Isekai Cheat Magician First Impressions

“I mean… Is this place even our world? You saw that magic circle thingy, right?”

It’s odd to say this, but, despite everything about it, I find Isekai Cheat Magician to be a moderately charming series. That may be a notably brutal backhanded compliment, but, you have to understand, if this were animated any more cheaply you’d have assistants waving around cardboard cutouts in lieu of drawing the characters. Still, I’m trying to remember the last time I saw an isekai where one of the main protagonists to come from Earth was female, and it wasn’t named Conception. Sure, Taichi is clearly our central character, but Rin feels like she holds her own well enough as a character. Still, visuals may not be everything when it comes to anime, but it’s hard to justify recommending this one when the manga adaptation may well have better animation if you just flip the pages a bit fast.

The plot of the Isekai Cheat Magician centers around Nishimura Taichi and Azuma Rin, two high schoolers who find themselves summoned to another world by a botched summoning spell. I feel like I could set up a Madlibs-style review for isekai series where I just punch in a few names and details and call it a day. Despite the generic setup, it is bizarrely rare to see a pairing of isekai protagonists, particularly when they aren’t genetically related to one another (I’m still annoyed that Conception exists. That series was the embodiment of Rule… Rule… I don’t know the “Rules” of the internet. Whichever one says that there is a porn of everything, that’s what Conception was). Upon waking up in a field with Rin, Taichi is actually pretty quick to suggest that they might not be on Earth due to the summoning circle that appeared and the lack of cell phone signal. I’m not used to my isekai protagonists being this quick on the uptake. Maybe I’ve become jaded to aspects of the genre, but, normally, I’d expect the first reaction of an isekai protagonist to seeing a fire-breathing obsidian unicorn to be something like, “That’s an odd dog.” I mean look at Re:Zero. It took Subaru a couple respawns to actually realize he was in a time loop, and that was one of the good titles! Anyway, after encountering the aforementioned unicorn/dog our heroes are saved by a group of adventurers who offer to guide Taichi and Rin to the nearest town.

As much as I’ve been insulting the animation (And those insults are warranted) I will acknowledge that I respect Isekai Cheat Magician for not attempting to further cut corners with CG animation, outside of a couple soldiers in the prologue. I’ve seen a lot of good quality CG integration this season, and some mediocre, but I don’t doubt for a second that whatever Cheat Magician could have afforded would have looked awful. The last thing this show’s visuals needed was a poorly integrated version of Microsoft Office’s Clippy running around spreading destruction. Character models already feel disconnected enough from the background as it is. I was close to praising the anime for not relying on fanservice, but one of the characters introduced towards the end broke the trend that the show had been maintaining so well, though she was shown in the opening prologue, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. Still, the episode’s track record with fanservice was better than I had anticipated when I saw its animation, so I’m still going to give it some credit. With a production this limited, it can use whatever credit it can get.

Before I wrap up, a few Notes and Nitpicks:

• Taichi attempts a bit of heroic self-sacrifice early in the episode when faced with the Obsidian Horse, but later Rin is quick to point out how terrible a move that is since it means potentially leaving her alone in a foreign world that she doesn’t understand with her closest friend’s blood on her hands. It was a solid moment, and an instance where I got both perspectives… I’m just not used to a show this cheap having character that make sense.
• The production for this was handled by Encourage Films. They’ve been around for more than a decade… I’d never heard of them.
• Like Arifureta before it, Isekai Cheat Magician is originally based upon a web novel that has since branched out into several adaptations. I feel like I may be witnessing the beginning of a pattern among weak adaptations.
• I should add that, while I enjoy the broad intent of the dialogue, much of it leans towards being stilted.