The arrival of my least favourite character in the light novels was not an asset to this episode. Then again, it is hard to think of what might have improved this given essentially twenty minutes of screen time is taken up with a walk to the hotel, a conversation in bed, and then a really annoying girl-walks-in-on-guy-sleeping-next-to-other-girl-and-jumps-to-conclusions trope. At least she didn’t slap him.
In fairness, they also ate a meal. Wow, this show is hard to find a positive in this week.
Anyway, Arisa is one of two new slaves that Satou has purchased and essentially added to his ‘not’ harem because he still insists he isn’t into young girls. She’s a Japanese girl reincarnated in this world and actually does bring some useful contextual knowledge to the story given it turns out there are reincarnations from Japan and summoned humans, but neither situation seems to fit Satou’s current predicament given he wasn’t born into the world and his appearance changed when he arrived (plus the absence of a summoning circle kind of hits that one on the head). We also learn that Arisa has a range of magical abilities that could make her quite scary if used the wrong way. Seriously though, Arisa’s entire personality annoys me. It annoyed me while reading it and it is worse watching it.
In case you are wondering about the other slave, I wouldn’t as other than a few scared looks, a stomach growl, and an entirely way too convenient moment of sleep talk, her presence was more or less zero in this episode. Really though, this show needs to think about what they are trying to do. While they are doing a great job of pretty much walking us through the books, what they aren’t doing is being entertaining viewing so far.
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Have you ever had that feeling of disappointment that comes along after you’ve read a really cool premise or a story seems to have an incredible setting and then literally nothing is done with it?
Well for me, 2017 really delivered a lot of these sorts of shows where you had to wonder why they even bothered. While many anime are set in the generic school type setting or average Japanese city/town, others try for a more ambitious set up, but if the story doesn’t utilise it basically all the show ends up doing is waste its time trying to explain concepts that don’t amount to anything.
This was a major issue for Knight’s & Magic. Forget the fact that the majority of the show takes place in a fairly generic fantasy setting that is largely indistinguishable from any other. Also, forget the fact that we’re introduced to monsters that need to be fought off (the justification for the Knights’ existence in the world at all) but by about three episodes in you’ll never see another monster (okay, slight exaggeration). No, Knight’s & Magic just had an overly complicated premise which fizzled into nothingness more or less the instant the show actually started.
Now, I noted this in my series review of this, but Knight’s & Magic isn’t a straight fantasy but rather an isekai story. Meaning the main character is transported into another world. But Knights Of The Incorrectly Used Apostrophe isn’t satisfied with just opening a portal or whatever. Instead it feels the need to kill off Joe Average computer programmer (in a fairly uninteresting manner) and then have him reincarnate as a genius in the magic world due to his memories of programming. About all we learn of him prior to him dying is that he programs and is kind of respected by his colleagues and he likes robots.
And that sounds fine. You want a character to be exceptional in a fantasy land so give him advanced knowledge of programs. Only, other than one or two comments about magic being similar to a program, you could almost forget this was the premise after about half an episode. Which means the show wasted precious time establishing a premise that it never used. And given there is at least one other character in the fantasy world who seems to be almost equally a genius, unless later developments claim he was also reincarnated, the entire point seems pretty trivial given the amount of set up time it ate early on in the series.
Now the obvious direct comparison of this premise would be the currently airing Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody. While there are plenty of things you can criticise about the show (and believe me, I have been in my episode reviews thus far) one thing I appreciate is that Satou never lets us forget he is a visitor in the world he has found himself in.
He reacts with surprise to information that is surprising to someone from modern day Japan, complains about things like bathing outdoors, and he uses his working knowledge of the games he was assisting with in his life before getting transported into the game to essentially cheat the system. So while I would argue that Death March is in any way a better show than Knight’s & Magic (both shows have plenty of other issues), I would argue that the premise is actually better utilised and so the set-up actually feels meaningful.
Essentially, if we cut out all of the other world stuff from Knight’s & Magic, you would barely notice the difference, whereas if you cut it out of Death March, you’d have to be confused as to what the main character was thinking.
But Knight’s & Magic wasn’t the only show last year that had me scratching my head about it’s premise. Sengoku Night Blood (another show that wasn’t exactly a genius work either) really has me wondering about a few points. Specifically, why an alternative history take on the warring states era?
It isn’t as though this era is new to anime premises. It may in fact be the most overused era for historical anime. But alternative history by turning the warlords into vampires and werewolves? I’ll admit, I was kind of intrigued about what they would do with this.
However, I’ll save you the anticipation. They did nothing. other than two of the vampire boys biting the girl, the only consequence of the characters being vampires and werewolves was that they had pointy ears or dog ears. Literally the only thing that changed was cosmetic. All the plot points were essentially identical even if they had left the characters human (about the only thing that would have changed I guess is they wouldn’t have bitten her but maybe given her a kiss for that power up at the end).
It is almost as if they had a planning meeting to discuss how to make their generic warring states anime feel fresh and new and someone plucked the word vampire out of thin air. But then they did nothing with it. The characters run around in daylight, they eat a normal diet, they are all perfectly pleasant human beings, and essentially this is the single most throw-away premise that 2017 delivered.
The problem with shows that do this is that it makes them feel worse than they are. Because they had ideas, and they threw those ideas in front of their audience, and then the audience was forced to watch them just sit there and have nothing done with them episode after episode. And it begs the question of why include these elements if they don’t want to use them or don’t have time to develop them? Why not trim your show down to the parts that matter and deliver them well?
I don’t exactly know the answer to that but I’m going to turn this over to you and ask if you’ve ever been let down by the premise of a show?
Thanks for reading.
Karandi James
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Another way you can support the content here is by buying a copy of ‘Thoughts on Anime 2017‘ as an ebook. It contains a selection of reviews, features and top 5 lists from 2017 and while the content is available free on the site, this is a great way to give a one off show of support for the blog. It is available for $3.99.
It seems a shame given this series has now been adapted into an anime (though so far not well) and I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, but the second book kind of felt plotless to an extent and now this third book has jettisoned the idea of a plot altogether.
Individual moments in the book are still interesting. Learning how to make vials for potions, the witches and the whole subplot about Satou helping them fulfill their contract (which was used as the climax of the book but isn’t exactly a main storyline), and even just the different villages and cities they visit are nice and all. However there’s no central drive. There is still the whole suspicious infusion of Japanese culture and the possibility of other people trapped in this parallel world from our world, but to be honest Satou as the protagonist isn’t doing much about that and it doesn’t really seem like the reader should care either.
So what we get instead are endless descriptions of food preparation and random magical experiments, snippets of conversation and lots and lots of Satou comforting his various slaves and travel companions as they all vie for his attention (nothing lewd mind you given Satou continuously reminds us of the age of most of them and he genuinely does seem to be looking out for them).
Part of me is still curious as to where this story might go given there are literally endless possibilities, and the other part of me realises that this volume took me the better part of a week to actually finish reading because I would get to the end of a chapter, realise nothing had happened and would put the book down. That’s really not exactly what I look for in a book.
I’m not ruling out trying the next book in the series but for now at least it’s on hold while I check out some other books that have been in my reading list.
Well that was a nice twenty minutes of watching someone else playing a dungeon crawler and defeating the boss first go without any real effort once he equipped the right weapon. It’s amazing how reading this sequence was kind of interesting but watching it isn’t, even though the episode plays out almost identically to the read minus some dialogue while Satou eats with the slave girls.
I do wonder about the end because they seem to have left a few points out after leaving the dungeon but maybe they’ll come into play next episode. And either way, it wouldn’t have made watching this any more enjoyable. It is more like a casual stroll through an unscary haunted house because you kind of know nothing is going to hurt you or the characters and the monsters are kind of lame.
The highlight of the episode were definitely the magic effects as they looked kind of pretty and visually were the most interesting thing we’ve come across in this series. But when a visual effect is my episode highlight I must admit I’m pretty bored.
Worst disguise ever – outside of glasses.
Thanks for reading.
Karandi James
If you enjoyed this post and would like to see more great content on this blog, consider becoming a patron for as little as $1 a month.
Another way you can support the content here is by buying a copy of ‘Thoughts on Anime 2017‘ as an ebook. It contains a selection of reviews, features and top 5 lists from 2017 and while the content is available free on the site, this is a great way to give a one off show of support for the blog. It is available for $3.99.
This one continues to be less than exciting and somewhat less than visually impressive as we follow Satou and Zena on their date around the city before they rescue some slaves from being stoned and finally get dropped into a dungeon by a demon. Pretty typical date really, or at least you would think it is for all that the main character actually reacts to the situation.
While this plays out more or less exactly the way it did in the book, there was even less hesitation and uncertainty from Satou (and there wasn’t that much in the book). Here he hesitates but a moment and then goes and pulls a rambo on a bug. While a sense of danger isn’t really what this is going for, feeling that events like being dropped in a dungeon are as boring as changing the sheets is probably a small problem in terms of this anime really sticking for people.
I did however like the demon. He’s incredibly annoying and his voice is horrible and it just perfectly suits a low level and annoying demon. Pochi and Tama are similarly sufficiently cute without being obnoxious. All and all, this episode really didn’t give anyone a reason to jump into this if they weren’t watching but pretty much did the same as the last two for those who are already watching it.
Thanks for reading.
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Well, the experiment of watching a show I’ve read the source material for continues and it is kind of to the show’s detriment that it seems to be faithfully following the lines of the light novel. However, while the endless descriptions and the like kind of work while reading given you can visualise the various sights, sounds and smells for yourself, in anime form this is just kind of dull.
Added to the very little happening other than Satou getting a lift with the knights into town, gaining entry and then doing some shopping before eating a meal, the animation in this is really terrible. Transitions between scenes are best described as clunky and the number of still images or repeated animations for characters are stacking up quick. The excuse that it is mirroring the behaviour of NPC’s and settings in game worlds is not going to cut it when the end result is something pretty ugly to look at.
From a story point of view, this is functional. It isn’t overly exciting, but it is functional. But the number of issues it seems to have and the sheer lack of any real appeal is kind of going to see this one dead in the water. Though if I had to pick a key complaint this week it would be that Satou’s status bar when viewing the world from his perspective overlaps perfectly with the subtitles making them very challenging to read. I’m continuing with this one more out of curiosity about whether it will veer from the source material rather than any actual enjoyment from this episode.
Thanks for reading.
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With that title you would have to know there’s a light novel of this one, and apparently a manga, and what do you know, it’s another isekai story about an over-powered protagonist trapped in a game. And if you’ve watched any of the promotional material you probably already know a harem is incoming. That said, this is more of a fantasy travel guide than your standard protagonist beats up the bad guys kind of story though whether that makes it any more appealing is anyone’s guess.
Review:
So this is an experiment. I have never watched an anime before where I have previously read the source material. The few manga I had read were always read after I watched an anime and was left unsatisfied by the conclusion and until a few months ago I’d never read any light novels. Still, since I started reading light novels I’ve kind of been devouring them and Death March was one I picked up and I’ve now read to the third book (though my review of that when I get around to it probably won’t be great because I decided to put the series on hold after that one). That makes this the very first time I started an episode of an anime with a fairly solid understanding of the story and an expectation for how it will play out.
And I have to admit, that did change how I viewed this episode. If I remove any knowledge of where this goes or what I expect to happen, this is an incredibly mediocre opening episode for an anime series. It isn’t broken by any means, but it isn’t exciting or intriguing and it does nothing to make you care about the main character, and essentially it is just going through the motions of setting up how Suzuki (in game name Satou) is actually in the game he was previously developing. But as the why of this isn’t answered, even that isn’t really much use in terms of a set up.
I will admit now that while I’d probably keep watching this just because I don’t mind isekai, trapped in a game stories, anyway, this one set itself up to be a pretty bland entry into a fairly over-saturated market. However, I have the added intrigue of wanting to see how this plays out. One thing I did like was the contrast in the visuals from the real world to the game world. However, knowing we are now staying in the game world, I kind of hope that they ease of with the menus and icons flashing over the screen as well as the weird filters. While it did contrast nicely with his working environment, it wasn’t exactly what I want to look at while watching an anime. Mostly because it felt like I’d been launched back into an RPG from the 90’s.
I’m curious enough to keep watching but objectively I can see why this one would be a quick drop for most people. This first episode is best described as bland and even a lizardman massacre by meteorites can’t make it any more exciting.
Thanks for reading.
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When I reviewed the first book in this series I was pleasantly surprised by the writing even if the plot did seem padded and there were definitely moments in the story I could have done with out. As we plunge into the second book, I have to wonder why people think more is better? I get that you are setting up a harem for Satou and all that but how many girls really need to be in it? Given some of the characters get completely forgotten in this book at times (even though they are apparently still hanging around) it is possible that two books in this one has already over-expanded the harem to insane proportions.
However, let’s look at this a bit more sensibly.
The plot this time around kind of confirms that this isn’t really an adventure or questing story. Satou is literally playing tourist. He’s stuck here, it is kind of a game world, and he’s more or less unkillable at this point, so he really does seem kind of content to site see and look after the tragic girls in his ever increasing harem. He isn’t out to right the wrongs and injustices, but he isn’t totally indifferent to the plight of others. Basically, he’s just an extremely overpowered guy having a chill out because prior to being trapped in a game like world he was overworked and burning out.
What this means though is that while there are certainly dungeon sequences and fights, don’t expect much from them. These exist more as an obligation (which even Satou comments on as he finds the shortest possible path through one and conquers it in about thirty minutes because he isn’t really interested in playing around in a dungeon). And the fight sequences at times get intense but more because Satou is either not fighting and just looking out for the girls as they ‘level up’ or because he’s holding back so that he doesn’t accidentally kill the person he is fighting. There’s very little reason to feel concern during a fight and it is more a question of how Satou will win without inflicting too much damage or burning down the building he is in.
So what does that leave us for plot if we aren’t actually actioning our way through dungeons and the like? Well, for the first half of this book Satou does what I really think more protagonists should do and yet now I realise exactly why they don’t. He sits down and asks another character for details about the world. All the details. Not just get one answer and not ask any follow up questions or figure out what it means. He drills in and wants to know. The fact that a lot of the answers we get contradict Satou’s own observations are kind of interesting and it sets up a lot of possible future story pathways, but what it isn’t is a fascinating read. Something even the author must have realised given they chose to punctuate this particular sequence with a naked girl climbing into the protagonist’s bed and end it with the two being found there by one of the potential love interests. But it was all a big misunderstanding! (Really fighting the urge to roll my eyes here.)
So while I appreciate the information we’re given and some of the points are very interesting, this wasn’t the most fascinating starting sequence to the story. When this is followed up by more shopping, watching a play, and then touring some possible houses for rent, part of me started wondering if this story would in fact find a story.
The answer to that is maybe and maybe not. There’s certainly the over-arching issue of Satou being trapped in the world and meeting people who have apparently either been summoned or reincarnated into the world and have memories of his world. The how and the why of all this remains the one overall consistent plot point. Everything else is kind of just Satou exploring, meeting people, sticking his nose into things, learning new skills, playing with the pay, and so on and so forth.
Probably my biggest issue reading this is Arisa’s character (naked girl from the first scene and reincarnated character). Her personality is all over the place but 90% of the time is just obnoxious. She has a lot of information and has helped set up quite a few things but mostly she’s an irritant to the other characters (who already had enough outside antagonists given half the party are beast girls) so we really didn’t need someone in the party stirring things. I kind of get that her character will probably connect us to other plot points later, but seriously I wouldn’t mind her having an accident in a dungeon and just never coming back.
This remains relatively fun to read overall and Satou remains a pretty fun narrator. My issues with the plot and characters became a bit more foregrounded in this second book but I’m curious enough to check out what happens next.
Suzuki is a programmer who has worked way too many hours with way too many caffeine hits when he finally manages to catch a nap under his desk. Unfortunately he begins to have a very vivid dream about being inside a game world with new powers and a much younger looking face. With the in-game name of Satou, he needs to find a way to wake up.
Review:
On finishing this book (which I devoured in three night reads – read until I fall asleep, usually book on face) I started a conversation with someone about the book. I’d really enjoyed it and had a lot of fun, even knowing some of the obvious flaws that I will get to later in the review. Alas, I did not sell the story very well and they gave me a look. I think all anime fans know that look. The one where someone has just wondered what planet you are on when you are trying to defend a show that has literally just shown a guy fall onto some girl’s chest.
And that’s probably the issue here. Protagonist trapped in another world which is based on a mashed up combination of games. He has menus and inventory and all the in-game things you could want, except an exit. He is rapidly building up a harem. Even though he starts as a fully employed adult, his in game age is closer to a teenager and to be honest a lot of his narration is way closer to a teenager (tell me again how flat that girl’s chest is, I dare you). And to make it even worse, while he started for about two seconds as a weak character who was actually at risk of dying, due to a beginner help spell (fortunately foreshadowed – blatantly telegraphed – by an earlier real world conversation) he wipes out literally hundreds of enemies including apparently unkillable ones (good thing the game is buggy) and ends up on such a high level it is difficult to believe he will ever face danger again.
Oh, and I can already see some people scratching another title off of their list.
After finishing reading I looked up this title (backwards order I know) but I found out it started as a webcomic, became a manga, then light novels, and there’s an announcement of an anime (though how confirmed that is I am not sure). So why such appeal in a story that it can get transformed that many times when it doesn’t appear to have a single original idea anywhere in sight?
As to the webcomic and manga, I honestly wouldn’t know, I’ve never looked at them. But I know what the appeal of reading this was. When I read Grimgar my biggest complaint (other than reading fanservice fuelled moments) was the writing itself and just how poorly expressed things were even for a translated text. Death March on the other hand… Well it it clearly a translated text and some words get repeated awkwardly because of that and other sentences don’t quite flow, but on the whole, the writing is pretty good if you compare it to a standard YA novel.
There’s a natural flow to most of the descriptions, the action sequences never linger too long, the dialogue helps bring out the characters, and the inserted in-game references like skill acquisitions fit kind of perfectly with the story they are constructing. I would point out the obvious issue with their being a little too much world building and set up given we spend nearly two entire days with Satou just escourting one girl and then another around the city. Admittedly, we learn a lot from the experience (as does Satou), and the second trip is needed as it leads to the dungeon sequence which leads to the climax of this story, etc, etc. There’s still a lot of plot padding so it is a really good thing that I enjoyed Satou’s internal thoughts, criticisms, evaluations and just his general tone (when he wasn’t looking at one of the girls in the story).
Before I move on from the writing though I would like to share this gem (a lot of sarcasm there) from page 66:
“Every time she moved, something – well, two things, which were presumably D cups – asserted their presence with a distinct jiggle.”
There are some things you cannot unread and that line tragically stuck to the point where I even remembered the page number two days after passing that point of the story. I’m really starting to think there’s some obligation to include these lines in order to prove that you are actually writing a light novel but at least now all those fan-service scenes in anime based on light novels make more sense.
What is a little surprising about the direction the story takes in Death March is that Satou doesn’t immediately set out to make himself defender of the downtrodden. In fact, he goes to great lengths to hide his true level and abilities most of the time letting other characters take the lime-light with occasional assists in the form of flicked coins or rocks from the sidelines. This doesn’t last as he dons sword and cloak for a fight sequence toward the end, but having a protagonist actively avoiding conflict makes a nice change even if even he knows that can’t possibly last given the game like nature of the world.
So while there are plenty of things I could sit and criticise about this book, the one undeniable point is that I had a great deal of fun reading it and I want more. There’s a number of plot threads that have been developed that clearly are going to be continued further down the line, and while the world building in this first volume detracts from the story of this book, it has set the foundations for a lot of possibilities, many of which might be interesting.
Basically, if you can ignore the fact that this is literally a story we have seen done to death at this point, there’s quite a bit of fun to be had. Swords, demons, dragons, magic, slaves, and pit toilets. It all makes you wonder which one is the worst danger Satou will face.
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