They may have it easy, but watching this is hard
As the title would suggest, this is more isekai because we certainly don’t have enough of those going on. This one is a bit different at least. The main cast are already super talented in the real world. Instead of gaining new powers, they just use their innate abilities in the new one. Our cast is Ringo, a super smart girl inventor, Aoi, a female samurai with incredible combat prowess, Keine, a girl doctor who is the best in the world, Masato, r/WallStreetBets personified only he’s never wrong, Akatsuki, a younger boy magician whose a master illusionist, Shinobu, the world’s best journalist/information gatherer and she’s also a ninja, and lastly Tsukasa, a political savant and he’s also the prime minister of Japan. If that sounds like a lot of characters, it is. The show relegates most of the cast to supporting roles with mostly Tsukasa and Masato getting lots of screen time in the first few episodes. It doesn’t help they introduce even more characters who are of the new world in addition to this main cast. As a result, it’s hard to really get a good feel for any of them. Anyway, our prodigies end up in their new world following a Lost-style plane carash (side note: is Lost an isekai?) and find themselves in a humble village who is oppressed by the ruling Empire. As repayment for helping recover they use their skills to create new inventions for the village (apparently they REALLY love mayonaise), and improve the town’s wealth. This leads to Masato basically inventing the East India Trading Company for two episodes. Tsukasa calls Masato “capitalism in human flesh” and boy is it apt. We get lessons on using blackmail to obtain a business permit, using the good ol service fee for selling other people’s goods so they don’t need to buy inventory, and undercutting the reigning monopolies prices. Within days Masato has crushed his opponent essentially taken over. The show at least talks about how he’s not really the best person but man Adam Smith would fucking love this guy. However, watching capitalism in action isn’t the most exciting television and the side stories aren’t really compelling enough on their own to keep things interested.
That guy is capitalism in human flesh
Tsukasa about Masato
After watching the first few episodes, I went and checked the synopsis as I wanted to see how spreading our world’s ideals to this new realm played out. They establish a theocracy as a means of gaining supporters, they invent modern weaponry to fight off the medieval style armies and form their own nation in rebellion to the empire. So yeah, about what you’d expect from a bunch of savants who only know how to win. I did have to watch some of the last couple episodes of the first season as THEY MAKE AN ICBM. Yes, a straight up Nuke. This was because some bad guy had some magic spear or something that did something similar and so they made one and used it to demonstrate their might, shades of WW2 are strong here. There’s even talk after basically implying the necessity of mutually assured destruction as a diplomatic tool. This is definitely not the most light hearted anime, and honestly the worst part is that I could see this working but it just doesn’t. The concept is at least semi-novel, taking on nation building is an interesting topic, but I honestly just don’t care about the people involved or really the world at large. I’m not sure I can even call this trash, it just doesn’t feel like it, just more a mediocre anime.
Is it trash? Not Really
Rating: ★★☆☆☆