The core premise of Seirei Gensouki is *SO COOL,* you guys - it really is. It's so cool that it is absolutely heart-rending that the anime that presents this premise is just such shamefully self-indulgent uninspired harem trash (and I'm no harem-hater, there are legitimate amazing harem anime, but this deserves the 'trash' label wholeheartedly).
When I say "Isekai where the guy from our world doesn't just magically reincarnate, but actually has his soul and memories fused into a pre-existing person from the 'other world', forming essentially a new person with the memories of both and a personality that combines the two", do you get excited by that prospect? Does the interplay being discussed there fascinate you? Good - it should! It's an absolutely wonderful and at least partly-original premise, and could be an amazing way to liven up the now-stale isekai genre.
...but how would you feel if I told you that this premise results in a character best described as "Mom can we have Kirito?" "No, we have Kirito at home.", in an anime whose animation, dialogue, embarrassingly transparent audience surrogate wish-fulfillment, and "down-time events" seem to all borrow heavily from that disasterpiece 'Master of Ragnarok'. If you know, you know.
Doesn't feel very good, does it-
No, and after suffering through all that, do they deliver on that cool central concept the first few shockingly well-written episodes sold you on? ...A little bit. In a post-credit scene after the last bleedin' episode of the season.
I mean, it gives me hope that maybe this first season was just a dumping ground for all the author's bad ideas and obligatory 'fan service', such as it was, and that perhaps this next season will focus more on plot and less on loli imoutos wanting to wash the audience-surrogate-MC's back... but I want to be quite clear here. You could watch the first 3-4 episodes, some clips amounting to -maybe- another episode's length all stitched together, and then the final after-credit scene on the final episode... and you're honestly pretty much caught up with the plot. Literally everything else is just the MC being absolutely perfect in every way, being lavished with gifts by the elderly, respect and praise by the adults, jealously by the young men, and adoration (and barely disguised lust) by the young women - all in a constant neverending stream.
If you think a legitimately interesting reincarnation mechanic is worth putting up with all that, then by all means this is the show for you.
