Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers

“Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers”, seriously those anime titles are getting into spoiler territory, is what happens when the gods of mediocrity decide to bless the mortal realm with another of their creations. Imagine an isekai. Congratulations, You have a 99% chance of knowing what will happen in this show. It’s that basic. It’s white bread among the isekai, well… I guess all isekai now are like white bread. There is little originality in it and what is original, surprise there is something, is shown in the first episode just to be relegated to background noise that means absolutely nothing inthe long run. This show is a comedy, slice of life isekai that once in a while pretends to have a story and not just plot. Before we start I would like to explain something. I will be talking about “plot” and “story”. Many people use those terms interchangeably. I’m not one of those people, so to make sure everyone is on the same page… I use the definitions for “plot” and “story” as Lisa Cron describes them: “What happens in the story is the PLOT, the surface events.” “STORY is about how the things that happen affect someone in pursuit of a difficult goal, and how that person changes internally as a result”. The main plot is very much standard. A young man is summoned from another world because the rulers of the world that summoned him are too incompetent to deal with their own shit. What’s new and actually could be interesting if explored in any way, shape or form, is that our MC was summoned to a fantasy world from another fantasy world. A fresh take on the genre. Shame it means nothing, just like in most isekai where the hero is summoned from our own world. Another interesting, but getting more and more common, plot point, is that our MC is not the hero they were looking for. Turns out our hero - Banaza has shitty stats. Yes. In this isekai everything works on game logic. How thrilling and original. Ok, long story short, the king tries to kill him to cover up his incompetence, Banaza survives, gets super awesome over powered as fuck stats and starts living his own life as a living embodiment of perfection. The End. Thank You for coming to my TED talk. Ok… fine… When it comes to characters that actually matter for the plot and story… there aren't many. To be honest our MC doesn't have much of a story, he’s just there. Like in a lot of shows like this he’s more a catalyst for other characters' stories. He stays the same for mostly the whole show. Everyone else around him? Yeah, they change and grow. I have no idea why I’m watching this waste of space, his coterie is much more interesting. But… here we are. The characters that matter to the plot of this show are: Flio - the MC formerly known as Banaza. He is summoned from his own world into another one. In his previous world he was a merchant that, it seems, treated his demihuman workers as more than just slaves. There is a moment when he’s called a hypocrite but that’s never addressed and it might insinuate that he’s not as innocent and honest as he seems to be. This point will not be addressed ever again. As in the case of almost all isekai protagonists we don’t know anything about his goals or life before his transportation. Just once I would like to see an isekai protagonist that actually has a reason to return to his own world. I don’t think there is any isekai where the protagonist really minds being transported to the new world, has his life turned upside down and abandon his friends and family. It is the same with Banaza. He does attempt to return to his world after he gains his powers, it doesn’t work and he just abandons the idea all together. Yes, he does get a reason to stay so I’ll let it slide this time. At least the reason is logical - he got a wife in his new reality. Rys - aka Fenrys. Called the bravest woman warrior in the Dark Army, she resigned from it to become Flio’s housewife. To be honest I like the idea of such a metamorphosis but I despise how it was done. Just because she was bested she decides to completely change her life and personality. I would like to see that change going more slowly. Maybe start with her frustration that she’s forbidden to fight humans, then let her learn about humans and their culture. You could still let her be in love with Flio but her story would be much more meaningful if her change was done organically. As it is now it’s just bad. She becomes a lovestruck housewife because the plot demands it. To be honest I think she’s the most insulting female character I’ve seen in a long, Long time. Her whole shtick is that she loves Flio and would do anything for him. It’s not even an equal partnership, she just goes with anything he decides. To the point she doesn’t really care that her husband killed her brother… and countless other members of the Dark Army, You know… her allies. The only thing I do like about her is that she looks after “the pack” and practically forces powerful individuals to become a part of it after her husband is done handing them their asses on a silver platter. Blossom - Because I like her design. Eff off. The Hero - aka asshole who got chosen. He was summoned along with Banaza to this world but unlike him, he has “hero” stats from the get go. Surprisingly he does not possess any skills. It’s unclear if this is his own fault or it’s just his drawback from having his stats maxed out from the start but it’s enough for him to feel inadequate. That’s part of the reason why he always runs away at any sight of trouble leaving his soldiers to deal with everything. Surprisingly, because of his ego he is the source of quite the number of troubles for the MC and his coterie. That’s the main reason why I put him in this list, without him a few episodes could not happen. It’s actually amusing that the kingdom can’t handle one idiot but I guess the plot demands it and I lost all hope in writing in this show at this point. Let’s talk a bit more about logic in this show. It absolutely is non-existent. Simple example. When Banaza (He’s not using the name Flio at that point in time) was exiled to the forest, the person who drove him there was given a magic bag, to give his passenger when they get there. The journey lasted 20 days. Later we find out that there was a monster lure casted on that bag. So let me get this straight. For 20 fucking days nothing attacked them, despite the fact that (as we learn later) magic beasts are rather abundant in that region, but the moment our MC is left alone he’s attacked by monsters. The fuck? How does that work? Did the lure activated only because Banaza touched it? Was the activation related to the location? Or is it that he needed to earn xp and the writer is just lazy? Yes. Shitty writing at its best. Of course the bullshit worldbuilding and bending over for our MC doesn’t stop there. The monsters that attack him are 3 slimes. Just enough for him to level up and become godlike. Seriously? You just had to do it that way? Why not show how brutal the world is. Why not, after killing those slimes, he still needs some xp to level up? Let his struggle a bit, make him do something good or even heroic that would show us that he isn’t a total sack of shit and actually can be trusted with this power. Anything. Hell, make his save cat even, it’s cliche as fuck but the whole show is so it would fit. Just once I would like to see the MC actually earn his powers not by dumb luck but something that would show his morality. Daredevil got his powers (and lost his sight) saving someone from danger. Is it cliche? Yes (well… maybe in the 1960s it wasn’t). Is it a bit rushed? Yes. Does it show Matt Murdocs character, his sense of morality and willingness to help others even if it means putting himself in danger? FUCK, YES! That’s what I want to see. If the MC is going to get godlike powers why not show us that he actually is the right person to be entrusted with it BEFORE he gets it. Every damn isekai MC shows his heroic side after getting powers. It’s lame and to be honest doesn’t present them as characters to root for. The way Rys and Flio get together is some of the most bullshit writing I have ever seen, and I’ve watched “Eminence in Shadow” and “The Qwaser of Stigmata” so the bar is pretty high in this regard. Flio, and his future coterie, is attacked by Rys in her wolf form. Our resident dumbass… I mean the protagonist, teleports others to safety and stays to fight Rys. Why? Seriously, why? There is no logical reason for him to do so. He doesn’t even know at that point in time that he is OP. The logical decision would be to run away. He doesn’t. Uses his bullshit op powers to win, spares Rys and from that point on she is in love with him. Let’s say it together… BULLSHIT LOGIC. Nothing that happens in this situation was decided by any kind of logic. It happened because the plot demanded it. The world also revolves around Flio. The man can do nothing wrong. Even when he doesn’t mean it. He instinct uses newly acquired magic to save Rys just because the plot demands it. There was no setup that magic can be used unintentionally but here we are. Magic that only a djinn could wield is used instinctually by him. At this point I’m certain that he could kick a random baby and it would turn out to be some kind of apocalyptic threat that was foiled just in the nick of time. The man can do no wrong, makes no mistakes and because he’s OP AF, nothing can harm him or have any kind of long lasting negative effect. The four girls that start to live with Flio and Rys are much more entertaining to watch and as characters than the MC. They at least have stories, struggle, learn and change internally. That’s far more than Flio can say throughout the whole show. Unfortunately they are relegated to just background. You can’t even say they are catalysts for anything interesting because they don’t do much of anything. They are just there for visual variety. Listen, I have very little positive to say about the writing. It’s cliche, it’s predictable and more often than it should - boring. Still the execution isn’t all bad. Despite everything there are moments when characters bounce off each other pretty well and they almost feel like actual characters. It’s not often but it happens. The problem is that 90% of the time it happens with Blossom and her squad and not with Flio. You lose absolutely nothing by skipping this one. It’s predictable, full of cliches and lazy writing.