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I consider the fact that she spinelessly stood by and allowed him to be victimized in her name to be a betrayal. She is a princess, she has power. She could have stood up to those around her and said "No. You don't get to do this out of jealousy and fear.". I also don't consider the loli teacher (wtf are they ALL loli's?) to actually be his friend. She stood by and did NOTHING to protect him while he was in the academy. She is again, a NOBLE. A powerful person who has influence. She could have used her power to help protect and shield him from the stuff that happened to him during his academy days. Instead she had secret tea times with him and the author expects us to accept that as friendship. She is laughably another one of the loli's he has to run off and save like the simp white knight he is later in the books.

This guy just got cucked twice in the first episode: first by a random bull taking his childhood friend and then by a slum rat denying him a proper reincarnation. Out of a girlfriend, out of a life, out of a body. What a loser.

SUPERIOR NIPPON SWORDSMANSHIP

Yeah, I've definitely seen all of this before. But what amuses me is thatWhat a loser! Get his ass outta here.

This adaptation is painfully weak and cuts way too much. Three episodes per volume is one episode too few for this work. I can see why they're going with four volumes for a first anime, since they really need this to turn into Isekai Central™ by having a shitload of Japanese people turn up, but the resulting work is disgusting. Not that I expected much quality after that distinctly bland episode 1, but wow, episode 2 is even worse. The anime reflects poorly on the LN; it does not draw out its qualities, and in my opinion it also seems, to a lesser degree, to exacerbate its issues. To be fair to the staff, the LN itself doesn't lend itself to a seamless translation to anime, but even then, this is way worse than it has any business being.


I'm not even going to address whether any of those are or aren't genres because that's completely beside the point. Rather, I'll just say this: if Earth, Mars, Japan, and Europe cannot be themes, I don't see that a different world can.

The name of the genre you're looking for when you say that isekai is a genre is "fantasy" (and often also "power fantasy" as a subgenre, but I'll leave this point at that). In fact, if you discount the small fact people are getting transferred from Earth to another planet (in two different ways, as will become apparent towards the end of the season), I fail to see how this is particularly different from the usual sword-and-sorcery, (somewhat) European-Middle-Ages-inspired fantasy. The transfer, reincarnation, or whichever happens that causes something to be labeled isekai is an element (or at most a thematic point in some cases) that serves to establish the premise of the work, but it serves no particularly big continued impact to the story development. This is in stark contrast to the fact this is a fantasy work, or the fact this is an action-adventure work (as sword-and-sorcery fantasies tend to be), both points being made clear with every paragraph of text. In fact, because this is Isekai Central™, the isekai premise has a higher prevalence in the plot, but even then it plays second if not third fiddle to the fantasy or the action-adventure.

By definition, a genre always has major impact throughout the entire work. With every line of text, the reader is reminded of the genre because of how the text presents itself. When you read a whodunit, not two lines go by without your being reminded in some way or another that there's a loose criminal out there and that the goal of the story is to catch them. When you read a biography, you're never too far from the actions, words, and thoughts of the subject of the text. When you read Spice and Wolf, the story doesn't let you forget that they're travelling, because that's an adventure work. When you read Seirei Gensouki, you are constantly reminded that this is a sword-and-sorcery fantasy in which the main character has adventures and fights enemies with his sword and/or his sorcery (or sometimes with his sheer brute strength), with the direct focus changing from one genre to another as necessary.

Now, go on. Point me to how the fact Rio was once Haruto on Earth (well, more or less) is incessantly important to the story the way the actual genres are. Hint: it's not. It is half important once, then it disappears almost entirely for something to the tune of several volumes at once (and sometimes entirely for quite long portions of the story, even full volumes), only rearing its head somewhat every now and then in an on-and-off fashion because, this being Isekai Central™, enough people with ties to Japan (and to Haruto personally) keep showing up to not let the point finally die. Contrast that to Youjo Senki, in which Tanya's otherworlder status ceases to have any importance to the story while still in volume 1 (Being X's continued influence notwithstanding), never again to return, or even Honzuki, in which Myne's knack for things that world has not seen can be adequately explained in other ways that do not involve the reincarnation, causing it to soon become a non-point entirely. Consider: if you were to remove the fact Tanya or Myne were originally from other worlds, would their respective stories change substantially? If you say yes, be ready to explain how they would change and why the changes are necessary, but I see ways to remove them without a lot of change. This here may be a case where the changes are less easy to effect because the effects of so many Japanese people causing all sorts of affects on each other and generally affecting their social environment as a whole [1], but it is possible to not change the story that much by altering the nature of their roles and giving them a history in that universe.

In fact, considering that Tolkien has designed Arda as being in the distant past of the real Earth, how do you tell with certainty that any isekai is not actually just somewhere else on the Earth in a postapocalyptic future, barring the story bearing and eventually baring sufficient bearings [2] to say otherwise? If Seirei Gensouki had people not from Japan, but from a collapsed civilization of a distant and long-forgotten past, in what ways would the story be any different? How do you know for sure that this isn't actually the Earth of a billion years from now, when even the continents no longer look the same, previous society has collapsed, lifeforms have changed, and magic has been developed (or become common knowledge), or perhaps an Earth that has been redone by deities we know nothing about but who even now watch our every move? If you can't even tell with full certainty whether it's a different world or just the same at another point in time, how precisely are you supposed to call its otherworldness a genre? I'll remind you that Shinsekai yori technically takes place in a postapocalyptic Earth, and Mahouka takes place in future Earth, despite their having magic (or what is pretty much magic in SSY's case), to say nothing of heaps of contemporary/urban fantasy works taking place in the present-day Earth, so a magical Earth is perfectly possible already. And besides, if the characters were all from that world and point in time, barring the backstory of certain characters and some short-term changes to the original interactions between them, how would the story be long-term altered, and can any of those changes be considered substantial?

The bottom line is: something that is at most relevant once and then briefly "relevant" every now and then, and that furthermore can be removed from the story without wrecking it completely, does not make a genre. A genre is a cornerstone characteristic of the works belonging to it; it is permanently relevant. You cannot write works around the genres they belong to; you cannot simply replace them. You cannot rewrite Seirei Gensouki to be as it is without fantasy, adventure, or action at the forefront, but you sure as hell can do it without any isekai at all, to say nothing of the forefront, where isekai already isn't to begin with. In fact, I can very confidently assert that it is possible to remove the isekai characteristic from any isekai out there while keeping the work largely untouched, with such an enterprise having varied degrees of difficulty depending on the work (for Youjo Senki, for example, it would be a cakewalk).

[1]: I've always wanted to correctly use both effect and affect, each as both noun and verb, in the same sentence; sue me.

[2]: Here I'm just being silly and playing around (it's correct usage, though!).


Except she doesn't. Did you miss the part where the king himself had the academy headmaster at the time order her to stand down when she did the one thing she never does and spoke up? Or the fact that royal authority is crumbling due to the combined effects of a long history of factional infighting and the treacherous ambitions and moves of certain powerful nobles, or perhaps the fact that the king and the most powerful noble in the kingdom, a cornerstone of the king's support, would both be put in a very precarious position if the truth were to become public? Are you actually acquainted with the work you so strongly criticize, even though you seem so unaware of the facts laid out before you by the plot? I hope you are not the sort of simpleton to actually think an eleven-year-old princess who hasn't even formed a faction to her own name can possibly overrule the words of the king?

I shouldn't be having to explain this, but, as a princess, she holds absolutely no power whatsoever of her own. Any power she has is wielded through and because of her father, who outright denied her any chance of involvement, and through and because the nobility that directly supports them and who wished to avoid the complex political problems that would doubtlessly be created if the situation was handled any other way due to the low levels of royal authority at the moment. How do you believe kings of old kept their thrones, by divine intervention brought down from the heavens against those who thought otherwise?


By the Lord, how I envy your naïveté. She is a noble of an average house with a fairly weak standing and belonging to the weakest faction, but with a great degree of loyalty to the royal house. She finds herself unable to go against the royals due to her great loyalty, and even if she chose to discard that for Rio's sake, she is perfectly aware that anything she did against the decisions taken by the powers that be would be readily shut down by people with loads more influence. When she heard of what was going on, the decisions were made by people who have the power to shut her down in ways that may include revoking her family's status as nobles and even revoking their status as living beings, depending on how big the trouble it causes.

Seriously, please study some history and look at what nobility was truly like throughout the ages before spewing such gullible nonsense as that a single noble (and a woman in a society ran by men at that) can change the world when going against the combined power of greater houses, simply on account of blue blood. Countless heads, each belonging to "a NOBLE, a powerful person who has influence", have very literally been detached from their respective shoulders throughout history when said "NOBLES" acted out of turn, and countless more such "NOBLES" have met other forms of untimely demises under similar circumstances, to say nothing of losing their power and position, being imprisoned, and so forth. In fact, noble families losing their status altogether is scarcely unheard of, and I can name at least two families in the Beltrum kingdom alone to whom that happened within a decade of each other.

Don't be such a plebeian as to think that being a noble is a pass to do whatever you like. It is quite the opposite. Nobles live and die by the influence of their titles and house, and neither of those is going to last very long if she steps out of the line, with their very lives being at risk depending on how bad it is.


You're wrong about the first (nice random assumption though). I have no idea what you even mean by the second, but, going by your track record, I think I can just assume you're wrong there as well, yes?


There is more than one way to "use magic", as you put it. His power is incompatible with the way they teach, which is why he appears unable to do it, but he's actually much more powerful at magic than any of them. You will understand soon enough.

Well, yes, that generally is my critique of pretty much every single shitty isekai trend-following trash, it's mostly tacked on because they think they'll make more money by putting "isekai" on the cover (they're usually right). The best in isekai-whatevers make it actually relevant, but that doesn't happen often enough.

I... really don't see how a normal, sickly kid randomly invents essentially modern technology on a daily basis. Dr Stone already pushes the limits of an incredibly nerdy highschooler, so a 5 year old born into poverty doing it makes even less sense. Unless you mean your change would be implanting esoteric knowledge into her even more arbitrarily than reincarnation. That kinda feels to me like saying Sherlock Holmes doesn't have to be a real detective, could be just some random unemployed dude, so the naming convention of a "Detective Story" is incorrect. Needlessly nitpicky IMO.

Suppose it's not even a sub-genre of fantasy, since there's no reason any given isekai work couldn't be sci-fi or even a contemporary setting, so long as it's another world. But even then, using any of those would be far too broad, even if appropriate. Sorry for using the g-word; in the future I'll refer to "isekai" as a tag instead.

Too much text

But yeah, all is true.

It's a common misconception. Isekai is more often than not just a setting starter... We spent a lot of time codifying the isekai tag here on this site. "Shitty isekai" is also a misnomer, because what is shitty is the story, not the tag. Isekai is irregularly hyper-convenient plot starter, since it allows author to skip shitload of explaining about "where does this dude come from and what's his agenda", because this dude is just your average teen/businessman/horndog/neet/drone and go right into the "exciting fantasy" part.

That aside, just 4 volumes for this adaptation? Bajeebus, that's a recipe for disaster. Nothing interesting even starts happening until vol5.

Holly shit the fight with that big monster in ep3 was effing tragic. Atrocious choreography and animation. How are these anime even making money? Do peoples standards fall of a cliff or what. Imagine paying to see such garbage. IMHO.

^That's what I came to post.

that's 'supur cheep' animation. I think they tried a battle scene, failed, then used static cut scenes. Expect more in the future.

It's not a battle story but it's still painful to see it.

Christ, this adaptation has always been bad and no mistake, but does it keep getting worse or was it truly this dreadful from episode 1? Reading the LN, I thought it was a bad adaptation target, but did they seriously have to fuck it up this much? It may not be as bad as what they did to Arifureta, but it seems worse than what got done to Death March.


What gotnoface said. Isekai is just a cheap plot kickstarter; it's not terribly important, and you're really supposed to forget about it sooner rather than later. Get this: according to the Honzuki author, Myne was not supposed to be a reincarnation, but simply someone normally born to that world; however, explaining her, do forgive me, otherworldly passion for books in any other way was too difficult, so bam, enter the convenient device. That readers like so much the idea of some random average Joe (often easily) becoming Someone Important™ the way isekai protagonists tend to is a result of a highly repressive society that makes people unnaturally receptive to escapist fiction, which is what those isekai stories are, and that's why the protagonist becomes an audience insert. So let me underline this: audiences in Japan are highly receptive to isekai because it is escapist, and authors are highly fond of it because it is easy and turns worldbuilding into a fucking afterthought [1]. Isekai stories that aren't escapist in any way and yet are well-liked are few and far between, and they tend to stand on legs that do not have a single isekainess cell in them.

[1]: Regardless of the original intentions, I'll give the Honzuki author a get out of jail card and look the other way about resorting to isekai. Honzuki is clearly the result of proper long-term planning (with the whole plot having been laid out in advance of actually writing anything), unlike most other LNs, isekai or otherwise, so the fact it was an "easy" choice is less relevant. Moreover, a great deal of care went into worldbuilding, far more than in your average LN, and so the fact one small part of it was "easy" is a non-issue in contrast with the amount of hard work that went into the rest of it all. Overall, the fact it is isekai went pretty much unused insofar as the general weak worldbuilding in isekai stories is concerned.


Yet 4 volumes is also one too many for a single cour. Adapting this is a losing proposition.


They're not supposed to. They're supposed to advertise their respective original work while not losing so much money that they become extraordinarily costly, and handing the adaptation work to the lowest bidder is a way of making the ad cheaper. Whether or not they can succeed at advertising anything at all when they're this bad is anyone's guess; I certainly would have felt less compelled to read the damn LN if I came to the anime unprepared.

Oh man that explains a fking LOT. I never even considered it a device to advertise. I mean why would I want to read manga when adaptation is SO AWFUL. What a let down.

PS. Like when I saw for example original Berserk or Claymore (fk 3 last eps) I jumped into manga INSTANTLY - but this crap??? not in a million years.

I did enjoy the manga quite a bit but the anime is atrocious lol.

This, I didn't know. I always assumed that Anime was always intended as it's own thing, obviously capitalizing on it's source material fanbase, but still intended to just become popular and make more money.

I have a feeling I said this before (maybe because I did), but this adaptation is almost as bad as Arifureta's. Why are we getting so many dumpster fire adaptations of perfectly fine light novels? Did the industry finally implode under the crushing weight of all the anime it was churning out?


I haven't touched the manga for this (I pretty generally never do when the original work is LN), but the LN, while not rid of flaws (and I can happily talk about them for hours), is fairly good. And while some manga adaptations are pretty bad, this anime is a next-level type of bad, so I can believe that the manga is better.



Okay, I suppose I made too strong a statement there originally. Let me expand on my point so that I can clarify it a little.

Obviously the anime also intends to sell on its own merits, be it in terms of discs, assorted merchandise, really anything that can turn a profit. By and large, anime wants to be popular and make as much money as possible, because a full anime is insanely expensive for an ad, and it needs to recoup some of its own costs. It's a crazy system. But ultimately it's not meant to turn a profit on its own, generally speaking. Breaking even is already great if it boosts sales for the original work even a little, and even turning a small loss is fine if it's still cheap for an ad and it does the job. It's not that it isn't a goal at all, but rather that it isn't the main goal.

The main goal is to generate hype for the original work and all assorted stuff you can buy while on its own raising just enough money to make it a cheap advert on the whole, which, as I said, is why we get anime that would ordinarily have been good being turned to trash when they're handed over literally to the lowest bidder. That doesn't mean that the anime turning a profit on its own merits can't be a possible goal. Sometimes it is. You see that pattern in anime-original works, especially some big budget original movies, because there isn't an original to sell. You also see it in those ridiculously gorgeous anime KyoAni makes by burning through ridiculous amounts of money. You also see it with Shaft's work quite often. But, by and large, they're just kind of a niche behavior, an exception in what is otherwise a pattern (or arguably an antipattern) in the industry. There simply isn't enough money going around for every adaptation to be a work on KyoAni's level. KyoAni, by the way, is a massive exception to every rule in that they seem to own the intellectual property of basically everything they touch these days, which basically never happens anywhere else.

Ep1, 2

not bad not bad, standard premise tensei, but I like the medieval and magical setup
ML despite being kinda loser in his life + previous life, is actually not standard annoying loser type (in terms of his character)

also, kinda liking the artwork here and the character design, girls are cute. Interesting plot direction as well, and nicely balanced tinge of rom-com

Edit:
Ep3, 4

Gotta say I am pleasantly enjoying this ML becoming OP anime, at least for this one. ML is very much likeable character for one, unlike other similar anime which I am not in agreement with ML's attitude or pure dense-ness
Plot wise also have nice pacing without draggy pointless dialogues
Also liking the rosters of cute girls (edit: ep5 oh yes yes yes yes!)

Ep 7: This show is beyond merely sleep-inducing; it is a general anesthesia. Any content of interest in the LN has been consistently bleached into being as generic and uninspired as possible. One of the best parts in volume 3 was rushed through and turned into an unfortunate exercise in boring and bland.

I wish this adaptation could at least command enough of my attention to be called a train wreck. That would at least be marginally interesting in its own way. Arifureta was a train wreck, Kaminatta was a train wreck, Valvrave was a train wreck; all those shows got me to at least react. I could get some popcorn out of engaging in a detached analysis of the reactions it produced in me and the reasons for those reactions. This, on the other hand? Screw it; I can't be fucked. I'd give it a negative grade if I could. It's dreadful beyond words.

episode 1 is good, better than manga, the rest of episode ugh...
the reason why I vote 7 is because of the story TBH interesting...

overall I like the anime than the manga (song, VA, design character, etc) but feels like the story got butchered from the manga... (dunno why the anime rush story...)

the problem is the expectation
I see this based on the old man POV, lack of emotion, lack of energy, lack of fight back response, lack of plot twist, the other chara emotion kind like a kid, but they can plan cunning like a criminal, it should focus on tragedy but based on old man POV kind like MEH response, kind like good guy moving forward without tragedy at all

so I accept all the cons, I watching this without expectation at all, kind of like reading LN with a light plot This post was edited by testakraze (255559) on 25.08.2021 15:20.

This gives me no faith that the original source could possibly be any good. Should an anime adaptation be doing that? Like it just comes off as a worse Death March, which wasn't particularly good either, but I liked the characters and it has its moments. Neither can be said for this. Characters come and go, leaving no lasting impression at all. MC shrugs everything off, which would be typical in a power fantasy, but usually there's some reaction, comedic or otherwise, yet the MC shrugs even that part off too so events also come and go with no lasting impression at all.

It just comes off as pure trash. Not the enjoyable trashy pulpy stuff, either. You have Kirito walking in a straight line, with every girl along the way falling in love with him, but nothing comes of it. He just keeps on going, while none of them follow. He's a solo player, I guess.

It's a novel that was always uncomfortable for me to read because the drama is often written from a perspective that is pedantic.
To be brutally honest, the writer's mental state is a little scary.

I think the anime is as good as it could be 99% of the time. The other 1% is atrocious action scenes.

episode 8 is the best example of why it's better to lower the expectation on this series...
the action ended too fast
this series lack energy and action scene sigh...