Encourage Films

A Stupid Script For Stupid Characters

Isekai Cheat Magician Episodes 10 + 11

Wow, if I thought Isekai Cheat Magician had been a little on the dumb side before, episodes 10 and 11 confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the characters in this story are dumb as bricks and the plot isn’t much better. Admittedly, you aren’t exactly going into a generic isekai expecting brilliance, but when a character claims that they wouldn’t lose if the other character wasn’t stronger and that is exemplary of the genius level statements characters are making across two episodes, eye-rolling becomes the norm while watching.

Anyway, after the attack on the city in episode 9, Taichi, Rin and others get rewarded by getting to pick a shiny new weapon from the royal collection and then we play around for a bit before the news of the real attack comes in. The King makes a speech and we plunge straight into war, getting to see the scenes from the opening of episode one again, though this time they are even less impressive than they were as an opening act.

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The four main characters split up across the battlefield and take on individual opponents while the background characters kind of sway back and forth when they exist in the shot at all and then Taichi just kind of walks in to the enemy camp and lays out a possible peace agreement which is thoroughly shot down. It’s okay though, because the creepy guy who has clearly been manipulating the duke has been waiting for this moment to monologue his every thought and to summon zombies.

Which is where episode 11 ends and I guess I’ll have to watch the next episode to find out how Taichi easily defeats the zombies and we return to business as usual. Meanwhile the real ‘mastermind’ behind all of this is still just watching from the shadows as all terribly written mastermind’s do.

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Karandi James

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Images from: Isekai Cheat Magician. Dir. T Daisuke. Encourage Films. 2019.

Who Summoned Taichi?

Isekai Cheat Magician Episode 8

Taichi, Rin, Myura and their mentor are summoned to meet the king who entrusts them with winning a potential fight against his own brother who apparently disagrees with his political policies… The whole time this is being explained I just kept wondering why anyone in the room expected Taichi or Rin to care and yet other than one outburst the two of them are just kind of cool with the idea that they are being forced to take up arms in a war that they have no personal stake in.

This happens a lot in isekai stories where for whatever reason the protagonist gets dragged into some kind of conflict. Particularly when the characters themselves want to go home and it isn’t a case of they died and reincarnated. Yet they never seem upset enough by the situation. They just kind of accept that ‘this must be the only way’ or ‘it might be easier to go along with it’ and we move on with the plot.

It really kind of makes it difficult to see Taichi and Rin as anything but plot devices. Even if they do everything they are asked and the Princess does find the impossible solution to sending them back, which is a ridiculous long-shot of a promise in the first place, having been through one fight already and about to go into another war these two should be picking up at least emotional baggage and scars like crazy and yet they are just fine. And while I get the comedic tone of the story doesn’t lend itself to deep exploration about the difficulties of being involved in conflict, they could do something to lend some credibility to these two as actual characters.

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Anyway, our next conflict is brother vs brother fighting over something incredibly petty that really should be solved by actually talking things through but instead we’ll go to war over it. I get foreign policy is important but I don’t see how you can protect your country by having people fight each other. What is worse is it looks like the non-King brother is just being manipulated by people who are telling him he’s the only one who can protect the country. So that makes it worse than petty but outright stupid.

At the very least Taichi is having some doubts about fighting people and there’s a semi-decent scene toward the end where he summons and talks with Aerial as he’s worried about actually killing someone because he’s overpowered. He’s also worried about Rin as he wants her to be able to return to her normal high school life (doubtful). This is as close to a real reaction as we’re going to get here so I kind of appreciated it even if it won’t change how the characters act next week in the slightest.

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Karandi James

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Images from: Isekai Cheat Magician. Dir. T Daisuke. Encourage Films. 2019.

The Power Of A Death The Audience Won’t Care About

Isekai Cheat Magician Episode 7

In an anime that had been consistently better written with characters we cared more about, the events of episode 7 would have been pretty amazing to watch. Cliché to be sure, but cliché comes about because something works or appeals and is then used over and over again because it is effective. However, Isekai Cheat Magician hasn’t put in the time and effort to make this episode work the way it really should have and that’s a little disappointing because even with the lacklustre build-up to this semi-poignant moment it still kind of worked though it was more that you could see what they were aiming for and see just why it didn’t quite connect emotionally.

By and large the problem here is that Ana as a character has had little or no build up. I mean, she’s been in previous episodes, but it is almost like reading a summary of a character rather than actually getting to know here. Introduced as a villain (though the blink and you’ll miss it kind) before being taken prisoner and then showing up to assist Taichi as he beat some goblins before apparently being hypnotised into walking out onto a battlefield and ending up on the wrong end of a dragon attack. For us to take this character progression seriously we really needed each of these scenes to carry a lot more weight than they did and for Ana herself to be not as forgettable as a character.

I mean, we get the death of a critical character as motivator; it has been done to death. But Maes Hughes in FMA is one of the most beloved characters of all time so his death had significant weight for the audience, and his relationship with Mustang and the Elric brothers had been well established, giving his death narrative weight. That’s how you make such a sequence work and be more or less unforgettable. Here, we get the watered down version that works in theory but not emotionally.

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While it might seem like I’m being harsh, I actually didn’t mind this episode. It isn’t as though it did a terrible job of the whole thing and Taichi even kind of moved up a notch as a character when he admitted he hadn’t been taking things seriously enough since arriving in the world. Again, the writing doesn’t really lend this scene enough weight but it is a nice scene and a good moment for his character.

Still, I’m just thinking how much better this whole sequence would have worked if we’d thrown Rin into the path rather than Ana. Honestly, she only came to the world because she jumped into the summoning circle. While she’s the best character the show has on offer, her existence with the story is not entirely necessary and using her to get Taichi to focus on whatever mission he’s going to end up on would have worked far more effectively and the audience probably would have cared a great deal (or at least more) if Rin had been the one who ended up in the dirt.

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Karandi James

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Images from: Isekai Cheat Magician. Dir. T Daisuke. Encourage Films. 2019.

Monster Fighting Above and Below

Isekai Cheat Magician Episode 6

This episode was kind of fun but also kind of just going through the motions. With Taichi battling goblins underground and the others taking on the army above ground there is plenty of action and explosive spells, which in a better animated anime might have been enough to elevate this to an excellent episode, but here it just remains kind of fun.

The villain just kind of walking around and talking about how great it all is that everything has worked out and how impressed he is with Taichi and Rin doesn’t really lend any credibility to him or sense of menace. He’s perhaps the weakest element this week. Though the subtitles suddenly deciding the Myura is Mullen or Muller was a little bit distracting – I get that subtitles aren’t always exact but changing the name of a character from one week to the next is a little off-putting.

It also didn’t help that the twin girls introduced last week on the villain’s side get one kind of taunting line before they become victims of their own monsters and are rescued by Taichi. Again, it kind of kills any sense of tension or belief that those opposing Taichi have any chance of success given they seem to dispose of so many of their pawns after so little.

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Putting that aside, the battlefield is interesting enough. Rin trying different combinations of elements to duplicate effects she’s learned about in our world is kind of cool and overall while the monsters don’t seem all that scary it is a decent enough fight for the anime it is in.

Naturally though Rin and Myura aren’t really allowed to have a moment here and Taichi is once again swooping in for a last minute rescue as Rin laments not being able to tell him that he is strong. For all that Rin gets some great character moments she also gets some pretty terrible ones and the end of this episode certainly falls into the latter category.

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Karandi James

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Images from: Isekai Cheat Magician. Dir. T Daisuke. Encourage Films. 2019.

No Damsels In Distress Here

Isekai Cheat Magician Episode 4

The resolution of the farmer’s problem seemed pretty straight forward in the end but then the suspicious guy from last week turned out actually be suspicious leading to the first decent bit of tension Isekai Cheat Magician has thrown our way since it began. Largely that is because clearly the guy is looking specifically for Taichi and Rin which kind of gives me hope that eventually we’ll find out who was summoning them and why in the first place given they clearly didn’t end up where they were supposed to.

Now, Isekai Cheat Magician is not a visually impressive anime so compared to the fight sequences you might find in Demon Slayer, this one might be a bit lacking. In fact it kind of once again reminds me of Kenja no Mago from last season where they give you a sense of how cool it should look but it doesn’t really look cool.

Anyway, Rin and Myura take on the cloak wearing mage from last week and it turns out she’s battle crazy. We know she is crazy because she does that incredibly cliché anime crazy person thing and after she’s wounded takes a slurp of her own blood. I’ll never understand that trope but whatever. This anime does get points for a fake out though. The guy fighting Taichi threatens to use Rin and Myura as hostages as for a moment it looks like they are going to lose their fight and end up being the damsels in distress (DID). However, then we get a shakeup in our clichés.

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Taichi is the one overwhelmed in his fight while the girls pull theirs off. But, seeing Taichi about to get crushed into the ground they are forced to surrender anyway. Fortunately, they aren’t turning Taichi into the designated DID either and he does the typical shounen thing of a plot convenient power up in the middle of a battle.

In their defense, it does look pretty cool.

Basically, this episode did a great job of setting up future plot developments, expanding on Taichi’s power, and it certainly kicked the action up a notch. Other than the very average visuals I have little to complain about from this week.

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Karandi James

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Images from: Isekai Cheat Magician. Dir. T Daisuke. Encourage Films. 2019.

Not Triple Price For Fruit

Isekai Cheat Magician Episode 3

Two weeks as adventurers and the guild gives Rin and Taichi a mission failed twice already by D-ranks (apparently the rank above where they started). Naturally, given these two are the stars of Isekai Cheat Magician, the quest isn’t going to prove all that difficult for them, though I feel they leave a lot unresolved when the guild declares the mission over and advances them. Fortunately, it seems like they are going to look into some of the issues more now that they’ve teamed up with Myura and gone to figure out what is causing the price rise of fruit.

Given the easy going nature of this show there is absolutely zero threat or tension as the two go about the slums to the bar to look for clues initially. Even Taichi points out that he doesn’t think they’ll lose and he says it with the confidence of someone almost positive that they have isekai protagonist plot armour. While that makes it difficult to really care when they are suddenly surrounded, Isekai Cheat Magician isn’t exactly trying to be an emotional roller coaster and is more just pacing around a well worn track so it isn’t like this is a detriment to the show.

Rin and Taichi continue to be a decent enough duo though Rin is increasingly getting shoved to the sidelines of the story and seems to be useful only because she actually reads the information they are given and remembers it. It is a shame given she is quite powerful in her own right (not to the extent of Taichi) and it would be nice to see the two on equal footing but instead she hangs in the back while Taichi smashes things.

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Also, Taichi’s main use of his power being reinforcing his body is cool and all, but it really makes it hard to call him a magician when he essentially just punches stuff.

And so this latest isekai adventure remains serviceable fair, easy enough viewing, and also very easily forgotten. While I don’t think I’ll regret choosing this one for my line up this season as I’m sure to enjoy, I also won’t exactly be giving this one a glowing recommendation. It is what it is, and for those who like average isekai and are in the mood for some easy viewing, it delivers and that’s all it does.

Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
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Karandi James

Do You Want To Read More About Isekai Cheat Magician?

Images from: Isekai Cheat Magician. Dir. T Daisuke. Encourage Films. 2019.