Hey look, it is a light novel adaptation that isn’t actually an isekai. It’s just an adventure, fantasy, slice of life with the ridiculously long title: “Banished From The Hero’s Party, I Decided To Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside”. It doesn’t get any shorter in Japanese: Shin no Nakama ja Nai to Yuusha no Party wo Oidasareta node, Henkyou de Slow Life suru Koto ni Shimashita.
Is Banished From The Hero’s Party Worth Watching?
This opening episode is actually decidedly unimpressive with a lot of the main character’s, Red, inner thoughts being delivered through a rushed inner monologue that is kind of dull to listen to. No offense intended to Ryota Suzuki, the voice actor, who has a large range of characters under him (some of which I’ve loved). Here however I found Red’s drone quite dull and given the sheer volume of inner dialogue it kind of made the overall episode feel a little flat.
Outside of that, this episode is pretty much an establishing episode complete with flashback sequence as to the moment Red was more or less told to get lost from the hero’s party as well as his current quiet countryside life as he collects herbs in order to save up money to open his own apothecary.
Now one could be forgiven during the flashback sequence for wondering why Red doesn’t just call Ares out on being a complete jerk, except clearly Red had a number of personal insecurities anyway and Ares’ accusations just sent him into panic mode. Clearly though, if Red had taken some time to talk to the rest of the hero’s party perhaps the issue could have been resolved, but then we wouldn’t have the set-up that we do so let’s just nod and accept this and move on.
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Banished From The Hero’s Party doesn’t waste any time in demonstrating that this is going to be a fantasy anime with some fan-service. Rither from the opening scenes and then the OP there’s a decided focus on a certain blonde female’s assets as she bounces around the screen. That said, the female character in question doesn’t actually appear until near the end of the episode and so most of this episode does actually set up Red as a valued member of his community as he fetches some herbs to save a friend’s child.
I do appreciate that this isn’t an isekai because at least our main character isn’t using game mechanics or pulling out random knowledge from our world to give himself a power-up. That said, Red was a member of the Hero’s Party and now that he’s living in a back-water he kind of is overpowered by default. Still, given this is setting up a slice of life, it kind of makes sense because they don’t really seem to be going for a fighting anime here.
The drama in episode one of Banished From The Hero’s Party comes from the quest to collect the herbs to save the child. Adventurers aren’t supposed to be in the mountains because there’s been a dangerous monster spotted there. Red ignores that and heads in anyway, only to discover the idiots hunting the creature have set fire to the forest (bright move). Undeterred, Red goes about completing the mission before returning home (though an encounter in the forest will probably come back to bite him later).
Banished From The Hero’s Party isn’t exactly going to be thrilling watching by the look of this first episode but there’s also the potential for it to be quite fun in its own way. I’m hoping now that they’ve dumped the backstory on us they ease up on the rushed internal dialogue and the rest of this episode was very easy watching even if it wasn’t amazing. Whether the slice of life elements end up making this one feel a bit dull or whether this stays entertaining remains to be seen.
I’ll definitely check out another couple of episodes and see how Banished From The Hero’s Party goes.
You can read my full thoughts on Banished From The Hero’s Party here.
Images from: ‘Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided To Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside’. Dir. M Hoshino. Studio Flad and Wolfsbane. 2021
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Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James
LOL!
I was about to do a review of this show and my opening paragraph would have been close enough to your to have been accused of plagiarism. But now you’ve done the work and said pretty much what I would have said so I’ll just be lazy.
Part of the reason he left was because he didn’t want to endanger his sister. Maybe he was the weak link in the chain but then so were Frodo and Pippin and look how that turned out.
Like you, I think the show has potential but it is too soon to say for sure.
“Part of the reason he left was because he didn’t want to endanger his sister.” – I get that part but I still think this would have been better if he’d talked to more than the jerk in the party. Maybe he wasn’t suited for the front line, but maybe the group would have highlighted his other fairly worthy qualities. Or potentially found a different role for him within the team. Or at least known that he was leaving them and given him a proper farewell.
Lack of communication kind of bothers me in stories because it seems like a convenient way to get a plot moving rather than a sensible character choice.
I did actually read part of this story somewhere though I don’t think I read very much so I was kind of keen to see what the anime was like. It was pretty much as expected and I’ll see if it remains light entertainment for the season.