New rule: if your fantasy anime stars a round faced, single digit aged waif, it’s gonna be a bad time.
Hell Mode: Yarikomizuki no Gamer wa Hai Settei no Isekai de Musou suru, Okiraku Ryoushu no Tanoshii Ryouchi Bouei: Seisankei Majutsu de Na mo Naki Mura wo Saikyou no Jousai Toshi ni and Majutsushi Kunon wa Mieteiru: that’s three more series like Kizoku Tensei: Megumareta Umare kara Saikyou no Chikara wo Eru in which an adult gets reincarnated into a young child or baby and you have to suffer through them growing up and learning magic. At least Majutsushi Kunon wa Mieteiru Tensei shitara Dragon no Tamago datta mixes it up a little by having its protagonist reincarnate into a dragon’s egg. It’s about the only one of those that I have any desire to watch more of, but even then its first episode was a slog.
So what’s the problem with these series? First, having a young boy as a protagonist — and none of these are older than six years — obviously limits what they can do. Can’t really send them on the sort of adventures that you could send even a teenager on. But more importantly, these series aren’t really interested in sending them on adventures, they’re only interested in dsicovering the wonders of magic. Which could be fun, if ‘magic’ here didn’t equate to making numbers go up on a status screen.
Hell Mode is the best example. That starts with a bored gamer trying out a new online game and selecting the worst possible difficulty settings, only for him to be reincarnated as a baby to a couple of serfs, farmers tied to their land by their overlord. As his chosen profession he had taken summoner, as that was the most difficult one. Interesting setup, but the first episode mostly consisted of him looking at his status board and creating low level beasties like grasshoppers and mouses as he levels his skills. This is occasionally interrupted by him having to do mock sword fights with the tomboy daughter of his parents’ friends. Compelling watching it does not make, but at least the monsters are cute. When you spent more time looking at your phone than the screen, you know you have a problem. And at least Hell Mode has decent looking animation and creature designs.
Ultimately the problem with all these series is a symptom of a wider problem with narou based anime. The obsession with world building and explaining magic systems is something that’s excusable in a light novel or manga as you can skim it, which you can’t do with anime. With an adult protagonist you can at least make it more bearable by having them beat up monsters or explore dungeons while doing so, but that’s not possible when your hero is barely old enough to crawl around. Worse, because the unique selling point of this sort of series is “the protagonist masters magic at an incredible young age” is also not really possible to make it into a five minute montage. Once they’re no longer a child, they’re the same as any other isekai protagonist…
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