Reviews

This is probably one of the more bizarre isekai I'd seen at the time I watched it. For one thing, it's not even an isekai. I know, I was surprised too when I went back just to make sure, but yuusha-san is just a normal guy from a fantasy world and not a world-hopping Japanese high school dropout. Look what isekai has done to us, we can't watch any fantasy based on western aesthetics without assuming they're trapped in a video game world.

Where the real world does manage to peek it's way in is through all of the modern agricultural and technological advances the demon lord wants to bring to the world. I liked that spin on things where she brings up all the repercussions an end to the demon conflict would bring to human society, and plans to spark an industrial and social revolution in order to bring a new age of prosperity and unity between both humans and demons. Crazy good world-building, the level of some of my favorite western authors and not something you typically see from light novelists. Because light novels are serialized short form works, I think there's a lot less room for the kind of world building you see in Tolkienesque fantasy epics with thousands and thousands of pages. So when I see this level of care and detail put into crafting the world I'm impressed.

Unfortunately the storytelling was pretty dull otherwise. A great setting alone doesn't make a story interesting, and the romance between the protagonist and the demon lady seems to be the focus anyway. It's something I've seen done better elsewhere and frankly it bored me. I still had a decent time watching this, but it's not going to stand the test of time as one of the great fantasy anime of our generation. 7/10