Isekai Ojisan is 2 shows in one. On one part, you get a pretty comfy Slice of Life on a SEGA fan, who Isekai'd before the Dreamcast came out, and his nephew as they run a Youtube channel. The other half is said SEGA fan, his nephew and nephew's friend watching his exploits in Isekailand in a commentary type fashion. For as long as the Isekai genre has gone on, this has got to be the freshest take on it I've ever seen. For one, the MC actually returns to the real world, so it has that going for it. But personally, the real world sections are my favorite of the two as you do see how Ojisan grapples with living in a bold new world where SEGA exited the console business. And magic of course.
As a fan of retro games, and videos about retro games, I loved these segments as the author behind these clearly has a passion and knowledge on actual games. The producers for this must have pulled a lot of strings to have the brand names depicted without censoring unlike the manga, so you get a lot of real world references to not just Sega games, but also Sony, Nintendo, Youtube, and other companies/products as well. And as silly as it may sound, it helps to ground the show and make it more relatable despite the magic realism and all. And speaking of retro games, the OP itself deserves a special shoutout for its commitment to detail as it parodies various Sega games/tech demoes that Ojisan would no doubt be familiar with (down to the Saturn compression for FMVs), while correctly deriving its parodies from sources that came out before Ojisan got Isekai'd.
The Isekai segments are pretty fun too, but outside of the initial premise of a SEGA fan being Isekai'd into a fantasy world, it doesn't deliver anything particularly new or fresh. It's very well executed with plenty of memorable characters and a great sense of humor, but a lot of good isekai also offer that so Isekai Ojisan has one less leg to stand on if you're comparing it with other shows. Still, I've never seen a character like Mabel before appear in an Isekai before. She's somehow even more pathetic and egotistical than Bocchi, and I love her for it. The general plot within these segments is fairly typical and nothing special, but they are there to steer the characters into wacky situations and hijinks, so I don't necessarily hate it for its lack of originality on that front. And again, the unorthodox mix of retro games and Isekai make for a really fun watch.
If you're sick of the endless Isekai shows that crop up every season, you owe it to yourself to watch Isekai Ojisan and be comforted in the fact that there are people out there who don't lazily churn out a cheap shitty power fantasy LN that gets adapted into a mediocre anime down the line. You watch it and then go play Panzer Dragoon again. Preferably on original hardware.
8/10
