The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me?

A Generic Isekai? Are You Kidding Me?

Our story starts with an average salaryman falling asleep in his apartment, only to wake up in the body of a five year old boy. Despite the obvious shock of becoming about twenty years younger, things actually look up for the now named Wendelin. He’s at a fancy noble party hosted by his parents, seems to have caring brothers and all seems to be well. Alas, the next day he learns the party was for the wedding of one of his brothers and their noble family essentially spent all of their wealth on it as they are quite poor in their knightdom. To make matters worse, Wendelin discovers that he is the 8th son and will inherit absolutely nothing. This wouldn’t be an isekai though without Wendelin finding out that he actually has the ability to use magic, something rare and powerful in this world. Not only that, but he stumbles upon a “whispering dead” the form of a powerful mage that was killed in battle in the enchanted forest nearby. He passes on all his teachings before finally being purified and Wendelin basically becomes the most OP mage in the kingdom. The remainder of the show primarily deals with him questing with his adventuring party, while dealing with the political machinations and obligations of becoming a noble in his own right thanks to his powers.

At first, I thought I might quite like this anime. I really like the idea of an isekai where the protag ends up worse off than before, but would be able to overcome through just facing adversity. Sadly that premise is gone when Wendelin apparently can do like all the magic and do it really well. It turns most of the stories into generic, go here, fight the thing, magic wins, yay. Additionally, his party has two girls in it whose entire characters basically boil down into wanting to marry him. When he gets married off to a priestess instead, they stage “Operation Concubine Seduction” to become his concubines instead. Thankfully we’re spared any fan service, just a cringey dance, and they just sort of get the position. That’s really how most of this show is, things just kinda happen, and even when they fight the anime cuts away a lot. They must have had a low budget because the 3D models are Arifureta levels of not good and the animation quality overall is pretty meh. There are some things going for it. The political stuff happening in the background is well thought out at least. Honestly it was more intriguing than what the A story was most of the time. I was also surprised that the character that got the most development was a dude who at first was just really proud of his spear spinning but eventually becomes a trusted advisor and manager of Wendelin’s estate somehow, definitely did not see it coming. Overall, this is a turn off your brain and watch anime. It is stereotypical anime trash, not super entertaining or engrossing, but if you really were desperate for an isekai to watch, you could do worse.

Is it trash? YES

Rating: ★★☆☆☆