the author of KnM just took the most basic and simplest generic tropes, characters and story direction from the manual and put it together in the most uninspired way possible. More like, he cut them out from mentioned manual, than pasted them together, and then happily nodded to himself for good days work and went for a beer. He probably had a mental check list going something like this:
Geeky man with boring life gets hit by a car and dies – check
Is reborn as the most powerful and talented magician EVER in another world – check
Make the MC so naturally talented so his super powerful and famous grandparents have a hard time to keep up with him and fawn over how he can invent sooooo many new things that no one else in this magical world had ever thought of before such as transport portals – check
Why not have a magical school? Where the MC basically could be the highest professor since he so good at magic – check
Why not add a school study group which the teacher begs the MC to lead so the rest of the class can be super impressed 5 times an episode over how AMAZING the MC is – check
Have the MC save a big breasted chick with blushing issues and a meek voice and personality in episode one (and then again and again in later episodes) – check
Have all the high school girls dressed as sluts (the young men just love that)– check
I probably can squeeze in a hot spring episode where some of the girls can group each other (because that´s was girls do at hot springs) – check
And why not a beach episode, I bet I can squeeze in one of those as well, who doesn’t love busty anime girls in bikini - check
No need to give the characters actual personalities, just give them some quirks, different hair colours, titles and give some of the girl’s big tits that can be zoomed in here and there, that should be enough – check
Make every other character so extremely less powerful, intelligent and significant compared to the MC so there is absolutely no doubt who´s boss – check
The kids like romance now days, right? Let´s have a super constipated and forced romance between two teenagers that barely can hold hands without stammering and blushing to death – check
Mmm, and of course the story needs a villain, all the other isekai has one. Let’s get one with the most generic reasons so the story don´t get to complicated for the youngsters - check
Oh, and yeah, let it be clear early in the story that the evil guy has shitload of respect for the MC´s powers, it would be awkward if anyone doubted that the MC had the slightest threat - check
Am I forgetting anything… Hmmm.. Oh yeah! A magical training camp where the MC can be the cool trainer, and everyone can live together so some grouping moments can come to pass – check
Or something like that.
KnM actually doesn´t even need to be an isekai, so little is referenced to the main characters past in the other world which was like the two first minutes of the show. He even got reborn and would logically have no memories of his past life, but since he is a special baby, he remembers his past life. The first episode actually gave me some hope that this could be a fun parody of the genre, but unfortunately it really tries to be a fun, easy going but legit isekai, which it in my eyes fails in every aspect. The comedy is dumb at best and is only amusing if you think a grandma yelling at someone, or friend tease you for your crush is funny. The magic system barely exists and are so poorly explored that it basically only exists so the MC can do cool stuff. The main conflict (if you even can call it main since the kids is off somewhere and goofing around for the most time), bare no tension or stronger emotions at all, its just there so the MC can be the hero and have people fawning over him. The dialogue is so stereotypical and generic that it almost gets comedic, especially the conversations between the good and evil guys, which could go along the lines;
Good guy: “Why are you doing these evil things?”
Bad guy: “Because I was treated badly, and now I got power so I want to destroy the whole world, mohahaha”
Good guy: “Then I have to stop you with my much stronger magic, which the MC teached me!”
I actually laughed in those situations, but for all the wrong reasons. I will tell you though, at this point I was totally on the bad guys side and wanted them to crush the MC and his little fan club. Because that is what all the side characters are – the MC´s fan club. There are other listed as mains but in reality, they are just the groupie and fan club leader.
The art and animation are barely decent, with some very generic character designs and lazy drawn backgrounds. The animation and “fight” scenes are lacklustre at best and bad at worst. Shows like Fairy Tail can get away with that, since it´s already established and is a long running show but short shows like KnM has no excuses. If the budget is that bad, don´t even bother in the first place thanks.
I don´t even remember the music, must have been so bland or overshadowed by the death of my braincells that it completely escaped my mind. The OP I remember on the other hand, and it’s quite fitting. It is ridiculous and super-duper silly, so it actually fits the show pretty well.
This turned out to be a 1000+ word rant about how bad I thought the show was, but hopefully you got the gist of it and if this is something in your taste or not. I do have one positive thing to say about KnM though, at least it wasn´t a harem.
