Kenja no Deshi wo Nanoru Kenja

Title:Kenja no Deshi wo Nanoru Kenja
She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man
賢者の弟子を名乗る賢者
Overall:Unevaluated
Keywords: , , , , ,
Notables: OMORI Nichika
R1 License - FUNimation
Within the MMORPG Ark Earth Online, players enjoy unprecedented freedom to do as they choose. As a result, history here has resembled that of Earth itself: Kingdoms rise and fall, and warfare is common. One nation that has managed to remain largely free of conflict has been the Kingdom of Alcait, to which mages have flocked in search of refuge. It is ruled by King Solomon and the nine Elders who are masters of the nine forms of magic. Most trusted by Solomon is Danblf, a wizard know as 'the one-man army' as he can summon virtually invincible soldiers out of thin air. However, after demolishing an army of 10,000 monsters, Danblf suddenly disappears. When he reappears, he has changed--into a young girl.

12 episodes
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Unevaluated Stretch [series:4440#628]
(Eight episodes watched):

Episode one consists of a lengthy introduction to the world of Ark Earth Online and in particular the Kingdom of Alcait. Solomon and Danblf are clearly real world video gamers who know they are just playing parts as a King and a high Wizard; nothing seems to have gone wrong with the game itself. We see just how powerful Danblf is as he easily trashes an army of goblins (called 'monsters' here). And then he seemingly transforms into a little girl who knows nothing about how AEO works. And that's where episode one ends. No doubt this girl will retain Danblf's fantastic powers (has there ever been an anime about a mediocre magician?), but otherwise the explanation of the premise of this show remains incomplete. I am curious where it might go, and am eager for episode two--just don't deflate my hopes too much!

Apparently what has happened (I can't be completely certain that I have gotten it right) is that for some reason Danblf was fooling around with designing a teenage girl avatar, and the game has some sort of feature which, if a certain deadline passes (he fell asleep or something), makes the new avatar your standard one. And he can't undo the change, at least not immediately. Something like 30 years has passed since he vanished, and for some reason NPGs have become just as intelligent and feeling as human players. It's not clear if you can still log out of the game or are trapped within it. This was a pretty silly, shallow and unexpected explanation of things. This would be the second isekai gender-bender series of the season, along with Fantasy Bishoujo Juniku Ojisan to. In both a guy has wound up in a girl's body in a video game-like alternate reality. And in both I sort of wonder why. Since both are, again, silly and shallow, it is unlikely that we will get any deep psychological observations or either character will learn any sort of meaningful lesson. In fact, I find it easy to forget that these two characters have the minds of men.

In episode three Danblf--actually, she now goes by the name of Mina, I think--is sent on a mission into a dungeon and teams up with the characters shown above. As might be expected, Mina amazes the others with her inexplicable magical powers. But I was finding this show to be pretty dull and was tempted to quit watching. This is still just a video game, right? Nothing much is really at stake, and as a result it's sort of like watching somebody else play such a game. The most basic problem (again) is that I have a hard time remembering that Mina actually has the mind of the white-haired wizard Danblf. And Danblf himself was just an avatar of a video game player, so it really doesn't make all that much of a difference. The player has just switched to a different looking but otherwise identical avatar. It was sort of a joke, but it got old fast. I don't really see how it will make much of a difference in the climax and conclusion of the show--or, for that matter, what sort of climax and conclusion this show is moving towards. It doesn't exactly have me on the edge of my seat, so it's hard to remember what happened in the last episode. This became a show I would watch when I had time to burn, but I kept watching for a good while.

Episode seven was sort of amusing as Mina sets her task aside and agrees to do a favor for a teacher at a magical academy. If the show isn't interesting enough for viewers like me to keep track of the long running plot, episodes of this sort are more useful. This series as a whole was ranked 26th of 30 at ANN around week 8. Indeed, if I were to describe it with one word, I think that word would be 'generic'. It's yet another magician-in-an-isekai-world series, with an unremarkable and unmemorable plot. There's nothing terribly wrong with it but also nothing outstandingly right.

Last updated Sunday, March 20 2022. Created Thursday, January 20 2022.

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