Setting the studio quality aside, Saitou-san is just really fun. What stood out to me at first was how hilarious the show is. The first 4 episodes of the anime take a skit-like approach, taken from the 4-koma manga style of the source material. And thus there are multiple 4 or 5 minute long sections per episode focusing on a specific topic. These 4 episodes introduce us to the main characters but also to several other side characters, in comedy filled situations. After we've been acquaintanced to these characters, the following episodes reunite all of them in a dungeon and increase the stakes, transforming the hilarious sketch formula into a series of dangerous and emotional battles. The comedy isn't entirely discarded, there are plenty of funny moments here and there, but it's noticeable that it was sidelined for the focus of plot progression. We'll see touching character backstories and deep motivations and goals, I just love how they managed to turn the first comedic episodes into a serious battle anime and suceed at doing it.
There are a lot of dirty jokes in this anime, I think that should be noted. There are way too many jokes involving penises and naked characters, and if that's something that bothers you it might be better to avoid this anime, but at the end of the day it didn't bother me or affect my enjoyment at all.
The one thing that did bother me though were some plot inconsistencies. I won't get into big spoilers, but the dungeon arc I mentioned earlier had several characters looking for some artifacts seemingly. At the end of the arc they changed that into a magician. If you watch the anime it does make sense what I'm saying, as a magician does show up but the artifacts are completely forgotten about by every character. There's another instance in the last arc, but I won't talk about it because they're some heavy spoilers.
Anyway, I really enjoyed Handyman Saitou-san. The animation is great, the comedy is phenomenal, the characters, both main and side characters, are all very appealing and well written, and the plot manages to entertain us while shifting between episodic skit-like content and serious, emotional battle anime with interesting villains. So at the end of the day, Hanydman Saitou-san is a 9/10 for me.
