In Another World With My Smartphone Series Review: Let’s Play Cliche Bingo

Posted on by Karandi

Overview:

Touya is accidentally killed and to make up for it god lets him be reborn (or just kind of appear really) in another world. God also levels up all his stats (his words) before sending him as kind of a bonus because Touya wasn’t supposed to die. So now overpowered Touya finds himself in a standard fantasy setting and is soon the centre of a harem of adventuring girls.

Review:

In Another World With My Smartphone falls into a very small group of series that are comedies, and not all that good (and not bad enough to be funny because they are bad) but for some reason I really enjoyed watching it. Despite individual episodes making me want to scream in frustration, I would eagerly await the next installment and no matter how terrible the narrative got I was still quite invested in Touya’s next adventure that he would get through without a scratch because he is the overpowered protagonist of this clearly trying to be overly clichéd isekai (in another world/dimension) story.

There’s a few reasons why this show appealed, but let me make it clear that objectively, this show is not particularly good. It works in that the characters are functional and kind of have a narrative purpose in that they go on adventures, but there’s no real end goal in sight over the course of the 12 episodes here, little to no character development (relationship development is not the same thing as character development) because otherwise some of the characters might stop being tropes and become characters. But it isn’t particularly good. It isn’t even particularly good at being a parody of the genre because rather than wanting to be a parody it is more embracing the clichés of isekai stories and shoving them directly under the nose of the audience.

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Particular moments of true pain came in this story where a boob grabbing sequence went on far longer than needed, a beach scene that included girls discussing the various things that got stuck between their breasts, the robot girl not wearing pants when we met her, and the slime episode (though that wasn’t as bad as it could have been). There were other jokes and moments that fell kind of flat for me, but mostly I had fun with this show. Even these moments weren’t deal breakers, they were just kind annoying and made me mostly want to close my eyes and wish that they would go away.

So what did I like about the show?

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I like Touya as the protagonist. He is as generic and self-insert as they come and has all the hang-ups people complain about with over-powered main characters. He’s also completely oblivious to the harem that almost instantly forms around him (though fortunately the anime deals with that situation in the final episodes in an almost novel manner). Part of the reason I like him is I don’t dislike over-powered main characters in the first place so that wasn’t so much a problem once I got over the lack of any tension in any encounter (even Kirito managed to make it look hard to win some of those fights). But I just found Touya pleasant to spend time with and even though he was a nice, ordinary guy, he didn’t seem like he could be replaced with a plank of wood with the word protagonist written on it. He has personality, even if it is a personality derived from 100’s of other characters in other anime.

Part of the fun is that Touya has already died and when informed of this he’s pretty much, okay so what next. And that’s more or less how he tackles everything. He just kind of gets on and does it. One of my favourite moments from the series came when a King challenged Touya to a duel and Touya used his slip spell on the King essentially ending the battle in an instant (the King of course demanded a rematch). It was hilarious and so much better than characters who toy with their opponent and hold off on using a strong attack and unleash it later. Touya looked at the situation, though about what he wanted (he didn’t want to fight) and dealt with it quickly and efficiently. His actions shoot the plot in the foot a few times, but they make him a delight to follow around provided you find that sort of thing amusing.

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I also really enjoy the girls in the harem. While there are definitely fan service moments dumped into this story and some of those (as mentioned earlier) are incredibly cringe worthy, a lot of the time these girls are dealt with respectfully as characters even though they are just tropes. You’ve got the twins where one is shy and the other brash, then the samurai girl who is all about honour, and finally the Princess who manages to talk her father into essentially making Touya her fiance. All pretty standard for this kind of story. However, what isn’t standard is that these girls continue to actually think things through and behave like rational humans despite all being in love with the same character. What makes it better is that all of the girls are strong in their own right, so even though Touya is massively over-powered for the world he is in, the girls aren’t exactly damsel’s in distress, even if occasionally they get pressed into the role momentarily.

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The setting and visuals are all pretty standard fantasy. The magic is pretty enough and it would have been nice to see more of that going on. I really enjoyed some of the ways Touya managed to combine magical spells (the programmed slip loop is still my favourite) and I also liked how he blended magic with the capabilities of his smartphone. More of that would have made the title make more sense as the phone becomes fairly gimmicky and seems pushed into scenes sometimes just because he’s supposed to have it.

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Kohaku, the summoned white tiger that then kind of transforms into a kitten, is adorable and manages to steal the scenes he is in, but again this is an underused part of the story.  Actually, early on there’s a lot of fights with beasts, including a dragon fight, and yet in the second half the story moves more into silly comedy rather than action comedy. Kind of a shame because some of these encounters were really fun.

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Basically, I am not arguing that this show is good, but I had a lot of fun watching it. I actually wouldn’t mind rewatching this at some point and I wouldn’t mind more of this story if they ever made a second season. It isn’t great but it is kind of fun to just switch off your brain and watch.

I’d love to know your thoughts on the show.

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Karandi James.

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In Another World With My Smartphone Episode 12: They Actually Did It

Posted on by Karandi

Review:

Wow. I did not see that ending coming even when last week seemed like this show was actually going to address the harem issue (where so few shows ever just admit that there is a harem even when it is obvious). Taking it straight and just having the girls outright ask Touya to make them all his wife is a refreshing change from the usual outcome where the protagonist remains oblivious or really only has one girl they are interested in leaving the others hanging without resolution.

Touya though is still a slow protagonist cliché and of course asks the girls for time to think about it and ends up consulting the god who sent him into this world in the first place. I hadn’t really realised that the Gate power technically made that possible, but that of course raises the question of whether Touya can gate back to the real world or not… But even if he did would he then be stuck because magic doesn’t work in our world? That’s a whole other line of thinking so moving on.

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That god passes Touya on to the god of love who points out she’s responsible for setting up clichés (so there’s our lame excuse for the show having Touya walking in on the girls in the bath earlier in the season). It is kind of amusing because as always the show delivers this absurdity as if it is the most natural thing in the world and then moves on. I like the way this show just sets up its jokes, delivers them with conviction and then continues on playing it straight. It’s a refreshing change from self-aware shows that feel the need to celebrate their own cleverness.

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At the end of this episode Touya makes his decision (though still asks the girls to wait until they are all older which to be honest is also kind of nice). I do like that the group outside who discuss Touya and point out that it has been predicted he’s going to end up with 9 wives. Poor Touya, he can barely handle the four girls he is now engaged to.

They then give us so post credit sequel bait so it would be nice to know if this will ever continue on. As much as this show is a stupid comedy full of clichés and tropes that we’ve seen a million times before, it just clicked for me so I’d kind of like some more of it even if I’m not exactly going to highly recommend it. I will get around to a full series review of this at some point.

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In Another World With My Smartphone Episode 11: Will This Show Actually Acknowledge the Harem?

Posted on by Karandi

Review:

It is pretty standard in isekai stories for their to be a harem that forms around the protagonist. However, usually these remain unrequited and unspoken (or every girl is just aggressive beyond reason). Episode 11 of In Another World with my Smartphone kind of defies this trend with the girls clearly discussing the future amongst themselves and then Linze openly declaring her love for Touya at the end after being spurred on by jealousy when the android caretaker of the garden essentially kissed Touya in order to collect a DNA sample (have they never heard of hair).

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While that was kind of novel and interesting way for the episode to end, the path there was full of the usual kind of silliness including the girls on the beach discussing the various things that get stuck in their chest while swimming. Where do these scenes come from? Really?

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Then Touya transports all the girls to the garden and we get various misunderstandings and innuendos until we finally get to that ending. There’s a lot of eye rolling to get to the end of the episode, but kind of interested to see what happens next with the harem now that they’ve broken the usual rules about them.

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In Another World With My Smartphone Episode 10: Beach Episode

Posted on by Karandi

Review:

You probably don’t need any further information about this given the story so far. Imagine Touya and the whole female dominated cast of this show go to the beach. Done. Go for beach volleyball, swim suit mishaps, and leading questions to ensure appropriate awkward responses and blushing.

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There is the slightly more interesting side story of Touya summoning the Black Emperor to assist with the whole investigating the underwater ruins and this was probably the only moment this episode that actually made me laugh give Touya’s combination of programming and slip. That’s a way to win a fight even if it is a little underhanded.

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Otherwise though, very little to see here unless you actually like beach episodes.

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Karandi James.

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In Another World With My Smartphone Episode 9: Behold the Great and Powerful Touya

Posted on by Karandi

Review:

There’s genuinely no way to ignore the breast groping segment of this episode. While this show has definitely hit fan service points before just for the sake of having them, this is probably the first time I’ve actively wanted to stop watching the show because of a fan service moment. It was just incredibly unnecessary and intrusive into what was otherwise a pretty good episode. Yae’s brother and father have gotten caught up in a war and now Touya’s going to walk in and end it in about five minutes.

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Yeah, that’s probably why there are the unnecessary clutter moments in this episode. There is no challenge in this world for Touya as he is incredibly and ridiculously overpowered and while mostly that’s been amusing, this episode really needed to put something in his path to at least slow down the resolution as maybe that would have meant they wouldn’t have needed to have ‘that’ particular scene go on as long as it did.

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And once again, we have some fairly casual violence and just kind of dismiss the fact that the guy Touya beat in an entirely unfair fashion crumbles into dust.

Definitely not the best episode this show has offered us.

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Karandi James.

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In Another World With My Smartphone Episode 8: Bicycles, Dates, and a New Spell

Posted on by Karandi

Review:

It seems very strange that I would still find this entertaining when absolutely nothing is going on. I mean, we have the nearly requisite boy walks in on harem of girls preparing for bath scene as an opening, followed by some random bike building and riding contest, before Touya rescues some random pickpocket who he ends up hiring as a new maid and that’s all before the halfway point this episode.

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Yet none of this is actually purposeful action. It’s just stuff happening. For all that this is an isekai story, it is definitely becoming just a slice of life that happens to be set in another world with a character who just happens to have a weird device that he combines with magic to make stuff happen. And rather than being bored I’m finding the whole thing oddly relaxing. I never have to worry about the main character because there has literally been nothing that can come close to stopping him and he gains more powers every episode, the girls are all perfectly fine in their own way so the harem set up isn’t actually annoying even though it isn’t going anywhere, and there’s enough small events occurring each episode that it feels like things are going on even when we don’t seem to be getting anywhere.

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There was a slightly more serious note toward the end of the episode but I somehow doubt anything major will come of it. I could be wrong but I guess we’ll find out next week.

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Karandi James.

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In Another World With My Smartphone Episodes 6 + 7: And the next cliche is…?

Posted on by Karandi

Review Episode 6:

There are pretty much two ways an audience can take this show: either it is an uninspired and derivative rehashing of every other light novel isekai story that has ever come before it mashed into one trope laden season OR it is an intentionally derivative story that lets the audience smile even as it packs in every possible cliché and trope it can find into episodes that are full of energy and humour.

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Basically, I’m in the second camp which is weird because normally this kind of show would either bore me to tears as they pull out the full on harem (no longer even hinted at really) around the oblivious and protagonist and in desperate need of an exciting end to an episode that otherwise involved setting up house, playing games in a carriage and shopping, the suddenly pull out a dragon attack on a village. If it didn’t bore me, I’d find one (or all) of the cast sufficiently annoying that I’d let it go anyway.

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And while I’m not going to argue that In Another World With My Smartphone is actually original, because it isn’t, I kind of think the writers here have actually managed to not just shovel masses of tropes toward the audience and expected them to swallow, but they’ve actually kind of considered what makes those tropes fun. While that might not hit the mark for everyone, I have enjoyed Touya (bland and overly nice protagonist that he is), and each of the girls in his harem are quite pleasant in their own way. The individual adventures have been fun and more jokes have hit the mark for me than missed. Plus, we are definitely getting more integration between smartphone and magic now, so the title is becoming less a cheap gimmick and more an actual part of the plot.

Hopefully they don’t lose their sense of fun in the second half of the season.

Review Episode 7:

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A bunch of stuff happens this episode and yet you could also argue very little happens. It seems like some of this may become important later, particularly Touya meeting the sassy fairy girl and creating his own gun from a dragon fang as that seems like it should have some far reaching implications. But other bits feel mostly pointless. Entertaining, but pointless.

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Like his fight with the king where about the only thing of note is that using Slip is still hilarious (I’m never going to get over finding that funny) and that Touya really can just use whatever spell he likes once someone explains how it works. Otherwise, this match was entirely without narrative purpose and really took up too much of the episode for the few jokes it delivered.

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The fairy girl on the other hand looks like she could be a fun character and hopefully she won’t become just another harem hanger on.

Episode 7 was fun but unlike previous episodes I can’t really say this was the slime episode or the dungeon episode or the whatever episode. Very little focus.

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In Another World With My Smartphone Episode 5: Slimes… Sigh.

Posted on by Karandi

Review Episode 5:

Well, we knew from earlier episode comments that green slimes existed in this world and that they dissolved clothing so I guess we all knew this episode was coming. Given the premise they were actually fairly tame in how far they went with this one though it is the usual kind of anime stupidity that makes non-anime fans roll their eyes at the entire industry.

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And in case the slimes weren’t enough for the episode we then have Touya starting to combine his magic spells with his smartphone functionality and one of the results is seeing through the wall to one of his female companions as she changes. Maybe they have some fan service quota they have to hit for a show like this and due to the tame nature so far they decided to get a lot of points this episode.

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Though, if you can get past all that silliness, and it really is silly and not overly disturbing or offensive, then we actually get a reasonably sweet story about Touya helping out a couple of his companions and continuing to learn how he can use his smart phone in this new world. Even the slime section had some good moments for the group so all and all the episode is kind of fun.

I just want to know why only the girls ended up with dissolved clothes when we could have easily dumped our protagonist into the mix for an equally unnecessary but at least slightly novel outcome to the scenario.

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In Another World With My Smartphone Episode 4: Touya Might Redefine Overpowered At This Rate

Posted on by Karandi

Review Episode 4:

In Another World With My Smartphone is very good at making me smile. The show is stupid, and it is playing on every cliché and trope you would expect from an isekai anime, now including the random Princess character who has decided she absolutely must marry the protagonist even if that means waiting two years, yet despite that I cannot help but smile and sometimes even laugh at this show.

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The start of this episode kind of looked like we were going for a more serious, political tone with the King being poisoned an ambassador being accused but then, just when it looked like things might become tense, Touya uses his ‘slip’ spell on an annoying count and sends him tumbling down the stairs. I’m going to be honest, that whole ‘slip’ thing may become the most overused gag in this show, but I don’t really think I want them to stop doing it. There’s just something inherently funny and immensely satisfying about watching either an obnoxious person or a monster just suddenly fall over at Touya’s say so.

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My one genuine criticism was the tiger’s voice after it decided to take on a chibi form. That might get annoying in an episode or two. Otherwise, the harem continues to expand, Touya continues to be oblivious and absolutely brilliant at everything, and all and all, this continues to be a lot of fun to watch even while it isn’t doing anything we haven’t seen a million times before.

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Karandi James.

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In Another World With My Smartphone Episodes 2 + 3: Touya to the Rescue

Posted on by Karandi

Review Episode 2:

I think the best way to describe this show is lighthearted. It isn’t taking itself seriously, nor is it trying to be a serious comedy. It’s walking very obviously through seen tropes but it isn’t trying to apologise for that or subvert them. It’s just telling the story it wants to tell whether we’ve seen something similar before or not.

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Basically, it is a very relaxing viewing experience if you are used to in another world type stories with an all-powerful protagonist who can do literally anything surrounded by a bunch of cute girls who for whatever reason admire him. None of the characters are too obnoxious but they aren’t so bland they disappear either. Just don’t pay too much attention to gender roles or equality because the show isn’t going to come out of that kind of scrutiny well. I’m on board with this. It isn’t a show I’m going to recommend overly but I’ve enjoyed the first two episodes.

Review Episode 3:

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The first part of this episode seems decidedly fillery but does make it clear that Touya’s connection to the Duke wasn’t a one-off thing as they now regularly visit and give updates. Despite having a lack of any real conflict, it was nice seeing the characters go about their day-to-day before we moved to part two and another adventure.

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I liked that they managed to finish their mission pretty easily and then openly looked for more trouble (well, they were looking for treasure but the two kind of go hand in hand in this kind of story). I also like that Touya isn’t just learning a spell and using it once before we never see it again. He’s combining the spells we’ve seen him use previously as well as adding new spells to his repertoire.

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This continues to just be lighthearted fun (even with the King being poisoned, it is impossible to take any of the dangers faced here seriously) and hopefully it can continue to be entertaining.

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Karandi James.

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