Like a broken record, I’ve always said that there’s little to distinguish isekai anime from just regular adventuring ones. And well, these two shows pretty much prove that point for me.
*****
Bogus Skill ~About that time I became able to eat unlimited numbers of Skill Fruits (that kill you)~
So two childhood friends — a girl and a boy — are eager to learn what skills they’re going to get. ‘Cause y’see, in this world, when you are old enough, you’re supposed to visit the church and eat a fruit. Consuming said fruit will bestow a skill upon you, thereby determining your profession. For the rest of your life? Well, if you’re not good at anything else, it might as well be for the rest of your life. But that’s the thing, isn’t it Why are these shows so obsessed with this format? It doesn’t have to a fruit. It could be a crystal ball or whatever. I’ve seen plenty of shows where the main character puts his hand on a dumbass ball just to figure out what spell, power, whatever-thingamajig he has. There was a show where a guy gets the rare light magic, so he becomes a healer. Did I say “show” and not “shows”? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure there are tons of anime like that. What is so attractive about this sort of fantasy? A world where people’s worth is determined from the day they were born (or through fruit gacha, apparently). Is this what people think life is like? Because I don’t think it is. But whatever, I’m belaboring the point.
Basically, Light gets the Fruitmaster skill while his childhood friend slash love interest gets the the Sword Saint skill. That’s how wildly different these skills can be. She gets to be come one of the premier adventurers in the land while he has to become a fruit farmer. Just like that, true love is separated (only temporarily and even then, she wanted to stay with him but that dastardly holy sister forces her to become an adventurer anyway). If the anime had stuck with with this, it might have been interesting. I mean, how often do you get to watch an anime about being a fruit farmer? But hey, even if you gotta go on adventures, maybe Light could use his fruit farming powers creatively. Like cultivating a fruit that gives you lots of energy or something. Or cultivating a fruit that explodes with a stinky gas. Some kinda magical durian fruit, maybe. I dunno, be creative. Run with it. Become a fruit alchemist or whatever. But of course, if the MC of one of these damn shows isn’t OP by the end of the first or second episode, hell would’ve frozen over.
So naturally, Light does just that: become super OP. One night, his helper Ayla, who might as well be his adoptive daughter because isekai/adventurer MCs always gotta have a daughter figure even though they’re practically kids themselves, accidentally made dinner with one of those magical skill-bestowing fruits. You’re only allowed to have one; this ensures that no one but the MC can be super powerful. Eating more than one of these fruits normally kills you. But because the MC is the fruitmaster, he can have as many as he wants (apparently, it puts a strain on him but no lasting side effects yet). Wow, color me surprised! You mean to tell me the MC’s useless skill is not actually useless after all? I’m shocked. This is only, like, the umpteenth show to do this exact premise!
Light gets the amazing Sword God skill. How is it different from Sword Saint? I’m not sure. The anime probably explained it, but I wasn’t paying attention. I know Isshin was a Sword Saint, but considering how overrated his boss encounter is, I’m sure the skill is overrated here too. But I digress. Now that Light is powerful — and become more powerful whenever he decides to chomp down more fruits — what totally unoriginal genre convention are we going to explore next? Ah yes, it’s time to save our girlfriend from an evil man, because what love interest isn’t a damsel in distress?
Even though Lena is an S-rank adventurer, she still needs to be saved. Y’see, this whole time, she has been forced to work with a party full of other S-rank jerks. The problem, however, is that none of these dudes really care for the people. They’ll happily complete quests, but it doesn’t matter to them if in doing so, they wreck everything in their path. Y’know, when the police chief goes, “Goddammit Carter, you destroyed the city block!” Yeah, that sort of thing. But in this anime’s universe, nobody cares. Lena is disgusted by her party’s apathy, but she can’t leave. Not only does the holy sister not allow it, neither does her party leader. He straight up beats her up for even attempting to leave. Apparently, her Sword Saint skill can’t do anything against his super speed. See? Sword Saints are overrated. But somehow, our MC, who only started adventuring and hasn’t mastered his Sword God skill, can save her. He just whacks the dude with a broom Eat your heart out, Sword Saint! Just stay still and let a man liberate you!
Now that Lena is free to go back to Light, she can adventure with him instead! Holy sister is sus, hatches a scheme to try and kill Light off, the newly forged trio visit an evil looking castle full of zombie adventurers, yadda yadda yadda. It’s been like four episodes, and the show hasn’t shown me anything interesting, so I think we can all it here, yeah? In fact, I’m surprised the pacing is so fast. I half expected Light to take at least half the season to get his girl back, but he accomplished that by the end of the second episode. I’m also surprised that Lena’s former party leader wasn’t trying to steal her for himself or whatever. I thought anime loves NTR!
*****
Even Given the Worthless “Appraiser” Class, I’m Actually the Strongest
You can at least buy into the idea that the fruitmaster skill isn’t the best, but appraisal? Isn’t that super useful? Isn’t Deckard Cain the GOAT because he can identify stuff? But that’s exactly Ein’s problem in his own romp to “overpoweredness.” In his world, you don’t even get to eat a fruit; you’re just born with it. And jobs are even inherited? What does that even mean? If you were born to be a janitor, you literally can’t do anything else? But whatever, I don’t care that deeply about the metaphysics of these shows. The point is that Ein is “useless,” so he gets treated like shit. And boy does the first episode really love to hammer that home. It’s non-stop despair as his party sneers at him, as his party sacrifices him so they can live, as the evil anime dogs bite and tear into his flesh, as he gets diced and smashed to bits, so on and so forth. I get it, I get it! Poor Ein has suffered so much, so why not a lil’ pinch of overpowered ability here and there? Why not sprinkle in a harem as well? As a treat!
Ein’s fortunes completely turn around when falling down a seemingly bottomless pit somehow has him end up next to one of the hidden World Trees. The anime quickly hammers with exposition about how there was one big one, then it disappeared, but mana hasn’t, so people thought there must be a world tree somewhere, but nobody ever found one… ugh, who cares. What you need to know is that the World Tree, the one that Ein finds, is personified by Yuri, a hot elf girl with large breasts. And she’s already in love with him! Because, uh… he is… *checks notes* …thankful. Apparently, Ein isn’t the first adventurer to end up here, but he’s the only one who didn’t immediately try to loot pieces of the World Tree in order to benefit himself. Presumably, all those losers died trying to leave the dungeon. Ein thanked the tree and now he’s got his first harem waifu. Neat!
What follows is a training arc, because, again, what MC isn’t overpowered by at least the second episode? It runs contrary to all my instincts as someone who plays JRPGs nonstop. The best part of the JRPG for me is the journey. It’s watching my little bonsai grow and flourish over time. Hell, I only play Honkai Star Rail, because I like to watch my characters get stronger. I don’t even like HSR’s story. But this is rarely reflected in these adventuring anime series. They seem to borrow every JRPG (or D&D) convention except the actual growth of the hero part. Instead, we Game Shark our way to the top immediately. So what does Ein get? Because he lost his one of his eyes, Yuri and her mother/guardian Ursula replaced it with part of Yuri’s spirit core. This means he has godly appraisal powers now! Naturally, he can read his opponents’ moves and react at superhuman speeds. Naturally, he can absorb their powers after defeating them like all the other MCs before him. Naturally, Yuri will now accompany a man she’s just met, and in doing so, constantly heal him so he might as well be immortal. Naturally, Ursula teaches him an ultimate magic spell by the third episode. Great, so what’s a guy to do now that he’s overpowered and has a hot anime waifu? Collect more waifus! Of course this is a harem. What did you expect?
Hm, lemme order a… “carriage gets attacked in the middle of nowhere.” And um, I’ll have a “the person inside the carriage is a hot princess.” And finally, let’s add “princess is now in love with me for saving her.” Hoo boy, we’re being bold tonight! To be fair, a guy also “falls in love” with Ein. More like his eye, to be precise. Our hero meets Jasper, who has a thing for gems and thus spirit cores. Jasper quickly notices that Ein has a spirit core for an eye, so he wants to… marry Ein too? This scene is a bit odd, because why doesn’t Jasper have more questions? Hm, spirit cores come from World Trees, and Ein has one… maybe I should ask the hero for details? But no, it is our MC who asks Jasper for details. Since the latter is so obsessed with spirit cores, he must surely know where to find more. And because Yuri wants to see her family, aka sisters because haha who’s ever heard of a male tree, we’re on a quest to find more waifus World Trees.
Yeah, I dunno, I guess this show is slightly more interesting than fruitmaster boy up top, but barely. I don’t think I want to waste my nights watching this for the rest of the winter season, so I’m going to drop it as well. Part of adventuring is beholding new sights, drinking in the scenery, plumbing the depths of those dark, dank dungeons full of treasure. But right off the bat, this show commits the same cardinal sin as every other generic adventuring anime: the dungeons are boring as shit.
*****
I’m almost done scoping out new shows, so I’ll eventually have to decide which winter anime I want to follow all the way to the end. And man, I don’t know if any of them are good enough for that. I still have a few new shows left that I haven’t touched. Sorairo Utility looks to be a golf anime, and I don’t find golf interesting. Flower and Asura looks like slice-of-life romance? I’ve seen positive word of mouth for Zenshu. It sounds like it’s technically an isekai, so in hindsight, I should’ve covered it already. Momentary Lily sounds terrible. Ave Mujica looks terrible. I don’t even want to give AQUARION Myth of Emotions a shot. I’d rather just play Farmagia than watch an anime adaptation. But yeah, we’ll see.