More shows I managed to squeeze in last night.
*****
The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World
Ah yes, yet another isekai series. If a new anime season doesn’t have at least four or five new isekai adaptations, is it really a new season at all? And this one is Super Sentai flavored. I don’t have much experience with Super Sentai type shows. As a kid, the Power Rangers were huge, but it never appealed to me personally. Of course, I watched a few episodes, because when everyone at school talks about it, you get curious. I distinctly remember seeing a green guy kicking everyone’s butts? Even back then, I never felt that live action was adequate for this sort of aesthetic. It just looks goofy. Even now, with Marvel flicks commanding budgets in the hundreds of millions, I feel the same way. They’re better off animated like the Spiderman cartoon movies. But that’s enough of this tangent.
Basically, Red defeats his nemesis, but dies in the process. And like all Japanese men before him, dying in this day and age means being isekai’d to a generic fantasy universe. Right off the bat, we skip to him becoming a “reputable” adventurer. There’s no learning the ropes here, and I kinda appreciate that. Mainly, I’m tired of watching the average isekai hero go through the same song and dance. “Ahhhhh, what world am I in!” “Wow, time to register as an adventurer at my first guild!” “Time to find a place to stay!” It’s never anything interesting; it’s always the same events but with “different” characters. Also logically, Red’s already done his homework, so to speak. He wouldn’t have become the leader of his Kizuna Five without a lot of training and experience.
So instead of acclimating to his new surroundings, Red’s first episode devotes itself to impressing his first party member, a somewhat tsundere and definitely scantily-clad witch girl. She has him procuring a source of mana metal (which from anime explanation sounds a lot like oil), and in the process, he wins her over with his earnestness. They even win their first major battle together by using the power of their bond — what bond? They’ve just met! But Red’s that affable. What woman can resist such pure, uncut shounen energy? Red is absolutely corny, but it’s the kind of corny where you roll your eyes, but maybe the corners of your mouth are smiling.
That aside, there are minor details I like. A lot of times, when people get isekai’d, they never even look back. They immediately embrace their new world as if their previous lives never existed, their previous family and friends never mattered. That always bothered me, because what’s the point of making it an isekai then? What’s the point of going from one world to the next if the first world never carries any significance? Just do a fantasy anime right from the start then. Red still embraces his new world wholeheartedly, but he at least explains that he initially wanted to return to his world before realizing that everyone here needs his help. It’s not a huge thing, but it makes his journey a little more believable.
Red doesn’t struggle at all in his new environment. In fact, he’s a reputable adventurer precisely because “everything” still works. His suit, his mech thing, etc. It’s all there, and it’s all in tip-top shape. Does his stuff run on limitless energy? Are we going to get an arc where they suddenly fail and our hero is useless? Maybe these questions are all pointless because it’s not that serious. This probably isn’t some new epic isekai tale. It’s yet another gimmicky flavor that will come and go in a flash. Nevertheless, while I can’t say that I love this flavor, I don’t really hate it either. If this show was dubbed, I’d be down to listen to Red’s adventures while gaming. But is it strong enough to be your primary form of entertainment? Ehhh, nah.
*****
Anyway, I’m Falling in Love with You.
Ah, the folly of false expectations. First, the first minute of the show made me think that we’d get a story with and about adults. Unfortunately, that is quickly dashed. Our somewhat despondent 27-year-old heroine is supposed to be celebrating her birthday, but she instead learns that her serialized manga series is ending by the end of the year. But somehow, seeing a bunch of happy go lucky high schoolers cross her path makes her reminisce on “sparkling” days of her past, so we quickly rip off the bandaid and quickly return to the all too familiar high school setting. Yay, time to sparkle like a vampire.
My second false expectation actually comes from other people. They make it seem like this is a pandemic love story. Maybe it still can be one, but the first episode is not a strong effort. To start off, it doesn’t reflect my experience of a pandemic. Everyone’s still out and about without masks… but maybe it’s not that kind of infectious. But whatever. Let’s get to the the meat and potatoes of the show.
Y’see, our heroine is in love with a senpai on the swim team. And when he performs at the next big swim meet, she initially plans to confess her feelings to him afterwards. Of course, with a pandemic, big events like that are canceled. She’s forced to kinda confess to him at a bus stop? I mean, I don’t think her original plans are great, anyway. They feel inconsiderate, y’know? Win or lose, he’ll be running on an emotional high of… I dunno, competition, camaraderie with his team, personal pride on achieving his goals, whatever. So she then wants to swoop in and be all, “I like you, pls respond?” Nah, man. It’s not the right time and place. In any case, he rejects her bus stop confession anyway.
So in comes one of her four childhood friends, who immediately confesses to her after noticing that she has been crying. Again, bad timing in my opinion, but I’ll get to that in a bit. Yes, one of them… for now. Our heroine is in a group of four hot guys and, well, her. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I always have to raise my eyebrow when the gender ratio is that lopsided. Especially when our heroine does have a girl friend, but she only serves as a backup lunch partner when our heroine doesn’t feel like hanging out with her boy pals for whatever reason. But snarkiness aside, I’m not in the mood for a love polygon. Maybe there will be one, maybe there won’t. But I’ll be surprised if at least one other boy doesn’t also get his feelings for her all up in a twist, and I’m interested in melodrama but not that kind. Plus, the first episode is odd in that it simultaneously dull (I blame the pacing) and also super melodramatic at the same time.
So what’s up with all these bad confessions? If you know that your friend has been rejected, do you think her mind is clear enough to process your feelings for her? I suppose I can somewhat excuse this. After all, these are kids, and even adults are clumsy with their own thoughts and actions. Who can expect a hormonal teenager to be better? My problem, however, is that this guy gives me bad vibes. He’s also on the same swim team as her senpai. He immediately tells the guy to leave her alone, which is kinda scary possessive. Maybe I’m reading him wrong, but it’s not one event that makes him seem sketchy. You can write off one event. Multiple events, however, constitute a pattern. At her birthday, he babies her by wiping cream off of her face. Hey man, are you gonna ask permission first?
But that’s the confounding thing with romance: where are the lines drawn when it comes to boundaries? What’s romantic and what’s over the line? It’s clear that our heroine isn’t catching on. Or rather, she refuses to. She still sees him as a crybaby from all those years ago, and she seems steadfast in maintaining that perception of him. So he does the classic anime trope thing of backing her up against the wall and planting a kiss on her after being rebuffed over and over. Super hot when it’s a love interest. Super creepy when it’s not. So which one is he? Is he an actual love interest to her? Because if you go by her own thoughts and actions leading up to this moment, he isn’t one. She hasn’t even had the chance to grieve her first love, and one of her best friends — someone she’s supposed to trust — starts putting on the moves. Is it in her best interests or his?
Plus, it calls into question what we saw at the start of the episode. The 27-year-old version of our heroine didn’t sound like she was married, but we actually don’t really know anything about her. Maybe the plot twist is that she’s still with him despite what the opening suggests. Or maybe she’s not. So what kind of love story are we in for? Is it destined for happiness? Personally, I’m kinda rooting against the kid. If I could advise her as a friend or parental figure, I’d say stay the hell away from a guy who can’t respect your feelings or personal space. Sure, I only have one episode to go on, but I feel like that’s enough, man. Moreover, I’m not sticking around to find out when he eventually gets painted in a better light in future episodes because this first episode was frankly boring as hell. It did make me laugh out loud at one point, though. I think I’m supposed to swoon when he has her against the wall with his bare chest is glistening from the shower water. But I belly laughed. As a dorky nerd in his thirties, I am so clearly not the show’s target audience.
*****
Welcome to Japan, Ms. Elf
The vast majority of salarymen get themselves killed by some maniac with a knife, then ends up isekai’d into a harem full of hot, young ladies. Our hero, on the other hand, doesn’t get knifed. Instead, he has the power to isekai himself by going to bed, and he returns to the comfort (or drudgery) of his everyday life every time he wakes up or, well, dies. Not so bad, right? Well, only a single elf waifu this time around. Gosh, salarymen can’t get a break. First, their salaries stagnate, and now no harem? Has isekai anime gone woke?!
Anyways, this flavor of isekai is not too exciting. The first episode feels like a build up to your standard fish-out-of-water story, but in reverse. But therein lies the problem: I’m not really interested in seeing the marvels of our, uh, modern life? Sure, it might be cute to see elf waifu’s reaction for a couple of episodes, but 12 or 13 of them? Meh. But like I’ve said above, if this was dub or is going to be dubbed in the future, I’ll toss it into the easy listenin’ pile.
*****
I May Be a Guild Receptionist, but I’ll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time
Our heroine values safety and stability, so instead of becoming an adventurer like everyone else, she chooses instead to be a guild receptionist. We’re basically going through the list. Everyone gets a POV; every role will get its time in the spotlight. Eventually, there’s going to be a show about the butcher to handles all the animal parts that adventurers bring home. Or maybe that show already exists and I just haven’t been lucky enough to watch it.
Anyways, our girl’s problem is that the adventurers around her suck. And because they suck, they get stuck on bosses. Them being stuck somehow leads to mountains upon mountains of paperwork for her. Why? I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention. The point is that she has to take matters into her own hands and kill those dastardly bosses herself. If she’s so concerned with safety and stability, how did she become so strong? If shitty adventurers are inadvertently forcing her to do all that overtime, how did she find the time to get strong? But also, if she can solo them with ease, then what is she even afraid of? Can’t she keep doing these easy bosses, rake in the treasure, and live the easy life? Sure, there are always bigger fishes to fry, but no one is forcing you to do the hardest content possible, right? Fuck if I know. I guess we’d have to keep watching to find out, because the first episode doesn’t have time to explain all of that. Maybe it never will. The key question, however, is if we want to keep watching.
Anyway, the current driving force of the story is that the top adventuring team lost one of its veteran members, so the enterprising leader decides that our guild receptionist is obvious person to recruit. But if she can already solo bosses, the hell does she need a party for? More questions for future episodes to answer, I suppose. If I have to pass judgment right this second, I’d say the first episode was kinda boring. Mainly, I’m just not invested in our heroine, and the gimmick of her being a guild receptionist doesn’t really excite me. It’s one of those ideas that I feel like could be explored in an hour or so — a movie, perhaps.
*****
As always, I’ll be back for more later… maybe… if time and energy permits. To be honest, I’m forcing myself to play through the Kingdom Hearts series, so I’ll probably take plenty of “breaks” to watch anime instead.
By the way, I hate the new WordPress editor. If I really start blogging regularly again, I might need to find a new solution.