Not Recommended
The author of Shinka no Mi has another work that got translated into an anime? HOW THE EFF DID THIS WORK GET A GREEN LIGHT? WHY?! What the freak... If you don't know what's going on, let me bring you up to speed on the situation. In Fall 2021, there once existed a show called Shinka no Mi: Shiranai Uchi ni Kachigumi Jinsei a.k.a The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew It, My Life Had It Made, produced by a new studio (at the time)...and it sucked ass. Just over a year later, the sequel came out last season, and it too sucked ass — DOUBLEthe whammy because it was a worse sequel than its predecessor (which makes it a noteworthy Isekai trash champion at best). In that review, I already foreshadowed the month ahead before its eventual release: "If next season's Isekai de Cheat Skill wo Te ni Shita Ore wa, Genjitsu Sekai wo mo Musou Suru: Level Up wa Jinsei wo Kaeta a.k.a I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivalled in The Real World, Too, written by the same author, comes out and is just as bad as this show, you'll know why. Because birds of a feather flock together, and honestly, I can see bad vibes coming." And true to my worst fears indeed, Iseleve (thank God for this short form name) is just Shinka no Mi replicated all over again, but amped up to the EXTREME. It looks like the trollish joker nature is back to harm us once again...amirite or am I right!?
If you think that novelist Miku would have a good idea of how he/she wants to frame a work that's different from the lines of Shinka no Mi, you'd be hard, deadbeat wrong, because the MC Yuuya Tenjou has the exact same stature as Hiiragi Seiichi: once the ugly, revolting, dirty, smelly fatass that's bullied by his classmates, it's the Isekai nature that turns each MC into an able-bodied young man, that affects everyone to gaze upon the splendours of this hot, handsome and sexy man; the people on the other side all want to be friends with him, and for the ladies, it's the same goddamn overused harem magnet trope once again, but to a hilariously bad pill of fighting over him and wanting to be his partner...which above it all, his straightforward innocence will be love-shot to everyone thumping to their heartbeats and praising the hell out of him. I just don't understand why THIS is made the priority as opposed to the world-building and everything else, which has an interesting premise, to be VERY honest.
Specifically, the ladies of:
- Kaori Houjou, the daughter of the chairman of the prestigious Ousei Academy, is also a student council member. She plays the damsel-in-distress character being attacked by thugs with Yuuya's princely save, only for her to accept him into the "nobility" school and garner her interest in him.
- Kaede Kazama, a member of Ousei Academy's track-and-field team, with her distractingly bigger-than-usual, busty, and generous-sized boobs, makes her a buxom girl.
- Miu Mido, a popular model that Yuuya got roped into her photoshoot somehow. And with his handsome Ikemen stature, she aims to recruit him hard in the hopes that he'll stand alongside her as her exclusive co-model...which will also bring him closer to her.
- Lexia von Arselia, the half-elf, is the first princess of her Kingdom of Arselia. Like Kaori in the real world, Lexia is literally yet another damsel-in-distress character that got saved by Yuuya, only to fall in love and try her best to win his affection.
- Luna, the aptly named "Headhunter" in a guild of professional assassins, apart from her vicious nature as a result of being born into poverty to fight for her survival, was hired to take down Lexia. Once Yuuya enters the picture, Luna is swiftly taken care of by the both of them, only to be forgiven if she repents of her ways of evil and turns into good, which leads to her being Lexia's exclusive bodyguard.
But if there is one thing that I can praise about Iseleve, it's that the idea of interchanging between worlds is a pretty novel concept, though I know that some shows and films have done this before to varying degrees of success and failure. Iseleve is no different in this regard, as it allows Yuuya to interchange between the real and fantasy worlds with this small, abandoned house that was once owned by his grandfather, that serves as his portal or gateway. Yuuya also acquires familiars in the form of the black Fenrir puppy Night and the young Moju boar Akatsuki, which can be cute and adorable at times, and assist Yuuya well when trouble comes seeking face-to-face in the onslaught. But on the bigger side of things, being able to inflict magic in the real world is also a concept that is not new, but what Iseleve does in its execution is decent at best to put Yuuya at the forefront to the amusement of the people around him. However, if there is a line that I must draw, it's that good-looking people need not be this fancy, and what Miku did to Yuuya, he's admired to the point of being a literate Jesus of sorts, like how it's painted in the Bible through 1 Corinthians 13: "Love is patient and kind, no envy or pride, be the first to come last for another. Never forced; slow to anger; trust without keeping score. Long to suffer with truth, (and) Love will never die." It's harsh, but funny and comical at the same time.
Even with studio Millepensee and its studio-exclusive director of Shin Itagaki, what's up with the art and animation, almost like they're being amped up to 11? Yuuya's character, for one, feels over-designed just for the females to point out his defining features, from the spiky hair to the overzealous 6-pack body that is a literate chick magnet. And this isn't just exclusive to Yuuya alone, as EACH AND EVERY character is given the same treatment from character designer-cum-chief animation director Hiromi Kimura, whose last work was on Summer 2019's Cop Craft under the same studio. Honestly, the visuals and animation are not bad, but there is just so much crass detail that I had to squint and look elsewhere.
Yikes, the music is generally bad. This is Japanese rock band Tsukuyomi's debut song for Iseleve's OP, but to me, it's just pure noise and screeching to my ears, and I can even consider it to be one of the worst OPs I've ever heard. And Shikao Suga's ED, I understand that his song is meant to be heard from a creative standpoint, but like the OP, it's just noise to my ears for a really bad time.
So, the status report for novelist Miku's 2nd (and hopefully last) rondo: negatives all around, with the only positive being Millepensee's animation (which went ham-and-fizzle at times). I really want to admire Iseleve, there is an intent in it being just as bad as Shinka no Mi, but this is easily the best that Shin Itagaki's staff team can muster out of an author that is generally regarded as a lunatic in his or her own right for some of the worst and laziest Isekai works ever made.
Heck, I'd sum up this show for you: If Shinka no Mi was torture, Iseleve is excruciation, like watching Jesus be nailed to the Cross in the basking hot sun, roasted to death. Just plain garbage.
