Isekai can still be good

 

With so much Isekai, anime, light novels, or manga, it's hard to really stick out of the crowd and try to be original. I came into winter 2021 looking at a few Isekai such as, "So I'm a Spider, So what?", "Redo of a Healer," and "Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnate,"(not including returning shows like Re:Zero) and boy does Jobless Reincarnate hit differently from the other 2. This show somehow manages to stick itself out among the vast majority of Isekai, and actually be really good. I can honestly say that this show is one of the best Isekai shows I've seen in a long time. I did briefly talk about this show in an earlier post but I feel this series deserves it's on post so I'll be going into greater detail about it.

Redeus being born

The series starts off with the main character a 38 year old shut in, getting hit by a truck trying to save some high school students from the trucks path. He's rushed into the Emergency Room and is slowly dying. As the heart monitor flat lines he slowly re-awakens in a different room with a young couple and a maid looking down on him. The young man is making all these baby faces at him while the woman looks exhausted but happy. The main character piece together that he has indeed be reborn into another world and his now the son of this young couple given the new name of Redeus Greylight. He still retains all his memories of his previously life but is given the chance to live again as Redeus in this new fantasy like world.

Infant Rudy being healed with magic

The flow right into the fantasy world is a pretty smooth transition. Most Isekai usually have the main character talking to a god like being and being told about the situation that's to happen to them. Here it flows from the death of his previous life into his new life in this fantasy world. Since Rudy has his memories from his previous life and knows nothing about this new world we as the audience are able to learn everything through him as he's learning himself. The pacing of the show feels right even though it has a few time skips going from a few months to a few years. The story telling is well done that the flow between time skips seems smooth. By the end of episode one we go from Rudy being born to being about 4 years old in the span of 30 minutes.  

Rudy age 4 sparring with his father Paul

The characters we are introduced so far have a strong presence and are memorable. Everyone has a different personality trait to them so we're never bored with one character. Rudy still having the knowledge of his previous life makes him pretty crafty and clever. The voice of his inner thoughts is the voice of his previous self in his previous life, while when he speaks he sounds like a young boy still growing. I appreciate how 2 different people play Rudy, one old and one young. This attention to detail sells the point that he really did get reincarnated. His father Paul, is still very athletic and is a pretty good fatherly figure. The way he acts shows that he still is new to being a father and isn't the perfect figure. His mother fits the motherly figure to the book. She loves and cares for Rudy very much and treats him in a way you would expect a loving mother to. We're later introduced to his magic instructor Roxie, who is very young. She does an excellent job fulfilling her role as his teacher for the next few years. Her character doesn't feel bland in the slightest. I would consider her very mature for her age, especially since she's so young and already teaching. She starts to grow attached to Rudy fairly quickly and is the type of instructor who is easy but stern. Because she's still young she can still get embarrassed fairly easy and  lost her composure, but it only adds to her character. I won't go over all the characters we've come across so far incase some of you want to dive in to the show and figure them out for yourselves. So far I've just covered the first 2 episodes in terms of characters.

Roxie teaching Rudy magic

Studio Bind is behind this big show and they were created for the sole purpose of making this one series. This studio literally had 1 job and my gosh are they doing an excellent job. Studio Bind was founded in 2018, and pretty much was a child between studios White Fox and Egg Firm. The 2 came together had an egg and out came Bind. Since this is the only anime that they're working they have all the resources and man power to focus on just this series and it really shows how much work an effort has gone into it. Visually the animation looks really good. Given the mood and setting of the show, the visuals really match the tone of the series very well. It's not too colorful, not too bright, it hits the right balance to set the atmosphere and tone. The series is planned to be a long one to so I expect more than just a typical 12 episode series. If Bind continues the way that they've been doing with the show this could easily be one of the best shows of 2021.