J.C.Staff

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom visually was very unimpressive this week largely because the entire episode was characters standing around talking in the throne room or talking through a mirror together. The only scene that really broke this up was when Souma told a story about two gods running opposing nations and then the animation was minimal and definitely more storybook style rather than impressive to match the framing device of it being a story.

All things considered, you’d be forgiven for just kind of tuning out as this episode more or less re-established the arrangements more or less decided last week, confirmed everyone was on the same page, and then had Souma chat it out with Maria from the Empire so that she didn’t get the wrong idea and decide he’d broke the Humankind Declaration for which he isn’t even a signatory.

About the only real takeaway from episode 21 of how a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom is that Souma has finally accepted he is king, not an interim, and he’s not going to take his reforms slowly anymore.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom has more talking heads than anything else.

One thing I mentioned in my review of the previous episode was that Juna would have cause for complaint if Souma agreed to marry Roroa while she was still on hold. And yet, her only comment this week was that she wouldn’t go against any decision Souma made.

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That isn’t good. That isn’t helpful. Souma doesn’t need a harem of ‘yes girls’ surrounding him telling him how brilliant he is. He needs decent, solid advisors who have their eye on the safety and security of the kingdom.

In that respect, Roroa outclassed Liscia, Juna and Aisha this week as she’s the only character with a future plan at all that involves doing anything other than just nodding as Souma talks and standing beside him looking like a window decoration rather than a character. Honestly, Souma should call them on this because for a Realist Hero who wanted to surround himself with the brightest and best and those with talent, he seems to now be surrounded by a bunch who can barely contribute a nod to the conversation. This is hardly a riveting supporting cast.

Honestly I have little else to say about this episode. It was a lot of talking and things are all agreed between the main players. I guess we now just wait and see who the new problem is and all things considered it seems like the church state is going to be the new antagonist. It will be interesting to see if they manage to do this well or not.

Also, I’m not convinced the entire population of Amidonia is fine with being annexed into their traditional enemy’s kingdom. Sure, those in Van who have been under Elfrieden rule would mostly be fine with it and others would see it as an improvement over their circumstances with Julius in the lead. But a Realist Hero would be aware that there must be pockets of discontent. But that issue and what they will do about it isn’t really addressed this week.

I can’t say this second season of How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom is disappointing because realistically it is pretty much exactly like season one. There’s some interesting ideas but the actual episodes are bogged down in static conversations and the characterisation isn’t great. It would have been nice to see this anime improve on season one but at the very least it has been about the same quality and hasn’t gotten worse.

Images from: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom 2nd Season. Dir. T. Watanabe. J. C. Staff. 2022

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Karandi James

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom bounces viewers back to the war in Amidonia (or the fall-out from the war) after rapidly wrapping up the whole mad-scientist plot. I mean, we start still in the lab and dealing with the whole dragon bone theft issue but after seeing a weird curiosity, that mostly just made me think of mecha godzilla, Realist Hero more or less dumps that line of plot progress and instead we see the mess Julius has wrought since claiming back Amidonia.

You wouldn’t think one incompetent leader could get into so much trouble so quickly but between destroying infrastructure improvements built by Elfrieden, cracking down on individuality on things such as the colour of houses, and then brutally putting down a rebellion after people had starved to death, Julius couldn’t really have done a worse job. It’s unfortunate that his father had alienated or fired anyone competent in his government leaving Julius with opportunists and morons to advise him.

Not like he would have listened to good advice anyway.

Realist Hero has already clearly established that Julius, much like his father, as a strong belief that he is in the right and that he can bully or beat down anyone who disagrees with his view of how the world should be and how he should rule. Unlike his father, Julius has neither the force of personality or the standing army to pull this one off.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom seems to be expanding Kingdom into Empire.

Seeing Julius brought down might have been amusing if Realist Hero didn’t actually have real consequences in place. While seeing someone do a poor job and pay the price for it, having to flee his own country, could be satisfying, in the meantime the people of Amidonia are starving and in fear for their lives. Not only is their own army putting down those who dare complain, the country was being invaded from the south.

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What I did wonder was why Julius didn’t get the Empire to help him again? Or why didn’t Souma ask the Empire whether they supported Elfrieden annexing the neighbouring kingdom (at their request, of course)? As much as it seems a logical conclusion, if the Empire doesn’t support it then they’ll just end up where they were before.

Then again, all these invasions and talks of refugees flooding across the border struck a little too close to home this week and events in the real world are significantly more dramatic than anything this anime is managing to coble together in a fictional setting.

Though, throughout all of this, Souma and Hakuya both note that while Julius’ failure was within predictions, the speed and coordination of all the failings seemed a little contrived. It was nice to see at the end that clearly there was a helping hand within Amidonia pushing events in this direction. Otherwise it really would have felt like things just too easily fell Souma’s way in Realist Hero.

And of course that brings us to the end of the episode where Souma inadvertently acquires yet another candidate for his harem. Politically it makes sense. That said, if Souma agrees to that proposal before tidying things up with Juna I suspect there’s going to be a fall out somewhere along the lines.

Anyway, I could continue to point out Julius’ failings but I think that point has been well and truly established already in Realist Hero. It was interesting that when deciding what to do, Souma went through the advantages and disadvantages of expanding and taking control of Amidonia. I loved that he mentioned they would lose the reparation payments they had just secured. It actually does make it feel more realistic when that kind of materialism is definitely considered as a factor even in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.

I guess we’ll see in the next episode how all of this plays out.

Images from: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom 2nd Season. Dir. T. Watanabe. J. C. Staff. 2022

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Karandi James

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom takes us in an odd direction this week. It feels like it got tired of cleaning up after the war or the international politics and so as the opening act has a knight rushing into to talk to his majesty, the story gets an abrupt interruption and we end up in a bunker in the woods (sorry, an abandoned dungeon in the woods) which is apparently the home of a researcher who has done ‘something outrageous’.

Oddly, if the idea was to shake things up a bit after episodes of characters sitting around talking or even the bloodbath that filled the throne room last episode, Realist Hero continues to tell its story through characters sitting around talking. Even though our new character was responsible for the explosive growth of an entire forest when she used to work with the army, there’s a lot of drinking tea and chit-chatting in this episode.

Our Realist Hero is about to learn not everything is magical.

As much as I kind of mocked the attempt to change pace, episode 19 is actually relatively refreshing and our mad scientist character quite a fun addition. I just kind of wish we’d seen more of her inventions in the dungeon and got to see the comical results, such as her blowing the whole group over by turning a device on that they were standing in front of, rather than watching them sit or stand around and talk quite so much.

On that note, I would have loved to have seen an actual flash back of the accident that resulted in the forest growing over the entire training grounds because that sounds like it could have been a fun story.

It was definitely one of those moments where even though I am watching How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, I couldn’t help but wonder if there were more interesting stories in this world to tell other than Souma’s. And while I’m certain that forest was destructive at the time, the basic invention could still have been put to fairly effective use really. Instant forest sounds great to me.

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Anyway, it isn’t until the very end of the episode that our Realist Hero finds out what outrageous thing the scientist did so we’ll shelve that discussion for the next episode or whenever they explain more about that. Instead, the invention that blew them all away, literally, isn’t just a cool device that could power boats without the aid of dragons, its power-source is something Liscia refers to as cursed stone.

Turns out, our scientist has found a way to get power out of a rock that is freely available in the Kingdom, annoyingly so according to Liscia given you can’t mine near it because it explodes if you use magic near it. While that sounds kind of volatile, Souma also recognises just how amazing a power source like that could be and just how much trouble it could bring the kingdom if he doesn’t deal with this situation right.

The unfortunate part for How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom is that after Souma decides he needs the scientist to stay in his kingdom, he and Liscia promptly decide that she should marry the knight who brought them here. Admittedly, they do both confirm that the two kind of like each other first, but it does lead to one of the least romantic proposals I’ve seen in anime in a long time.

And just in case the whole thing didn’t feel transactional enough, Souma offers for the kingdom to pay for the entire wedding.

As far as How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom goes, this wasn’t a bad episode. I just think, as is fairly standard for this anime at this point, it missed some good opportunities along the way. Seeing more of the scientist’s inventions could have been great fun and gotten the characters up and moving a little more rather than watching them drink tea. A somewhat longer negotiation period for the marriage may have also actually made it feel a little more romantic.

Anyway, our Realist Hero now has the potential to access a power source that will really let him start modernising this world. I wonder how that will go or will he take things slowly and cautiously?

Images from: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom 2nd Season. Dir. T. Watanabe. J. C. Staff. 2022

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Karandi James

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom weirdly went soft on Souma following through with dealing with the two rebel dukes with Carmine’s death having apparently been grossly exaggerated last week and this week finding a creative way of not sentencing either Carla or her father to death in the end. I mean, they did just lead two branches of the military against Souma’s army so why follow through with actual consequences when they did it for such a noble cause.

Yet the nobles who were clearly there to provide advice to the king were cut down in more or less an instant with the explanation that they had been having dealings with other nations. Only two survived the blood bath. All of this is ‘explained’ through a rather simplistic explanation of Machiavelli’s works and Souma is more or less just getting all of his horrendous acts out of the way and cleaning house.

Where that falls down as an explanation is two dukes who lead branches of the military actually turned those forces against the king and his army. They fought an actual war openly against their own king and yet both have survived the fall-out. I mean, they do have the advantage of not being mob-background characters unlike all those human nobles who can barely be distinguished from one another, and yet I somehow think if Souma was going to fully follow through on this philosophy he’d have thoroughly tied up any loose ends.

The joy of being a named character vs a background mob character I guess.

Our Realist Hero gave himself a headache.

As much as I wasn’t sold on the solutions our Realist Hero, Souma, employed this week feeling that the decision not to just fully commit to ruthlessly clearing the slate is going to set him up for further challenges later, I was sold on his performance. For once he actually looked the part of a king in the throne room and maintained a relatively formal air during the hearing. His actions clear and decisive with no doubt that he was fully in control.

This contrasted then with the Souma who left the room with Liscia and Aisha. While Souma had rationalised his choices and steeled himself to make them, deciding to fill your own throne room with the blood or traitors and actually having it carried out while you watch are two entirely separate things. That Souma was dealt a serious psychological blow by the experience actually made it far more believable.

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Likewise, I feel How A Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom found an appropriate outcome for Carla. While her father was undeniably the leader of the air-force and should wear the punishment, his daughter really didn’t need to be executed even though she stood by him. The role Souma has placed her in seems to fit only I wonder if he really trusts her judgement that much given she blindly followed her father previously?

Either way, it is clear no one else in Souma’s harem will actually stop him even if he did start going too far so having Carla on board might be a good thing for Realist Hero in the future. At least unless she decides to jump on board the Souma-harem as well.

And can we talk about that harem? I still haven’t quite understood why all these girls seem to be so into Souma. The guy has almost zero presence most of the time and while he’s doing a decent enough job as a leader one could argue that Hakuya is doing a lot of the leg-work and getting very little of the credit.

Anyway, as Realist Hero puts these events behind us, it is starting to have the Princess of Amidonia move. She’s unimpressed at the deal her brother struck to return Van and clearly has her own agenda. I guess we’ll just have to wait to see what that agenda actually is.

Images from: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom 2nd Season. Dir. T. Watanabe. J. C. Staff. 2022

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Karandi James

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom has finally returned to domestic politics and Souma is now having to clean up after the internal strife that was spurred on by Amidonia but exposed the corruption and weakness of Elfrieden’s political system. A large chunk of the first half of this episode is carried out through the first face to face conversation between Souma and Georg Carmine, the Duke that brought all the rebels under him in order to ensure they were all taken out at once but in the process sparked a civil war.

Unlike so much of this series, the conversation is carried out in a dimly lit sequence with the focus shifting between the seated Souma and the kneeling Carmine, the heavy bars separating the two. Also unlike so much of the series, Souma actually gets pretty emotional during this conversation.

That the ending is more or less inevitable, so much so that Souma had the bottle already in his pocket, doesn’t make the conversation any less important to provide some closure on this chapter of How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom. Carmine’s motives were exposed at the end of season one but we never really heard it clearly from him nor has Souma had a chance to really find out his intentions.

Also, as the sequence ends and Souma returns to the study where Liscia is working, it is a very nice moment where everything is more or less silent. In a single sentence he informs Liscia of Georg’s death and there the first half ends.

It’s much better delivery than I’m used to and after three episodes of characters sitting around talking, another conversation doesn’t sound like a compelling continuation however there are conversations and then there are conversations. This one had weight and real emotional buy in from both parties. It was actually the most interesting Realist Hero has been since it returned for a second season.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom actually played this scene well.

Alas it cannot keep it up for a whole episode.

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Instead after the eyecatch we jump into a conversation between Hakuya and Jeanne and really doesn’t feel like it accomplishes much before we head to the throne room where various people are getting rewards for service during the war.

While the first we hear is a nice simple here is some land and authority, Aisha is then nominated and her father and the father’s request is that Souma takes Aisha as one of his brides (good things they already established polygamy was a thing in the kingdom).

As Souma from Realist Hero really is standard anime protagonist material he kind of blushes about and stumbles and so Liscia takes the conversational reins and establishes that as long as she’s the first queen she’s very happy for Aisha to be second because she knows Aisha. The girls more or less already sort the whole thing out, in front of the entire throne room (again, why are they having these conversations in full public view and not adjourning to hash it out) all of which leaves Souma with little choice but to actually propose to Aisha.

Having now acquired two future queens, Souma does put his foot down when Juna tries to jump on the bandwagon. Not much mind you. He mostly just delays the timing however commits to asking her in the future. I wonder if when he and Hakuya were going through the laws to change (you know so they didn’t have execute relatives of traitors to the third degree) it he shouldn’t have tweaked the marriage laws given he doesn’t seem hugely keen on marrying multiple girls and it more seems he is too much of a doormat to say no and make them sad.

On that note, this episode of Realist Hero ends and while the first half was definitely more compelling viewing the second half more or less fell back into the same-old pattern of nothingness that is permeating this season.

Images from: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom 2nd Season. Dir. T. Watanabe. J. C. Staff. 2022

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Karandi James

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom seems to at least acknowledge that the people of Van weren’t all that upset that the Kingdom had invaded. After the negotiations finally conclude, and I’ll discuss those in a moment and Souma and his friends, including their army, finally leave the city for home, it is clear that the citizens of Van are deeply troubled about their future.

I’m wondering how many of them will try to leave to go and live in the Kingdom instead and whether the idiot Prince manages to hold onto power for even a month.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom continues to have some fairly simplistic views on economics and politics but I guess they’d talk even longer if they were trying for something complicated.

Does anyone else find it curious that Souma came from a world full of inequality and conflicts and yet somehow the political views and theories from that world are like a magic formula that make everything better in fantasy land? How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom loves to pull out its Machiavelli quotes (and quotes from other places) but if fortune cookie logic was enough to be a brilliant ruler surely we’d have more examples of it happening on Earth.

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It’s kind of obvious that the Prince is going to fail to unite his kingdom without the stronger personality of his father to hold the military together. Plus, the boogie man stories of the evil kingdom have more or less been defused by the presence of the kingdom in the capital city for so long. The people there know that they weren’t horrible and oppressive so blaming them for everything wrong in Amidonia isn’t really going to fly anymore.

Of course, I am wondering where the Princess ended up all things considered. She at least seemed to have a few functioning brain cells.

So the agreement is signed and our Realist Hero is trying to prevent future military incursions by insuring they don’t have the budget for it for a time. Which would work if the person he was dealing with used logic. What is more likely to happen is that the idiot will raise taxes and blame it on the reparation payments without actually reducing the amount he is spending on building up his military. But I guess we’ll see.

We also see Jeanne return to the Empire and happily reunite with her sister where she reveals the many wondrous things Souma has said and done in the brief time she’s known him. It is hardly a comprehensive or analytical report but whatever. What I did find interesting was that we find out the hero summoning was never supposed to find someone to defeat the demons but someone who would bring about a revolution. From that point of view the summoning has clearly been very successful.

Then I guess because the episode wasn’t over yet but for whatever reason How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom didn’t want to kick off the next plot point yet, we visit the adventurers having a drinking party on the Kingdom for their services during the war. I’m kind of struggling to remember what they did. I know they did something but all of those characters have been so utterly forgettable I genuinely cannot remember.

Naturally the weird mascot thing that Souma uses was there as well.

It is on that unremarkable note that the episode sputters to a stop. On the bright side it feels like they’ve finally closed this chapter of story which makes me kind of hopeful that maybe next episode they’ll move on to something else. On the other hand, How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom has now been back for three episodes and other than signing one peace treaty it hasn’t really accomplished anything of note.

Images from: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom 2nd Season. Dir. T. Watanabe. J. C. Staff. 2022

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Karandi James