I wasn’t going to cover this one initially but was still trying to decide between this one and How Not to Summon a Demon Lord. After two episodes the overall opinion is both are riddled with problems so I might as well go all in (or drop them both but we’ll see what episode 3 does).
Right, so we’ve got another average guy in a strange world with a smart phone that for whatever reason actually works and he’s surrounded by beautiful girls. So, we’ve seen this already, what is this doing new other than giving us an even more annoying title to type?
Well, the first episode didn’t give us much new, except perhaps a more overt sexual advance from one of the girls that we would normally see. Or at least that’s what I would say if this was an already established show. However, this one seems to have dropped us head first into the middle with Yuto having already been in said world for two years and already risen to a position of power in the Wolf Clan. This at least means we don’t have the fish out of water experience with our main character because he’s already relatively acclimatised. While this might seem like cheating, it actually does cut through a lot of the standard points that would normally bore me silly as characters make similar observations to ones we’ve seen before.
The other thing it did that was a little bit novel was strongly suggest that we’re still on Earth but in the past and gave Yuto the ability to call to the present day with his phone seemingly provided he’s near some weird device which from the OP seems kind of critical to the whole travelling to where-ever he is situation though nothing has been explained about that. Now while neither of these points makes for a totally new experience, they at least shake up the formula a bit.
The second episode gave us a bit more combat focus and while it wasn’t amazing and having Yuto explain his strategy and reasoning throwing in healthy doses of all the usual war quotes in the process really undermined any sense of tension, it wasn’t terrible. Even the hot springs sequence where the leader of a clan Yuto conquered in the previous episode wasn’t as painful as it might have been.
While I’m not expecting much of anything from this anime, it so far has been watchable. And in a season that has been pretty flat in terms of first episodes, this one is kind of on par with the rest of the pack so far so we’ll give it a little while and see how it goes.
Thanks for reading.
Karandi James
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Hmmm..is it just me or is there nothing so far that really stands out this season? While I haven’t watched every series that’s currently airing, I so far haven’t seen many posts (in general not only on your own blog) that offer a series high praise (with the occasional exception).
I agree. This season is pretty meh. I’m seriously thinking about trimming my watch list right down and catching up on series from previous seasons that I passed over, but I’m going to give this season until at least week three before I make that call. That said, by week 3 it is unusual for me to still want to drop things so we see what happens and whether some of these shows can offer me enough to stick around.
Yeah… I still haven’t decided what to pick up. I have been hearing a lot of good things about Hanebado! But I have been reluctant to pick it up because it’s a sports anime. Well…at least Attack On Titan starts this week: I’m really hoping that will be fun at least.
That said..it might not be such a bad idea to pick up some shows from previous seasons (I have missed out way too much from those anyway ).