Shin no Nakama ja Nai to Yuusha no Party wo Oidasareta node, Henkyou de Slow Life suru Koto ni Shimashita

With fantasy and isekai being a dominant force in the anime industry these days, you'd have to stop yourself and ask when enough is enough. With an anime title this long, sometimes, it feels like we're reading a meme. For the sake of your sanity and this review, I'll just call this show Banished from the Hero's Party. And you may have guessed it, the hero gets banished from a hero's party. As the premise detailed, we follow protagonist Red, a D-rank adventurer who was banished from a party. He was formerly known as Gideon Ragnason, before being banished by his party members when theysurpassed him in skill and level. The general premise sets up for his adventure and life in a fantasy world although his past continously comes back to haunt him. Meanwhile, we also meet Rit, a young charismatic woman who has developed feelings for Red during their time together. Of course, she has her own reasons to live such a carefree life and we find out more about her identity and past later on. For now, let's just say that the anime subscribes to a charming couple together. Yet, I don't want to call designate this show entirely as a romance because at its heart, the show is more than just about Red and Rit. Treat it more as a blend between slice of life, romance, fantasy, and adventure. When we first meet Red and Rit though, it's obvious they have a mutual attraction towards each other. The anime makes it pretty much straightforward and doesn't do the usual ship teases. It's right to the point early to mid-season with Red and Rit admitting their feelings to each other. In essence, it's doesn't hold back establishing Red and Rit as a character pair bought together by different circumstances. And personally, this stands out as the best way to create a couple. It doesn't make the viewers wait or ask the 'what if' question. Plus, their personalities are compatible with their kindhearted yet also courgeous nature. On the other hand, we meet also meet Ruti, a prominent hero and sister of Red. Being perhaps of the most emotional prone character in the how, as well as having a tragic past, she represents the darker side of the story. However, Ruti still holds a strong love towards Red, and her actions speaks louder than words. Ruthless and intimidating, Ruti carries an emotional burden on herself. Red seems to be the only light in her dark tunnel, who is able to suppress her emotional outbursts. The show offers a platonic relationship between the two built on trust. Because let's face it, Ruti never wanted Red to be banished by their hero party, namely Ares Srowa. And speak of the devil. Ares Srowa serves as the antagonistic foil to Red. I can easily say that he is borderline psychotic fueled by jealousy. You ever played an online MMORPG member before and got scammed by one of your own guild leader, then banned forever? That's pretty much how Ares treated Red and banished him from the hero party. It's harsh but also reveals Ares' true dangerous nature: a selfish, greedy sociopath driven by his personal agendas. When we see him meet Red later in the story, it really shows how deeply resentful he is towards him. So yes, the show makes its a priority to make us hate Ares and succeeds. He is easily the least likable character for his actions, personality, and just about every single damn deed he's ever done in the story. Watching Banished from the Hero's Party feels like it knew the type of anime it wanted to shows to us from the beginning. From background stories to the main character relationships, it's about as crystal clear as it gets. On the other hand, I am also somewhat disappointed by some episodes with its story pacing. There are a few episodes mid-season that drops in us in complex society conflicts, that feels needlessly rushed. Other times, you may also be bored by Red and Rit's relationship, especially if you're not a fan of fairy tale-like romances. However, at its core, the anime maintains a stable balance of storytelling and knows what the audience wants. I won't be the first to say it or the last, but it appears the anime feels very JRPG-ish, in terms of its world setting. The towns, adventurous landscapes, magic, swordsmanship, battles, and overall, characters look like something that came out of an JRPG game. Hell, there's an actual game to be released on Steam although that has no ties to this story. Studio Flad and Wolfsbane combined their talents together to draw us into its fictional world. The visual quality overall looks colorful, vibrant of fantasy elements, but also contains darker tones of violence. Character expressions also play a key role in showing us emotions, most noticably for Ruti. However, there are some noticable drop in key animation in some episodes. Overall however, it's an anime that used its visual quality to success. Fantasy adventures are usually a hit or a miss but it can even be more risky when you add in romance or slice of life. However, I can say that after these 13 episodes, Banished from the Hero's Party is without a shadow of a doubt one of the better light novel adaptations of the year.

It's just that, my dude thought it was best to live a quiet life. It was amazing to watch said quiet life. I thought I'd get into this seasonal because it looked good despite it being a "generic isekai" which is somehow synonymous with modern fantasy, but that is a debate for another time. Anyhow, Shin no Nakama is an exceptional anime with the correct amount of everything mixed perfectly enough for it to be taken seriously without any kind of creases being visible enough for it to tumble on itself as quickly as it started up. It's even good enough to come up with somethought-provoking ideas. What may look like a run-of-the-mill story is actually a genuinely developed work featuring a detailed plot, enough so that there is a substantial amount of info and lore to at the very least keep you immersed. It's true, that relative to other fantasy anime out there, this one fails to bring out some kind of unique content (although, more on that soon), however with the story managing to make use of literally everything you'd expect in a grand story, this just comes across as surface-level masterpiece, or in other words, it is there on the ground waiting to take off as other supposed masterpieces out there in the medium. What makes it a little faulty was the start-up mix between the slow life side and the fantasy side of things having awkward match-ups with easy transitions that'd kill the former side with boring content of the latter. Boring is a little harsh though, it is more, ironically enough, slow. This all changes around episode 7 onwards, however, where the quality drastically improves as every set-up piece serves its purpose well enough to enhance characters and the setting. That for me, not only improved the watching experience but also brought around some nice philosophy I wouldn't have really expected to see here. Truth be told, such ideas come later in the series so I have no intention of spoiling them in this review, but the questions that arise here are interesting to even reflect on in reality as you watch it. It's a good idea. What honestly made me want to watch this was how this was a romance (who doesn't like wholesome love??). I have to say, in a series as Shin no Nakama, the romantic chemistry is indeed amazing, literally chef d'oeuvre relationship between Red and Rit, I haven't seen something this natural in a long while, and it isn't the kind of romance to shoujo its way to a *confession* in the final episode. It is like, already happening. Happening well. It's a healthy relationship between two individuals who actually understand each other and indeed do love each other. It's one of the selling points in the series and if I had to suggest this for fans of the genre, this is a real go-to if anything. I wouldn't even advise being cynical about the relationship, I really mean it when these two characters love each other, it is a truly wholesome bliss that doesn't find its way into the medium without something drama or the likes taking place. A very natural bond that can only be equally as loved as the couple are with each other. The production values kinda annoy me here. It isn't bad, it's baseline, but this really tried to push itself to the point where a few awkward moments would show up. Of course, this is a minor complaint, but it kinda ruins some intense scenes so it isn't something that I can honestly praise in a down-to-earth fashion. But honestly, this looks pretty good for a fantasy anime and ignoring the imperfections, most scenes here are something that even impresses its own standards. Otherwise, I wouldn't expect the world here, that's also true for most of the OST. I do bang on about how sometimes memorable stuff makes the moments and what have you better, because it is true, and whilst I would like to say that something simple doesn't necessarily need a true punch in the memory of you to like something, I've seen actual good simple anime manage to pull off some amazing OST regardless. Kinda a shame the same is true for this anime but hey, it is what it is. So, would I recommend this? 100%, stuff here is truly amazing, and nothing like the other fantasy anime that I've seen before. It's a dark horse in my eyes, in this dry season with literally 3 good shows and that is it. I am happy that this fantasy anime, overshadowed by the garbage history of Japanese light novel copypasta, is actually something very decent and worthy of immense praise. It's a blessing this has come to be, being very serious here, and I wish to see more as such in the future.

This is the most boring anime I have ever watched. It has no real plot and half the time makes no sense at all. It has all the worst tripes with some new lows thrown in like villains diatribing, pointlessly endless self justications and explanations, and for good measure, the good guys are doing more damage to each other than the villains 99% of the time. Every one almost dies at least once but then magically gets healed to new as if it never happened. The story extols the virtue of abdicating responsibility. From the heroes brother who leaves the party to live the boringlife (emphasis on boring), to the hero herself who forsakes humanity to selfishly just be a normal girl. There are no repercussions at all. Can they really live in lala land forever like the inevitable war won't ever destroy everything they hold dear? We have no idea since the story comfortably ignores that elephant in the room. Or does it really not matter, in which case, what was the point of being a hero in the first place?! I've watched hundreds of animes but never one this bad. Mind numbingly bad in every possible way.

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