Honestly though, I didn’t expect anything special coming from this show. From the promotional art, to the trailers. Nothing was clicking for me to change my mind from the fact that this was going to be another bog standard Isekai story. Four episodes later, my mindset hasn’t changed for the anime. Nothing was peaking my interest. That being said, the show is not bad. In fact, I could make a case for two other Isekai shows this season that are worse than this show. But it has also been unremarkable as well.
So the story begins with our main protagonists, Taichi and Rin, suddenly getting transported to another world by a summoner. But due to some interference, they get summoned to this new world in the middle of nowhere. What follows are some of the usual fantasy Isekai plotlines. Meet and make friends with people from this new world, join the adventures guild, realise how overpowered they are and then b**chslap every villain and monster they come across after discovering it. Although not too overpowered as they have met foes that gave them a challenge. But the show’s story has been pacing steadily so far and nothing has felt like it dragged on for too long. But, we still don’t know much really as to what this world is like or why they are summoned (not yet at least) outside of how magic is used. Instead, it starts to establish our main group of characters and how the power fantasy is established in this world. But it is told in a rather boring and uninteresting way by simply explaining it to us, rather than showing the awesomeness of magic. Yet when it does, it is still rather dull because it is not trying to be flashy or cool looking to get you invested when magic is used to give you the reaction of “That was cool.”. Episode four looked like that for the most part but the animation was rather underwhelming with plenty of cutaways and still images with intense shots and fast lines moving across the screen on the sides.
Other than that though. The animation and the soundtrack is also decent and does its job. I will say that it is nice that the show hasn’t resorted to crappy cgi in its fight scenes yet, although some of the flame effects are questionable at times. I like the art style used here, if a bit generic, but it does look good honestly. It’s just when it comes to animating, it’s lacking. The soundtrack can be absent at times but when it does, it is alright and matches the scene most of the time. A couple of times throughout the four episodes though, it felt like that the soundtrack and the scene didn’t match and it felt rather jarring.
Our main two leads are rather stereotypical as duos usually are, with Taichi being the heroic, charge right in to save everyone kind of guy and Rin having common sense and is usually the one that thinks things through. The warrior and the mage essentially. It is also pretty clear that there is going to be some kind of romantic tension building somewhat between these two down the line as they have already to lay the seeds for it. But that would require me to care and I do not in this case. They are really uninteresting, stereotypical, power fantasy characters you get in these kind of shows without any quirks, gimmicks or even have an interesting personality to make me care about them. The supporting cast though is fine if a bit uninteresting so far that merely act as acquaintances or even future companions as shown in the first scene of the show.
Now what about the opening. The reason I decided to watch this show. Well I have to say I am disappointed. Which is a shame. MYTH&ROID have not done a bad opening and all of them that they did the song for have been great. “Paradisus-Paradoxum” from Re:Zero, “JINGO JUNGLE” from Saga of Tanya the Evil and “VORACITY” from Overlord III have been great openings. And after coming off from one of the best openings this year, “Shadowgraph” from Boogiepop and Others, this felt underwhelming because of one main thing, the choreography of the chorus. It was hard just to keep track of what was going on on the screen and there were a lot of flashes of light. It felt like the visuals were trying to keep up with the song, rather than the song come to it to make it choreograph better. The song itself was good, if not a bit out of place with the show due to heavy use of the synthesized vocals. But that’s MYTH&ROID’s style so who am I to complain.
So yeah, this show is a rather unremarkable, bog standard Isekai series to add to the ever growing list of this genre. Yet nothing about this show is rage inducing to get you frustrated with it as it doesn’t invoke that sense of frustration or disgust because it doesn’t try to. It’s going through the motion of a formula that is tried and true that we know works but never tries to branch off to do something interesting. This show really is middle of the road. Doesn’t want to take risks. Is neither good nor bad. If you like this kind of show, then yeah, watch this series. Just don’t expect anything interesting to come out of it. But you can do worse than this, especially coming out of this season.
First impression:
Story: 4.5/10
Paced well but is rather boring and uninspired in its delivery so far.
Characters: 5/10
Interesting seeds planted but our main two leads are rather uninteresting and fall into the usual duo stereotypes.
Animation: 4.5/10
Like the art style but animation is flat and cuts away too often.
Sound 5/10
Does its job but is something I will probably not remember moving forward.
My Personal enjoyment: 5/10
This show neither frustrates me or wows me and I am just going through the motion with this show.
Overall score: 4.8/10 Recommendtion: Consider it
