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[series:4478#628] | ||||||
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(All episodes watched): I guess you could say that this was the series I thought I was getting when I first watched Healer Girl. It is sort of a parody of Isekai series as two mismatched characters are obliged to team up. It had a touch of sophistication with the dialogue-driven jokes and ridicule of the isekai genre. While watching episode one I just wished it was a little better, because it seemed to be sitting on the fence between 'worth watching' and not. The jokes are sometimes funny, which is to say slightly funnier than average. But some are eye-rolling predictable, like the bit about how Alvin is warned that the horrible deformation of his face couldn't be fixed (we never really see his full face). I thought maybe I would save this series but not watch it immediately. I decided to watch episode two, to see if it gets any better, but was left feeling that this might be another anime which had already shot its bolt after just one episode. To its credit, it did make me smirk as I thought back about it while writing here. After watching part of episode two (I didn't have enough time to watch all of it at one sitting), I was surprised how modest my praise had been after episode one. This is a funny show--and seriously good jokes are as scarce as diamonds in anime. Alvin and Carla are continually wisecracking each other in a witty manner. The jokes come in rapid succession (rather than being thinly spead, as in many comedy anime) and are fairly funny. You never know what they will say next, whereas the dialogue in most shows gives you few surprises. There are bizarre situations, like Altargaia, a mushroom man that Alvin and Carla encounter in episode three. A poll at ANN on April 28 declared this to be the worst series of the season, but no matter how I look at it, a show which manages to make me laugh can't be all that bad. In episode four the party ventures into a dungeon--but it's an extremely easy dungeon to clear, having been designed as little more than a training aid for newcomers. This is the sort of show which, while it doesn't have a very complex plot, I'm nevertheless willing to watch because it is downright funny. Episode five consisted of two mini-plots, namely an Orc innkeeper who takes offense at Carla's comments (there was some sort of wordplay which would only be apparent to someone who speaks Japanese underway here) and a witch who tries to kill both Alvin and Carla. Something was missing from this episode and I didn't enjoy it as much as the previous ones. In episode six Alvin and Carla encounter a not terribly competent thief and a Golem who is okay with either fighting to the death or just being friends. The part where Alvin must be cured of a poison he has ingested was fun. In episode seven Alvin, Carla and Altargaia encounter a zombie--but not exactly the sort of zombie you would expect. Rather than wanting to eat their brains, the zombie asks them to help him conduct a bizarre vendetta. It was so crazy that it was LOL funny. This show is the antithesis of the usual isekai series, in which the characters have extraordinary abilities and become involved in critically important matters. They investigate and come upon Maria, a mild mannered, harmless necromancer who needs to fix a problem regarding her sister's spirit becoming detached from her body. Just thinking about the episode as I write this makes me laugh. Whoever wrote this must have listed all established assumptions regarding generic isekai series and turned each of them on its head. Episode nine, in which Alvin and Carla meet a Medusa and a Dryad, makes me smirk as I recall it. There must be something wrong with my sense of humor, because I enjoy this show, supposedly the worst of the season, more than I do Spy x Family, which is supposedly the best. In episode 11 they encounter an angry cyclops, but it is angry for about the last reason anyone would guess. Again, that's typical of this show: it takes established MMORPG stereotypes and turns them on their heads. Last updated Thursday, November 03 2022. Created Monday, April 18 2022. | ||||||||
