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[series:4604#628] | ||||||
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(Rent- or Watch+) (All episodes watched): This immediately seemed like an amusing and fun take on isekai anime. This girl who has just failed a university entrance exam is presented with a fantastic opportunity and intends to make use of it. She employs her late brother's advice as a guide when making difficult decisions and his equipment comes in handy too. We get a bizarre but amusing explanation of just what happened which has allowed her to jog back and forth between worlds. This ability is unusal in isekai anime, and so is the fact that the people of this other world initially speak a language other than Japanese (though before long everyone fully understands each other). Unlike many isekai anime with silly premises this one makes a good deal of sense in a strange way, and I was curious what Mitsuha would do. The ED sequence suggested a large and varied cast of characters to come. I doubted if it would get at all 'deep' but this struck me as a show that ought to be fun. Mitsuha has prudently decided that the first thing she should prepare for in this alternate world is self-defense, and in episode two she hires a sort of mercenary company to train her in the use of firearms. She seems to already have a good deal of money to use in her preparations. She also seems to have no compunction about killing anybody who threatens her; this is not some naive girl who will be at the mercy of thieves or the corrupt. She does her homework and hatches a plan for which we must wait until episode three. The plan is to ingratiate herself with the influential Count Bozes in order to secure money to start her inter-dimensional trading business. This goes pretty much as planned, though I wish something nutty had happened to spice things up. It helps that objects that are little more than trinkets in modern Japan seem like miracles to these medieval technology folks. In episode four Mitsuha arrives in the capital city and sets up her shop that will sell 21st century goods to these people, but is dismayed when it gets a tepid response. A semi-influential person takes notice, however. Mitsuha makes a deal to cater the exotic food and entertainment for the coming-out ball of the man's daughter, Adelaide. The party is almost too much of a success. Count Bozes and family are in town for the occasion, and his daughter gets Mitsuha to commit to a super spectacular coming out party for her in two years or so. In episode seven Mitsuha joins an adventuring party on a minor quest to get an idea of what sort of modern goods they might be willing to buy. This show didn't thrill me, but it is amusing and I remained curious about how Mitsuha would employ real-world goods and technology in this isekai one. Whereas a number of shows this season seemed great at first but turned out to be just so-so, this show originally seemed modestly good and remained that way. Mitsuha makes another influential friend in episode eight, Princess Sabine (the upper right girl in the illustration above). The impression I get from the OP sequence is that Mitsuha's first friend, Collette (upper left) will show up again at some point, and the mercenary group she trained with back home in Japan would get involved in this alternate world. At any rate, in addition to selling exotic goods and catering parties, Mitsuha has a 'consulting' service in which she solves problems for pay. In episode nine a girl from a restaraunt that is being driven out of business by an unscrupulous competitor appeals for her help. OK, but not brilliant. There's talk of 'monsters' disrupting travel in the kingdom; the situation turns out to be so serious that, sure enough, Mitsuha is obliged to turn to her mercenary friends for help. She has tried not to introduce technology that is so radically advanced that it would turn everything upside down, but desperate times call for desperate measures. In episode 11 the invading army (source of the monsters), which had seemed to have the kingdom at its mercy, gets a rude awakening when it is introduced to modern weaponry. It was kind of nonsensical and predictable, but it was also fun to see the bad guys get what they deserved. Great care is taken to not kill any humans outright, but there are plenty of orcs and whatnot to mow down. I figured that seeing how Mitsuha explains all this in the final episode would be much more fun, but the locals are too relieved to have been saved from disaster to ask many questions. In general, the tone of this show was silly and as a result no gripping questions were asked and there was never any doubt that Mitsuha would win in the end. But it was amusing to see how she pursued opportunities in an isekai world and she is modestly likable, so I did not mind watching. Last updated Sunday, April 02 2023. Created Friday, January 13 2023. | ||||||||
