The certified nice guy MC, Rein, is an adventurer of the "Beast Tamer" class, with the abilities to insta-tame beasts temporarily, or bind them to him permanently. However, since his skills don’t work on monsters, and due to an unfortunate lack of grizzly bears in the local forest, his DPS were too low, and he was kicked off his team. He then finds himself wandering the local woods, slaying some goblins who broke a fence, and stumbles into an ultra-super-rare catgirl, whom he promptly enslav- i mean, "tame".
If you have ever played Pokémon then Reins next step might be obvious; To travel the world and collect all the rarest Pokémon so he can get his gym badge. But instead of catching Pokémon, he will magically enslave an ever-growing harem of rare monstergirls while wandering the local woods and instead of doing it for a gym badge, he will just do it for no real reason.
Most of the plot and dialogue can be described as "light". It’s just interesting enough to not be filler. The characters often act or think nonsensical, the pacing is strange too. Often, characters make comments that makes you wonder if you missed an episode and some of the internal monologues had me wondering what the hell they were talking about, or how they got to that conclusion. It often feels like a scene or two have been removed.
Rein doesn’t really have any motivation, after being kicked from his party he reacts with a "Oh, wow. I am sad. Oh well, I guess I’m going to become a freelance adventurer, or something.". Then we follow Rein and gang around while they are doing some VERY laidback "adventuring". As in, mostly collecting herbs from the forest, eating, small talking. And sometimes stumbles across something that needs a beating.
MC doesn’t really have any goals, and apart from stumbling over random events, there isn’t really anything happening. There isn't much in terms of character development either.
The setup reminds me a bit of Rising of the Shield Hero. Enslaved fluffy-eared girl. Party kicking MC, no real offensive abilities. But instead of a grand betrayal, it’s just the party telling MC that his DPS is thrash and that he is trash too.
One of the things i liked the most about Shield Hero was the lack of offensive abilities, paired with the shields ability to transform to different designs, each having different functions. The Beast Tamer class has the same gimmick. No real offensive capabilities and the ability to tame different animals depending on the challenges ahead. Using smarts to compensate for the lack of raw power.
The promising setup is ruined by the end of episode 1, as it is revealed that Rein is yet another (relatively) overpowered MC. Apart from his "Taming Power" being so absurdly high that he can casually enslave humanoids, as long as they have a tail and fuzzy ear, its revealed that he can mass-tame animals and give them complex orders. This immediately begs the question; Why didn’t he just rush every enemy with a bunch of forest critters? Well, that’s because he is retarded.
But that’s okay, we can still get a nice "Weak" MC like the Shield Hero who has to rely on his allies for damage, right? Nope. About 5 minutes into Ep 2, the last hopes were dashed, as he apparently gets superhumanly stronger for each monstergirl he tames. The otherwise exciting setting is thereby reduced to an excuse for the author to surround our average-OP-niceguy fantasy protagonist with a harem of fawning Kemonomimi monstergirl slaves.
Our MC Rein is a typical clueless niceguy. The most atypical thing about him is his lack of knowledge about things that a beast tamer should know, as well as how carefree he is. Nothing really sticks to him, and he spends most of his time drifting aimlessly from one task to another, like a paper bag in the wind.
Apart from MC, there is the girls. First of which is Kanade the catgirl, a cutesey airhead with a jealous streak. Apart from acting clowning around and reacting with shock every time MC does something impressive, she also part-times as a walking encyclopedia. Every time MC, the beast tamer, needs something explained, be it information on beasts or specifics about how one of beast tamers only abilities; "permanent bindings" work, Kanade the catgirl apparently knows it.
Catgirls are both ultra powerful and close to extinction. My headcanon being that they are a bunch of airheads. Sometimes they get bored, wander into the woods, forget how to forage for food, almost starve to death, and then asks the first beast tamer they stumble upon to enslaved them.
VISUALS:
There is the occasional moments of pretty visuals, but it mostly range from all right to simple and uninspired.
The cast looks good, but the contrast between main characters and bystanders can be pretty jarring at times. The animals look pretty nice as well, to be honest. But the backgrounds are beyond weak, and most of the time missing. When the characters are talking, it often replaces the background. Maybe it’s a cutesey pastel colored background with crayon-style figures, sometimes its eye-scorching white. It makes the already weak dialogue even more stiff and unnatural
Fight scenes especially boring, ever since MCs shitty knife broke in EP 1, he has resorted to straight up punching enemies and having gained super strength, its surprisingly effective. Kanade has twice as many moves, as she varies between punching stuff and doing jump kicks. Overall, the fight scenes are lacking in terms of both visuals and coordination.
AUDIO:
The voicework is fine. The music is okay, its appropriate and not in the way. The effects are bad and OP and ED are boring. Same with their visuals.
TLDR:
All in all, a pretty boring anime with a lot of lackluster visuals. if you are looking for a lighthearted wholesome-ish fantasy comedy to watch at 2 AM, then this might be for you. I suppose it could be worse.
3/10
