I just wanted a wish-fulfillment isekai in which a woman goes to a fantasy world where she is the Chosen One and gets a hot boyfriend while fighting evil. It is a simple formula and I like it. However, the awful pacing made this anime difficult to enjoy.
We meet the protagonist, Sei, as an office lady who is working until late. She arrives at home, where she lives alone, and is suddenly summoned into a fantasy world. Another girl (Aira) was summoned with her. The prince announces Aira is the Saint they were waiting for. Then, the scene is cut to Sei having a meeting with some characters who explain the situation to her: the Saint, who has a great magical power, was summoned to fight the evil creatures that are threatening their country, but somehow two pleople were summoned instead of one. Sei can't go back to her world, but can live confortably at the palace if she wants. She is free to do as she pleases. After a time-jump of one week, she is bored af and gets a job in a research institute, where she learns how to use magic to make potions.
Doesn't seem like a bad first episode, but the pacing... THE PACING. It is just so fast. The scene where she is summoned, I swear. Two frames and it is over. The fact that the prince declares the other girl the Saint and ignores the protagonist is actually very important for the plot, but barely any attention was given to that. Several episodes later, Sei says that she was furious for being ignored, but we never got to see that! The scene happened in a flash, and we never saw her having any particular feelings about it! We only saw the "after", when she is listening to their explanation and seems upset for being summoned there against her will -- and even that doesn't last long, as she accepts her new life quite easily.
It is very difficult to care for a character we don't understand. Did she have friends and family, or anything important to her? There was no mention to it. Was she working until late because she likes her job, or did she hate it? She seemed pretty neutral about that. Did she wish she was the Saint instead of Aira? No clue. We can only guess all of that, nothing is shown. And the worst is... around episode 7 or 8, we finally see how things happened to Aira. We see she had a family, we see her crying because she can't go back, we see her motivation to work hard as the Saint (the prince promissed to find a way to send her back if she solves the kingdom's problem). We UNDERSTAND her. We even get to see more subtle aspects of Aira's personality, which were actually done very well. So why didn't the writers show the same dedication in writing the protagonist?
The romance also suffered from bad pacing. The first meeting between Sei and her love interest was a great scene, I really liked how it was done, but after that... time jumps. Lots of time jumps. He gives her some rides, and time jumps. Suddenly they are into each other, but I guess they fell in love when we were not looking, somewhere between the time jumps. How about showing us those interactions??
I really wish they showed us why the two of them are good together. Do they have shared interests? Do their strenghts and weaknesses complement each other? Being handsome/pretty is not enough for a compelling romance. Writers need to work a little harder than that.
To be fair, this show does improve from the middle on. They start doing time jumps when it actually makes sense, showing the important events in real time and jumping baggage packing or whatever. They start making up for the mess that was the first episode by explaining how Sei felt and showing the events by Aira's point of view. They also show Sei and the love interest working together, and having meaninful interactions. It was much better, but too little too late.
Plot (3/10). The plot is sooo contrived. The basic premisse of fighting monsters is ok, but when we get to the details... ugh. Everyone seems to be so bad at their jobs. What annoyed me the most was the writers trying to frame a certain character as sacrificing himself and playing the bad guy to protect someone else... However, if you actually think about the situation, his decisions don't make any sense. He could have solved the problem in a blink of an eye if he just acted with common sense. So, so contrived.
Characters (4/10). The protagonist is very blank. I get it: we are supposed to put ourselves in her shoes. However, we also need to have something to identify with. I already ranted about not knowing anything about her motivations and thought process, so I will say what I liked. I really liked the fact she is a researcher (maybe because I'm a researcher too lol), and that aspect of her gained more emphasis at the last half of the show. There was some novelty to it, and I think it is great to show girls doing science. As for the other characters... the love interest is just pretty and kind, with no depth at all. A little boring. Aira doesn't have much screen time, but she had a short emotional arc that was probably the best of this show (and kinda made me wish she was the protagonist). Other secondary characters were interesting to watch, such as the king, Elizabeth, and the other potion researchers. Most of them were more memorable than poor love interest whose name I forgot (Sorry. It is Hawk.), but still there was no depth in any of them.
Design/graphics (8/10). The graphics are beautiful and give a nice fantasy-like atmosphere to the show. The character design for the main couple is as generic as their personalities. I wish they had kept Sei's glasses or added some original detail, because without them she looks exactaly like all other girl-next-door type of protagonists. I did love the design of many of the side characters, tho. The king was a daddy.
Music/voice (8/10). The soundtrack was nice and blended well with the scenes. The OP and ED songs were also good. But I have to praise Sei's voice actress (Ishikawa Yui) for her great acting skills, which couldn't make up for the poor writing, but gave as much personality to Sei as possible with that script. Hawk's lines were very repetitive, mostly saying "Sei" softly/kindly/sexly. Sakurai Takahiro indeed sounded soft/kind/sexy, so... lol. Good job too, I guess...?
Enjoyment (6/10). I was entertained enough to watch until the end, as the second half of the season got better. But, if they make a new season, I'm probably not watching it. There are several better isekai animes with female protagonists out there.
Overall (4/10).
