Flurry of Isekai Shows this Season

Last summer, out of complete boredom, I took time to read basically most of the isekai manga out there. There were some good ones, Slime or Youjo Senki to name a few, but a lot of horrible ones as well. And to my surprise, this season featured a flurry of isekai shows, all from manga I read over that summer.

So I decided to watch each one of these isekai shows to see how I feel about them. Truly, I feel as though I am a parent watching his child go off to the world as they grow. 

I’ll begin each show briefly how I thought about their manga then move on to my impressions of their first episodes. 

1. Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka?

Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? was one of the isekai manga that I sort of enjoyed while reading. The spider slowly progressing through the cave and leveling up was really easy to scroll through when reading, and most importantly, it had great art with monsters and the cave that really created a nice atmosphere. 

But as most who watched the first episode can probably realize, the good art is completely gone and replaced with CG. I don’t really know how people feel about CG, but as a person who couldn’t even watch Houseki no Kuni because of CG, I can’t even really attempt to watch this show. Story wise too, I think the show takes too much of its time with the introduction of the location which slowed down the pace too much for me to handle.

But it’s not as the show is completely horrible and not worth anything. Though the show may be hard to watch, it’s definitely a joy to listen. 

The show features a lot, and I mean a lot of lines by the spider, who happens to be voiced by Yuuki Aoi — my favorite voice actress. While I’d normally complain about there being too much exposition or her “thoughts” being boring, I can’t really complain here since Yuuki Aoi is just nice to listen to. In fact, when you can’t bear to watch the CG of the show, the extreme narration of the events help understand what’s happening just enough to be able to listen to the show without watching. No one probably really cares about Japanese voice actors, but if you do, the show is actually a lot of joy to just listen to.

Maybe I’ll continue the show in the form of a drama cd.

2. Mushoku Tensei: Isekai Ittara Honki Dasu

I was genuinely surprised because this is good. What caught my eye first was how great it looked visually. They had a noise texture around most of the scenes and character which gives it the more rustic and paper like feel to the modern character designs. The color template also really fit this rustic atmosphere of the anime without being overtly brown and staying coloring. 

There were explicit scenes (or noises) with the parents that aren’t really typical fanservice (other than that roxy scene at the start of episode two). I thought this was pretty hilarious because of how realistic this is and how it just casually played in the background while he was reading. 

I do remember, though, the story gets a lot worse later in the story. I specifically remember not being very happy with the events that happened after chapter 14. But regardless, the first three episodes were great. I think I’m gonna do a separate post about this show but I really enjoyed this show. Also, Roxy is actually a goddess. 

3. Ore dake Haireru Kakushi Dungeon

This was the most disappointing out of the isekai shows that I watched. Did I like the story? Not really. It had some interesting moments but it wasn’t anything too interesting. Despite all that, I kind of enjoyed the manga. And that was because Emma, the main (or of one of the many)  female protagonists, was drawn and written to be really cute. Admittedly, she kind of a prototypical deredere, but I like prototypical derederes so I found myself enjoying the manga.

When I first saw the cast list, I was kind of excited since I saw Tomita Miyu voicing Ema. But once I saw the first episode I was terrified just by the visuals of this show. The animations are wanky, the characters are drawn in a weirdly fat way, and the glowing texture is hard to look at.

But for those who weren’t put off by that, the story is fine. As I said, nothing really special, but there are a lot of fanservice-like scenes to come that may be nice if you like the character. I’m going to drop this show since I can’t really bear the visuals.

4. Kaifuku Jutsushi

If you told me to choose the best isekai show this season, I would choose this show. Of course for the wrong reasons. I like this show for the exact same reason as why I like Arifureta. 

When I read the manga, I was laughing because I couldn’t believe the extent the manga went with the revenges and the sheer madness of most of them were just so crazy that I couldn’t hold in my laugh. While it’s not as though the reason why the main character does what he does is a bad motive; frankly, it’s a fairly good premise to work off a dark, gritty story. But when the visual and musical atmosphere fails to fit that dark mood, it creates nothing but humor. It’s the most edgy show I’ve seen in awhile and I find it absolutely hilarious. 

Though what is questionable was the visuals. It’s obvious the production values of this show are rock bottom. The animations look really choppy and the visuals completely fall out sometimes where their eyes and proportions aren’t normal in Go Toubun no Hanayome Season 1 fashion. I might watch this show just because of how absurd it is