“A Journey Through Another World: Raising Kids While Adventuring”, don’t You just love short titles? Is what happens when a mature topic is turned into a meaningless comedy. I’m gonna be honest. This anime is about 3 in the writing department. I gave it a 4 only because I actually enjoyed watching this trainwreck of logic and nonsense. It uses cheap tricks to make You think You actually give a damn about the characters but somehow it actually worked on me this time. At least up until episode 6. After that the show turns into a repetitive slog. Shame because I actually like the premise. Unfortunatelythis sort of premise requires a writer with skill that far surpasses the author of this show, to make it feel organic and have an actual message. It's not a bad anime, I’ve seen much worse, it’s just meaningless.
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”.
When it comes to the story… there basically isn’t one. You could say that it’s a story about a reincarnate that takes care of two unique children he found in the forest but… that’s not exactly it. They are with him, they accompany him everywhere and he does try to teach them basic skills like math but not much, if anything, really changes due to that. This show is extremely light in the story department. There are 2, 3 if we’re being generous, story beats that actually happen. The rest is just plot.
I’ll start with the world because it’s something that bothered me a lot. As with most isekais from the last, at least, 15 years we have a world that works on game logic. We have levels, dungeons, dungeon drops, adventurer guilds, bosses and all that crappy stuff You saw a million times already in far better shows. When it comes to the world itself there isn’t anything original or brave. It's as safe as safe can be and that makes it forgettable. I don’t think You could distinguish this world from most other isekai / fantasy worlds from the last decade. That itself wouldn't be much of a problem if the story, plot and character were able to do the heavy lifting, but unfortunately… they don’t.
Takumi, our MC, is the embodiment of a Gary Stu trope, I wound’t be surprised if he was supposed to be a self insert for the author. He can do no wrong, has a solution for everything, the very gods of the world bend over backwards for him. There isn’t a thing in the entire show that had a negative consequence for him, be it short term or long term. Everything just goes his way. He even gets solutions for people's plights far in advance without even trying. It’s like watching a fresh Dungeon Master trying to create an interesting NPC without understanding what makes one. He is so overpowered that he’s probably considered a WMD in this world by those who know of his powers. He gets gifts from 3 out of 5 gods and doesn’t really have to try to make use of them. Be it a new skill, new magic or a new contracted beast. Everything for Mr Kakumi.
When it comes to personality… he has none. It’s just the same old, worn out mix of tropes: nice, helpful, tries to avoid conflict ets. If You gave me his description I wouldn't be able to tell him apart from all the other badly written MCs of isekais.
He is supposed to be a guardian to two very young kids. Yes, those kids are power houses by themselves but that doesn’t mean he should just allow them to dive into combat mindlessly, which he does almost every time. There are very few moments when he acts like a proper parental figure and even then it’s only in very trivial matters. I guess he does teach kids to read and do basic math, and those are moments when I actually liked him and the scenes themselves. Unfortunately that's just one scene in the whole show.
When it comes to the kids - Allen and Elena, things are better but not by much. The kids we see at the end of the show are not the same as the kids we see in the beginning. Their metamorphosis is visible, gradual… and unfortunately totally unearned. I really like the fact that they open up, get more bold and even start to express their individuality on 2 occasions but that’s not enough. We don’t really see them trying to overcome things. One moment they are hiding behind Takumi because they're scared, and the next they act like nothing happened. They don’t have real struggles. Same as Takumi, the world bends over backwards for them to the point that the first time they try out water magic they become competent at it in just a few seconds.
Takumi being overpowered and having two overpowered kids under his wings would make sense if he was an actual, well written mentor figure. There is a lot to say about raising kids that in time could become WNDs in their own way. Not to mention that a truly powerful mentor as an MC isn’t something that we see often and can have a ton of plot and stories all by itself. Why not show how Takumi tries and fails in the beginning to teach them that the fact they can do something, doesn’t mean that they should? Let them not understand when he means and through an experience make them understand. Show me how he struggles himself with his image as a parental figure, his doubts about his way of raising them and maybe even show how he is unable to control them in the beginning. Show me something that would make me care about any of those 3. If You think You can write it well enough, make an arc when the kids learn control by hurting Takumi to the point where he’s out of the picture for most of the episode. Make it their fault so we see that they are truly kids with powers that they can’t control just yet. That would be much more impactful and meaningful than just making them stronger, more powerful and competent by the episode. Not to mention earned. I can even accept the fact that all 3 are overpowered but in that case let them have challenges that can’t be solved with fighting or magic. For fucks sake “Superman - Peace on Earth” gave the most overpowered character of all time something he couldn’t do. A challenge he could never overcome. They made him taste one of the most bitter defeats in his comic book history and make it a catalyst for learning. They made Superman, damn Superman unable to help people, to do what he always does. Why not make something similar here? Take those 3 overpowered characters and shove them into a citation they can’t possibly beat using might or magic. It doesn’t need to be anything grande like in “Peace on Earth”, something small and personal would be good, like the kids finding out what kind of asshole their father is and having them break because of it. It’s not very original but it would do the trick.
I get that this is supposed to be a feel good story but it went about it in the worst way possible. A story like this needs contrast in its plot. You can’t just show only good parts in life because it suffocates the story itself. Without contrast the story becomes stale and boring and that’s what happened in this show. The first 5 episodes are pretty nice. Nothing groundbreaking but it works as an intro to something bigger. But the rest of the show is almost exactly the same. Nothing bad ever happens. This is supposed to be a story about raising kids. No matter how much one might try, life isn’t all burritos and strippers, there are bad things in life. Teaching that to kids (ok, maybe not that young but it could still work because of their circumstances) is one of the responsibilities of a parental figure. Those kids had already had a shitty moment in their lives before meeting Takumi giving them some more struggles of different kinds would still fit. But no. All we get for the entire 12 episodes are just good things with no consequences at all when finally something less than pleasant happens. It really annoyed me.
Ok, I know I’m giving shit to the writing and I’m not going to apologize for that. The writing is abysmal, lacks focus and any kind of message. That said, I actually enjoyed watching this trainwreck. I know about every little trick they used to make me think that I care about the story and plot and yet, the first part of the show hooked me. Despite the writing, the execution of those little tricks, like using crying children, comforting parental figure or exaggerated reactions to little things, is actually solid. Yes, they are cheap but there's a reason why they work.
Do I think this anime is a travesty of story telling?
Yes.
Do I think the writers are incompetent?
Yes.
Do I think I wasted my time watching this?
Surprisingly - No. For the first 5 episodes I really had some fun and the later episodes do have at least one thing that was entertaining enough for me to continue watching (apart from me having OCD and Asperger that is).
I wouldn’t recommend this but I also understand why someone who just wants to turn off their brain would find it enjoying.
