That's all this anime is. It's a rip-off of Shield Hero. (SPOILERS AHEAD) You have a guy who dies getting reincarnated into another world, where he is maligned by the world's nobles and mistreated, even though he's secretly the most powerful guy on the planet. They lobby false accusations until he leaves the country where he meets a beast girl named Raphtalia...excuse me, I mean Latifa..who was initially a slave until he frees her. The two then go on adventures, until circumstances bring him back to face off with the very nobles who mistreated him.
It's straight up Rise of the Shield Hero with some slight tweaks.
But, unlike Rise of the Shield Hero, this anime does not have a cool MC. This one has Rio. A sickeningly sweet boy who is always polite, courteous and "gallant". He's about as exciting to watch as public access television. Surrounding Rio is a harem of completely interchangeable names and faces of high-pitched girls all fawning over Rio no matter where he goes. Nothing stands out about any of them other than being "cute", which is the only thing Rio can basically say to them throughout the anime. How womanly they become over time. Because there's literally nothing else of note about them. I think the only thing interesting at all about the harem dynamic here is that Rio takes off on the women for years at a time. That's at least a little different from other run of the mill harems like this.
The story seemed promising in the first few episodes, with Rio trying to find his bearings and deal with the harassment of the nobles. But, it quickly tapered off into a run-of-the-mill Isekai adventure, before crashing and burning in a dumpster fire of a cliffhanger ending that explains nothing about why he's there, what is going on with his spirit girl, what he returned to the kingdom for before he dealt with Celia's situation, just all sorts of loose ends in what is obviously a set up for the sequel. I understand leaving something on the table for a second season, but you can't just end a season like you're ending episode 4. You have to explain some things, wrap up some kind of loose ends. Meh, not that it matters anyway. It's unlikely I'll watch the second season of this, anyway.
The anime was mediocre through most of the run, and became subpar in its final episodes that foisted a marriage drama on you out of nowhere, instead of having Rio either find Lucius or deal with the lies the nobles told about him. I wouldn't waste too much time watching this. If you haven't seen it, I would go watch Shield Hero instead. It's a much better version of this.
