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Don’t be fooled by his innocent-looking face! Wendelin is a monster! Okay, okay, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. No actual harem shenanigans occur in this week’s episode, but they will! I’ll explain the post’s title in just a bit.
— To be honest, I’m mostly interested in watching Fugou Keiji: Balance:UNLIMITED today… if I can even watch it. Unfortunately, I don’t know who has picked up the license to air the show in the West. Hell, maybe nobody has yet. Hopefully, I’ll have my answers by the time I’m done writing this post.
— Alfred the magician offers to tutor Wendelin in the ways of magic, and he won’t even charge a dime! Gosh, what a nice guy? Why is that? My initial guess is that the man wants to pass on his legacy, and I’ll find out later that I wasn’t far off. It turns out the guy is actually a shibito, and it won’t be long until he completely loses his cognitive functions. Actually, more like two weeks.
— So for the time being, we get to watch Wendelin learn all sorts of things like flying, casting a fire spell, attuning his mana, so on and so forth. Boring stuff, really. Still, isn’t it fortuitous that the kid just happens to be an absolute prodigy? Hell, he’s even got more magic potential than Alfred! Amazing!
— I’m always somewhat surprised at the utter shameless of these stories. Why? It’s because they won’t even try to hide the fact that the main character is just absolutely perfect in every way. Escapism is one thing, but this is just blatant fantasy fulfillment. What do I mean? Well, outta curiosity, I took a look at the Wikipedia page for this anime. Since I don’t care too much about the show, I also don’t care if I encounter spoilers. And what do I find?
Despite their arranged engagement, Elize genuinely falls in love with Wendelin as they both understands the burden of being in the spotlight. She later marries Wendelin as one of his wives as the head [sic] wive of the family.
[Louise] [sic] felled in love with Wendelin since they were classmates but due to being a commoner, she at first believes she cannot legally marry him but be his mistress instead since he is a noble and faces competition with her best friend Iina, whose also in love with Wendelin. However, Wendelin reveals he loves them both and would rather make them both his wives instead.
[Vilma] later also becomes one of Wendelin’s wives.
Look at this shit. Just look at it and be amazed. First, if you’re in a rush to fill in the details for your favorite degenerate light novel, at least try to correct your grammar. I know I make mistakes, but still… More importantly, however, Wendelin ends up with multiple wives. I’m sure he has even more waifus that are not on this list. Most authors only have the balls to surround the protagonist with a harem but still keep them at arm’s length. Wendelin, however, is the Chad isekai protagonist who marries all of them. “Babe, I just can’t choose. I just… I just love both you and your best friend!” But wait, there’s more!
Kurt’s wife, the mother of his two sons and Wendelin’s sister-in-law. After Kurt’s death, she begins a relationship with Wendelin where she teaches him how to properly make love with his wives before their wedding. Later, both Amalie and [sic] Wedelin genuinely fall in love with each other and later becomes one of his wives.
Dude even goes after his own goddamn sister-in-law!
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— Hmm, you know what’s missing from my harem? A milf. If only an older woman would teach me all there is to know about sex! And as you can see from the image above, this milf may as well look like she’s still a teenager. All the benefits of an older woman without the downsides! It’s totally okay to go after Amalie! Kurt is a jackass, so Wendelin can totally bang his brother’s wife… of course, once he’s actually dead. Our hero’s not gonna do it while Kurt is still alive. He’s got manners! He’s a noble, after all!
— Alright, let’s get back to this episode. Back on the estate, both Wendelin’s father and older brother laugh at the idea that the kid might harbor any sort of magic potential. It’s just cheeky, isn’t it? I mean, the author didn’t have to portray them so negatively. Hell, they could just be neutral. But nope, this is an anime. As a result, the protagonist is allowed to have one or two legit relationships with other men. There’s always the token best friend and perhaps there’s a mentor. But other than that, men are jerks! Men are evil! Even your own family members are no good!
— Case in point, when Wendelin brings home a basket of veggies, the women of the family are super happy and grateful. On the other hand, Kurt is pissed off. Women good, men bad!!!
— To be fair, there is an in-universe justification for Kurt’s asshole nature. Essentially, he feels threatened. If the kid ends up being a capable magic user, then he would inherit the Baumeister estate instead. I guess Kurt just assumes that he would have to relinquish his nobility if Wendelin becomes the head of the family. On the other hand, he’s not using his noggin. If Wendelin can use magic, maybe the Baumeister would no longer have to languish in poverty. Think about it. Think. Then again, the patriarch can’t even read, so maybe I’m expecting too much of Kurt.
— I just wanna comment on the veggies for a bit. Alfred had gathered them from the woods and the nearby mountains. Some of these veggies are probably in hard-to-reach locations, and at one point, Alfred even tells Wendelin that he shouldn’t venture too deep into the forest. There are apparently scary monsters in there. Nevertheless, I doubt all of the veggies are that difficult to gather. So it makes no sense to me that the Baumeisters could live right next to a forest and still eat nothing but stale bread and soup so thin that it might as well be water. Maybe the family is just poor because they’re a bunch of stupid, lazy assholes who can’t even forage properly.
— What’s this seemingly out-of-place screenshot? Oh, it’s just Wendelin using his magic to sense the world around him. Yeah, it’s that ugly and unimaginative.
— Wendelin confides in Alfred about the whole Kurt situation, so the latter suggests that our hero can always become an adventurer instead. And guess what? To become an adventurer, you have to go to adventurer school. Bahahaha, gotta squeeze school into every anime. Even to become an adventurer, i.e. someone who likes to explore and see new places, you have to confine yourself to a fucking school. This is anime, and as a result, all roads lead to high school!
— Clearly, the family is too poor to pay for Wendelin’s tuition, but hey, he can apparently earn his own keep.
— Eventually, Alfred comes clean about being an undead. He also reveals that his mind is about to go at any moment, so he needs Wendelin to purge him.
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— On paper, this reads like an okay scene. You meet your master, your master teaches you everything you know, then your master has to depart. How tragic, right? But the problem is that Wendelin acts like a little kid. Yes, he looks like a little kid… but we know he’s not actually a little kid. He’s a middle-aged salaryman trapped in a little kid’s body, so how come he’s blubbering like a child? Does simply inhabiting a child’s body mean your emotional age will also revert? I doubt that’s a question that the show is even interested in answering.
— Because when the credits roll, we immediately get a time-skip. Yup, Wendelin is now a teenager, and he’s about to go on the prow for waifus leave the estate to enroll in adventurer high school. Pfffffft. I’m sure his sister-in-law are sad to see him go, but they shouldn’t worry! Hell be back to claim her one day!
— Oh hey, I can now watch Fugou Keiji: Balance:UNLIMITED.