What happens when your walking back home from school with your best friend? But of course, you find yourselves randomly teleported to another world in the middle of nowhere! Join Rin and Taichi on their journey to save the world and go back home!
The Breakdown
Criteria
Grade
Summary
⭐⭐☆☆☆
Below Standard
⭐⭐☆☆☆
Below Standard
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Standard
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Standard
⭐⭐☆☆☆
Below Standard
⭐⭐☆☆☆
No.
Summary Review of The Breakdown
Shockingly, over 300,000 people have added this show to their lists on MyAnimeList. Despite this, Isekai Cheat Magician fails to impress despite its amazing conditions including a great cast, strong opening band, and airing in a time of extreme Isekai popularity. Animation looks lackluster the entire time, with action scenes feeling very sparse in movement and character art showing some unfortunate quirks here and there. However, the worst offender is blatant 3D with its frequent appearances, almost every other episode. Soundtrack-wise, an opening by popular group Myth & Roid sounds like a classic Myth & Roid song with a powerful vocal performance and an ending by the award-winning voice actress Takahashi Rie help garner first looks for the show, but the nothing burger of a plot keeps anyone staying the whole while. Frankly, if you like trashy and literally mindless shows, then don't feel bad about watching Isekai Cheat Magician. Otherwise, you can feel safe in skipping this one.
Credited as the main studio, Encourage Films, founded in August of 2008 has some TV anime experience with hit show such as Senki Zesshou Symphogear. In terms of Isekai, before releasing Isekai Cheat Magician, they had no prior experience working as the main studio behind an Isekai show.
Criteria
Grade
Summary
⭐★☆☆☆
Almost Abysmal
⭐⭐☆☆☆
Below Standard
⭐⭐★☆☆
Slightly Below Standard
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Standard
3D
Poor 3D pops up fairly often in most Isekai anime. However, they usually only show up a few times throughout a series. Even less than that if we're lucky. But, Isekai Cheat Magician decided to go the opposite direction. Almost every other episode has instances of random 3D objects as the main focus of attention. If the frequency was low for 3D, it would end up with a much better score since there would be less to score it on, but almost every other episode is frankly insane for an anime. Typically, 3D comes up when there's not enough time to animate things by hand, which in turn, gives a clear indication of rushed or overworked productions. So when a show uses 3D so frequently, it means that the show has an unfortunately low production value, and in turn gives a bad rep to the original source material.
Isekai Cheat Magician Episode 1.
Soldier in foreground and background are all 3D... You can't escape it even if you wanted to.
Special Effects
With magic in the title, special effects pop up extremely often. Most eye-catchingly in the form of magic. Considering the low value production on this show, magic has an extremely wide range of effects, from good to too painful to bear. The most common form appears with wind magic, where its usually animated with a good mixture of 2D, SFX and 3D, blending together acceptably. However, the worst offender comes with fire. Magic fire in this show is just straight up a 3D effect. That's it. Thankfully, it only shows up a few times, with the worst offender in the first episode. But man, how the heck does this pass quality assurance. Other than that, almost all action scenes in the show come with a hearty amount of screen shake and still frames, driving home the fact this show lacks enough budget or time to truly make a great fight.
As one of the most important part of a show, character art in Isekai Cheat Magician fails to inspire any heroism. And it definitely won't inspire the next DaVinci. In almost every scene, the main or side characters all have a strange glint of light in their pupils, as if a light bulb constantly shines above them. In some scenes, it actually doesn't look all that strange, but during different times of day, like at evening, the glint accentuates the strange color palette of the eyes which stands out against almost everything else in the scene.
Isekai Cheat Magician Episode 2. (?)
Here, the glint doesn't look too bad.
Shockingly, the background art manages to look simple and standard. With nothing seemingly looking super out of place besides the ground in some shots.
Following the generic template pattern of Isekai where the main character randomly finds himself in the middle of nowhere in another world, Isekai Cheat Magician really fumbles the bag with the story. Bringing along a childhood friend is generally rare in Isekai, with most stories of this type usually having the protagonist act alone. Furthermore, both characters have strong powers, although Taichi gains his powers further down the line. The strongest point of the story in the show however, is through the introduction of side characters. Neither Taichi nor Rin have many side goals or spiritual character development, but when they do, it usually ends up following the template where its only used to move the story along. Side characters, on the flipside, have actual development however. Some of the main side characters have genuine backstories, motives and show growth throughout. It's almost as if the main character's aren't the author's favorites and they wanted to flesh the other characters out instead. Frankly, even though the side character's are more interesting, they all still fall under the same genre template of meeting the MC then falling in love with him. Eventually, the story devolves to a frustrating point of boy meets new girl and collects them like Pokémon. Pacing also feels atrocious in this story, with the story beats feeling out of sync in which the context surrounding them occurs (like when an assassin suddenly comes after Taichi).
Voice Acting
With an extremely talented cast of voice actors, Isekai Cheat Magician falls flat on its face when using them. As a main character, Rin only shows 3 emotions throughout the entire season: anxiety, sadness, excitement. You can only show much of the feelings before it becomes repetitive. Taichi also has this issue where he only shows a few emotions. Both of the main characters have very little in the way of expressing themselves and it reflects heavily in the voice acting for the show. Some side characters express more than these two. Overall voice acting is standard, but failing to properly use a talented cast hurts fans and industry alike.
Soundtrack
How the heck did they get a Myth & Roid opening... And they have cast member Takahashi Rie singing the ending. Despite this, nothing besides the opening and ending sound incredibly special, with both sound effects and background tracks sounding extremely standard.
Criteria
Grade
Summary
Opening
⭐⭐⭐★☆
Slightly Above Standard
Ending
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Standard
Background Tracks
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Standard
Sound Effects
⭐⭐⭐☆☆
Standard
Do you enjoy the trash tier of Isekai? What other shows give off similar vibes to this? Comment down below!
Thank you for reading!
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