At this point the prospect of another isekai anime is greeted with a mixture of bemusement or a loud collective groan by the anime community at large. Ever since the concept was popularized by the likes of Sword Art Online, nearly every season has seen at least one take on it. Derided by detractors as nothing more than wish fulfillment for otakus, the space for isekai played straight has shrunk to almost nothing. In this it parallels the trajectory of battle harems, another brief staple of the anime scene that has largely faded away. It’s telling that two of the most popular isekai stories inrecent memory, Konosuba and Re:Zero, are a parody and deconstruction, respectively.
So when a series like Isekai Smartphone comes along and seemingly plays the isekai premise completely straight, I wasn’t going to welcome it with open arms. Still, it did have one unique hook, that of the protagonist bringing his smartphone into the fantasy with him. Perhaps, I thought naively, that would at least be interesting enough to hold my attention.
The problems with Isekai Smartphone are myriad. The most glaring issue is its characters, or to be more specific, the lack of any compelling characters for the audience to get attached to. The worse offender of this is the protagonist, Touya. He greets every situation with a nonchalant cheerfulness, from his sudden death at the beginning of the series all the way to discovering an ancient floating sky garden. The only instances in which demonstrates any real emotion is the prospect of seeing his numerous harem members in underwear or any other skimpy clothing. Not helping his case is the appalling ease through which he overcomes challenges. Simply put, he starts off overpowered and ends the show even more overpowered. By the end of the show, he has crafted a working gun in a fantasy world, gained two high level spirits as familiars, has ownership of an ancient floating island and is effectively a de facto member of the royal family. This bleeds into many aspects of the show, reducing every fight scene to a boring wait for the protagonist to solve the problem with a single spell or previously inconceivable strategy. That being said, the sheer overpowered nature of the protagonist somehow manages to be entertaining rather than aggravating. The whole show is so light in tone that it’s impossible to truly get mad at it.
The other characters, mainly comprised of Touya’s harem mates, don’t fair much better, rarely distinguishing themselves beyond their attraction to Touya and the diverse archetypes they represent. It says something about their lack of character that I can’t remember half their names even after twelve episodes with some of them. Wish fulfillment harem fantasies don’t work when the girls feel less like actual people and more like a creator went down a checklist of character templates to add. That by itself is not an inherently bad thing. Princess Principal, from the same season, also starred a group of standard character archetypes yet gave them real depth through backstory and developed relationships between them so that the audience could invest in them throughout the story. No such thing happens in Isekai Smartphone.
Compounding the issues with character is the show’s story, which largely focuses on short vignettes rather than an overall arc. The slice-of-life approach can work if the characters and situations are sufficiency amusing, but save for the slime castle mission, most of them serve as means to give Touya even more abilities or harem antics that get repetitive fast. This is also a series that opts to tease future in lieu of any sort of climatic confrontation at the end of the series. Instead, the final “conflict” is whether Touya will agree to marry all the girls he’s accumulated throughout the series. Despite literally having God on his side and everyone in his harem being ok with polygamy, he refuses, citing his unwillingness to take such an “adult” responsibility. Given that at this point he’s escorted a diplomatic delegation, saved a village from a rampaging dragon, foiled an attempted assassination of the King and ended a war, this comes off as laughable.
I haven’t even mentioned the smartphone itself because very little would change without its inclusion. Sure, it gains increased prominence and usage near the end, but considering it’s prominence in the title this was a seriously missed opportunity to distinguish this show from other run of the mill isekai shows. Later episodes do make better use of the smartphone, mainly in combination with Touya’s magic to resolve every bit of large scale combat off-screen.
Isekai Smartphone, in summary, is an example of a show that does the bare minimum required. It’s worse sin is that it is merely boring without being infuriating. As such, it leaves very little impression in mind, even compared to its contemporaries. If you ever wanted to know why isekai anime are greeted with such trepidation these days, Isekai Smartphone neatly encapsulates every critique of the genre into a singular forgettable package.
Not Recommended
Utterly appalling. Never have I seen a show succeed so well at accomplishing the single goal of wasting my time. If I could give this show a zero, I would. Art: 0/10 Generic. Clinical. Frequently off model. I thought cruel and unusual punishment was illegal. Not a single thing stands out about the "art" in this show. The animation is laughable. None of the characters stand out in any way. Toya's design is as bog-standard as it gets. Backgrounds and locations lack any semblance of effort beyond the bare minimum. For once, I would say the criminally underpaid and overworked animators were fairly compensated for theirwork here. Just to be clear, the animators aren't the problem. This show is the problem.
Sound: 7/10
The voice acting is fine. Nothing crazy, but they do a good job. It would be nice to have some likable characters for the voice actors to attach to, but it's whatever. For what they're working with, they did a good job.
Story: 0/10
The "story" of this show was wonderfully prepared from the isekai cookbook standard recipe. God accidentally kills Touya Mochizuki, and as recompense offers to reincarnate him into a fantasy world. Par for the course. And, yeah I guess he has his smartphone too or something. But anyway, after being given god's blessing on this horrible world, he is reincarnated immediately, he sells his clothes to a merchant for a handsome sum of money and saves two girls (who are totally capable of protecting themselves as we'll see later) from some jerky guys. After discovering that he has an extremely rare affinity for all types of magic, he sets off to start the world's most hideous harem. Nothing unpredictable or exciting ever happens. Ever.
Character: 0/10
All the characters suck. Toya is a Kirito clone but worse. I swear that the twin girls are just copies of Kyou and Ryou from Clannad. There's this black-haired girl whose only notable feature is speaking like a samurai and ending every sentence with "gozaru". There's a loli girl that no one cares about. Actually, there are a couple of them.
Enjoyment: 0/10
Never again.
The only thing I can say is that after watching this show, your enjoyment and appreciation of any other anime will skyrocket. Scouts' honor.
ThThe_Walker
October 6, 2017
Not Recommended
Oh dear, what have we done. I actually recommend people watch this show. Not because it is good, but precisely the opposite. Watching Isekai wa Smartphone is like a crash course for the anime connoisseur in how to quickly spot horrifically bad and blatantly unoriginal writing. Throughout the entire show, red flags pop up everywhere hinting to how the creators are just trying to make a quick buck off a popular genre. -Lazy character design. Every single character in this show is a one dimensional shadow clone of a character from a better show. This is not an exaggeration. Every. Single. One. -The main character hasNO personality. None. Zero. He's always positive about everything and never makes a mistake. His mood never changes. He can legitimately do anything.
-Right from the start, the animation quality is nothing special despite being a fantasy setting. That's how you know you are watching seasonal trash - if you can tell that a shows investors are holding back it's a sign of serious caution.
-The first girls he run into already want the D for absolutely no reason. You could take a random college student fresh out of creative writing and they could probably make better romantic setups than this.
-It takes the main character zero time to solve any problem. Any hint of suspense is gone. All plot devices exist solely to get to the next female character to commence the same jokes you have heard a thousand times.
The fantasy genre almost seems like it shouldn't be able to be screwed up. By placing the setting in another world with different rules, it gives the writer absolute creative freedom in how they wish to build that world. These alternative dimension shows create a blank canvas for which anything is possible. And yet, here we are. It doesn't matter how much freedom you grant to people with no talent. These scrubs somehow managed to vomit up an anime that has both an abysmally nonexistent plot with characters that are all amazingly boring with zero development. Anime that is low tier but still enjoyable tend to screw up either plot or characters, but not them both. Isekai wa Smartphone manages to botch these two critical factors in a way that leaves you in awe at how such an incompetent story even got the funding for an animation in the first place.
In conclusion, this is the kind of show you can have running in the background on a second monitor while doing something else and you won't miss anything because nothing is happening. It serves as a prime example of poor quality creative plagiarism, to the point where this anime almost defines it.
ToTobori_
September 27, 2017
Recommended
Initially I gave this a 2. But having finished the show, I was wrong. This show is deceptively good, it'll have you think it is a terrible show, hence all the bad ratings. However this show is unique in that it goes all out with its premise, which I can appreciate. Now, why it looks bad: - Bad art and animation - Shoddy cliche characters - Bad character designs - etc etcWhy it is actually good:
I want to start this with stating that a show should be scored not in relation to other anime in general; this show is a flat 0 in comparison to the greats such as FMAB etc. Rather a show should be scored based on how well it does what it has intended to do, i.e entertain, inform, send a message etc.
This show's purpose was to go all out in its premise and by doing so make fun of all the other shows like it that are afraid to break the status quo such as Blade Dance or Asterisk War, which just throw together templates and hopes for the best.
- The show juxtaposes bad shows with its good writing around old and 'done-to-death' concepts and characters. e.g. (ep3 spoiler)
- The MC's appreciation for slime monsters when they melt the girl's
clothes when lesser MC's would just blush and say it isn't right and
promptly get punched.
- The MC's attachment to the morals of his old world and need to come to terms with the societal rules in the new world --> This occurs in the last episode
- The Author's balls when writing this s***
Anyway go watch it, if you don't trust me check my list for my tastes and credibility.
