Even when isekai protagonists are handed everything on a silver platter, they still remain hateful. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
The World’s Strongest Rearguard Ep. 1
I’ve already seen and covered the first episode, but for the sake of completion, you can check out my first impressions here.
Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs Season 2 Ep. 1
Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games Is Tough for Mobs could’ve been interesting if it had stuck to its guns. Not only is a guy reincarnated into a shitty otome game, he is reincarnated as an NPC/mob character. He has to navigate the pitfalls of a world/society that heavily favors women as well as the designated pretty boy love interests. Unfortunately, the show quickly devolves into yet another power fantasy where the main character gets to rub his enemies’ faces in the dirt. Rather than dismantling the system, Leon plays along while spitting venom the entire time. It’s a bit toxic. Moreover, he does it in no time flat, because great power just falls into his lap. Storytellers have no patience anymore. Nobody ever slowly climbs their way to the top these days. If Leon genuinely had to work hard to raise his status, that would’ve been one thing. But he just has an “I win” button from the start. It’s also one of those shows where the protagonist eventually acquires a bevy of wives, one of which is the queen (and the mother of one of the aforementioned pretty boys). Yeah, I spoiled this for myself. Who cares?
Anyway, the first episode of the new season has Marie taking over as the story’s saint. That should’ve gone to Olivia, but they’ve messed up the timeline or whatever. And because Marie is now the saint, she forces Leon to serve as her bodyguard simply because she knows he would hate doing it. The only somewhat interesting wrinkle here is that she is secretly his sister in their past lives. We get a snippet into Marie’s fraught previous existence — some clues as to why she’s such a brat after being reincarnated (see the screenshot above). Unfortunately, neither she nor her brother have connected the dots, so we’re not exploring this concept to its fullest. Of all the things to be patient about, I guess the author chose this one.
From Overshadowed to Overpowered Ep. 2 & 3
In the second episode, we meet the rest of Eftal’s family. He has a half-brother who cares about him a lot. Dude drops in every week just to train Eftal in the ways of swordfighting. Then there’s Eftal’s mom, who is very endowed for… uh, reasons — probably all gooner reasons. There’s little else I can say about her. She doesn’t get much screen time, and the little that she gets, she doesn’t show off much of a personality. Last and very least, there’s Eftal’s father, who is a complete shithead. He’s over the moon when he learns that Eftal will be attending military school only because it means he can stop paying child support. Dude has a harem of his own, and he seems to utterly despise Eftal for merely existing. I suspect Eftal’s conception probably wasn’t so innocent. Nevertheless, the kid’s mom still carries a torch for this utter loser.
Anyway, this show has a strange world-building quirk where an individual can have seemingly no magical aptitude, but still have the ability to cast high level spells. We went over this somewhat last week, but it rears its head again when Eftal’s mother refuses to let him attend a mage academy. I mean, that’s an easy problem to solve, right? Just sling one of his high level spells. Well, for some reason, he hides the fact that he can cast any magic at all. Why? Beats me.
Also, it’s been 400 years since his previous life, and magic has been on the decline ever since. One thing I liked about Frieren was how magic didn’t stay stagnant. A demon awoke after a century of being asleep just to learn that humans had appropriated demon magic. Hell, they even pushed it to newer heights. Unfortunately, that’s not the case here. Not only is Eftal already a high level caster at a young age, he’s likely head and shoulders above everyone. The only silver lining is that the show tries to give him something to struggle with anyway, which is why he’s training to become a swordsman. But I’m sure he’ll master that in due time. After all, he’s already managed to toss a former knight commander.
The second episode ends on a cliffhanger. His father will let one of his other half-brother put him to the test, and I suspect Eftal will succeed with ease. At the end of the day, this is still your bog standard power fantasy.
So in the third episode… well, you know you’re in for a bad time when the first “villain” of the show is just some one-dimensional rage-baiter. Eftal’s half-brother Joachim wants to kill both him and his mother simply for bringing shame upon the family. It’s ridiculous. Not only that, he makes this weird, cunnilingus gesture towards the kid. Was it actually directed at Eftal’s mother? Well, no, this doesn’t seem to be the case, ’cause he proceeds to say, “I’ll take good care of you just like Dad did for your mother when she spread her legs for him.” Huh? I don’t want to belabor this disgusting point, but I’m genuinely confused. Whatever, it’s weird and rapey either way. Eftal wins so we luckily don’t have to see what Joachim truly meant.
But before we even get a chance to breathe, the story throws us right into a plot to assassinate the infant prince — a plot cooked up by Eftal’s own father. Frasier and Eftal try to escape with the baby, but they run headfirst into daddy dearest flanked by a huge army of mages. All this just to kill a child? Well, you’ll soon see why we needed this many bodies. Frasier tries to talk sense into their father, but the old man tries to kill Frasier. Man, Eftal’s bloodline sure is kinda shit. In any case, this enrages our boy hero, so he finally reveals just how overpowered he is. After shrugging off several mid-level spells from the army of mages, he fires back even higher level spells. Then he whips out his sword and starts murdering people left and right. Ah, so that’s why there are so many mages standing here. By the time the dust settles, he probably killed them all. Hm. Dunno how I feel about that.
In the aftermath, Frasier is still alive thanks to a MacGuffin. Meanwhile, daddy dearest is executed publicly. Last but not least, even though the cat’s out of the bag, Eftal still insists on attending the mage academy ’cause we can’t live without a school setting in our anime. I don’t even remember why he tried to hide his overpoweredness in the first place.
The Exiled Heavy Knight Knows How to Game the System Ep. 2
The first few minutes of the second episode aren’t even a recap. It’s literally the last few minutes of the first episode tacked onto the new one. We then dive immediately into the OP. Three minutes have already elapsed at this point. By the time the OP is done, we’ve wasted another ninety. Nearly five minutes of old content. I hate it when shows do this. Yes, it’s been a week since I last watched this dumb show. No, I didn’t completely forget everything that happened. I don’t have the memory capacity of a goldfish.
When we finally get to some new content, a giant monkey spider swoops in outta nowhere. Elymas admits that he could get one-shotted. Oh no! So of course, he proceeds to stand there and check the enemy’s level and stats. He then opens up his own status screen to allocate skill points. He then deliberates over how to best defeat this dangerous monkey spider. This entire time, the spider is just idling in front of him. The episode is already more than half over by the time Elymas draws his sword and is ready to fight. Holy shit, man. I didn’t know this had turned into a turn-based JRPG.
Well, the actual fight itself is pretty fast and furious — so fast and furious that it only takes up about three minutes. Big spoilers: Elymas wins. The rest of the episode feels almost perfunctory. After a restless sleep full of nightmares — he’s reliving his memories of being exiled, but again, that wasn’t his real family so…? — Elymas heads to the guild to officially register as an adventurer. Cue the unwanted jeers and jokes from the peanut gallery. Cue everyone’s jaws dropping to the ground when he reveals the drops he had gotten from the monkey spider. Right before the credits roll, we see that Elymas had joined up with a raid group in order to raise his adventurer’s rank. Yo, I thought we were getting a clown waifu? When is Elymas gonna hook up with her?
One last thing. Last week, I highlighted the show’s production values. On second thought, the anime might actually be ugly after all. I mean, sure, the production values are probably still high, but they don’t seem to know what to do with it. Take this shot, for instance. It looks like they took a photo and ran it through a bunch of Photoshop filters. It’s a mess.
If you missed the first impressions post for the first episode, you can find it here.
Hell Mode S2 Ep. 1
I liked the part where Allen returned home to pay a visit to his family. They’re still serfs. They’re still pretty destitute. But Allen goes and hands them a bag full of gold coins. Maybe his parents can now give their home proper insulation for the winter or whatever. The entire family then has a group hug before Allen departs. You can’t help but wonder if he ever cared for the family in his former life the same way. Probably not. But sure, sure, he’s the ultimate filial son now. The bestest big brother to his dear sister, too.
Unfortunately, the rest of the episode is pretty bog standard. Allen reunites with his childhood friends before departing for the academy. The kids get reappraised, they sign up at the adventurer’s guild, they have their first classes, they clear their first dungeon, so on and so forth. If it reads like a checklist, that’s because it is one. We even get a montage at one point. C’mon, it’s the first episode of the new season. Why are we ‘montaging’ already? At one point, Allen does tell his childhood friends all about the war effort, i.e. what got Cecil’s brother killed. On paper, this should be a pretty weighty conversation. You don’t get to graduate and live a cushy life. The noble’s burden means you gotta throw your life away in a vain attempt to defeat the demon lord. But of course, Allen’s childhood friends don’t even take a minute to consider their options; they readily agree to sign up with him. Paper thin story, paper thin characters. Ah well, nothing to see here.
By the way, episode two will be covered in next week’s post. Again, it’s the same as with Clevatess. I basically have everything written up by Thursday night, then I schedule the post to go live on the following day at noon. There’s no time to squeeze in the latest Hell Mode episode unless, of course, I’m a bum with no job.
Skeleton Knight in Another World S2 Ep. 1
I watched the first season of this show years ago, but honestly, I barely remember a damn thing about it. Obviously, I still remember the protagonist being Arc, a skeleton in a hulkin’ suit of armor. He’s also accompanied by Ariane, an elf… half elf? No, I think she’s just a dark elf. Her ears are so small, it threw me off. I’m more accustomed to elves like Frieren. Be proud of your big, honkin’ ears! But I’m getting off topic. The point is, I completely forgot about the ninja girl or the fox thing. The characters start talking about a princess, and I don’t remember anything about her either. When you watch a lot of isekai anime every season, it’s hard to tell them apart. Surely, however, the first episode of the new season will get us up to speed on what our heroes have been up to.
Well, the first thing I see is a bunch of orcs chasing scared, screaming women in a forest. When they eventually get cornered, a man reveals himself to be in control of the orcs, and he intends to enslave them. Naturally, he threatens to assault one of them before selling them off. Don’t worry, the protagonist and his party eventually swoop in and save the girls, but god only knows how many women have already been captured and shipped to far off places. A little later, the party comes across a town where all the inhabitants run and hide at the sight of them. Arc and his companions learn that a duo has been masquerading as them while also kidnapping people. When Ariane and ninja girl act as bait, these slavers take one quick look at Ariane’s chest and threaten to rape her. Finally, the party manages to infiltrate the slavers’ hideout. Naturally, the bad guys won’t go down without a fight, so they summon forth a bunch of goblins. Immediately, Arc tells us all about how goblins like to kidnap women and force them to pump out babies. Luckily, this isn’t Goblin Slayer so we need not fear for Ariane and ninja girl. Nevertheless, I think I’m starting to notice a pattern. Oh, that’s right… slavery is a huge plot point in this show. In fact, if you go to the anime’s Wikipedia page and simply do a search for the word “slave,” you’ll find fifty-four matches. Holy moly. And I memory-holed all of that? Ap-par-ent-freakin’-ly…
So yeah, it’s the gallant skeleton knight and his dark elf companion against a world full of slavers and (often female) slave victims. Alright, lemme go on a bit of a tangent… why are guys mad when women pick the bear? I mean, when these authors write their stories — and this isn’t even limited to just the isekai genre — they fill them with nothing but creeps and damsels-in-distress. It’s like freakin’ Schrodinger’s rapist out here. You don’t have a clue who’s safe until you collapse the waveform! But jokes aside, even in these authors’ own world view, women are rarely ever safe. They can’t even step outside without fearing for their lives. So if the world is that threatening to these men, what do you suppose the world looks like for women? Granted, I don’t know if this series’ author is male or not. For all I know, it could be a woman who has a thing for chivalrous skeletons. But plenty of isekai series are written by dudes, and they all have the same rapey world-building. And if I really had to put my money on it, I’d probably guess that Ennki Hakari is a dude as well. But rant over, and I’m getting off the soapbox. Just… think about it.
