Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! (2019)

Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! is a 12 episode anime based upon the light novels. This is an isekai anime, and there isn’t really too much of a twist here. At least the protagonist this time around is a girl, who died doing something heroic, and since she stood out in her past life due to her abnormally high intellect, requests god to be reborn into a very average person. It mostly succeeds… but she’s still a magical prodigy.

Going by the alias Mile, she attends a hunter school, which upon graduation she will be able to join the hunters. Mile looks unassuming, just your typical noble dainty lady, but both her physical and magical prowess are exceptional. Upon her first day in the city she foils a children kidnapping plot. Joining the school, she is clearly the best student. Of course, being an otaku in her previous life, she’s a bit socially awkward but is determined to change that, and joining the school, she manages to meet and get along with three others.

Despite the first two episodes setting up Mile arriving and attending the school, it has never been the focus. After a quite scene setup where Mile trains the others given she is just so clearly out of their league, there is a time skip to the graduation. Perhaps, it’s just an easier way to explain and justify the overpoweredness of the four member party now. It also avoids all the early awkwardness as instantly they are like lifelong friends. It can be a bit of lazy way to go about it though.

The rest of the season kind of like a slice of life, but just the girls going about their early days as hunters, and enjoying life in general. They are clearly overpowered, so they have the potential to just take on any quest and succeed, get rich, and live out their lives. However, they’re all young and inexperienced, and so must go through the regular rites of passage. There are many episodes where it fleshes out their backstories, diving deeper into their family, however, the plot is very episodic, as everything basically will be resolved within one episode.

Mile still retains a lot of her knowledge from Japan, and she often uses the science from this previous world to help now. It has potential for her to become even more overpowered and utilize her magician clever ways, but it’s only lightly touched up and more often than not, it is used for laughs. This is because Mile is a huge otaku, and she gets excited over typical anime things, and even goes so far as to general and reference those anime herself.

To be fair, there’s no overarching objective to the anime, so there isn’t any urgency in anything the characters do. There’s also little incentive for any sort of multi-episode spanning plot arc, thus, it can be too laid back and chilled, leading it to being bland at times. That said, the season finale had some interesting tidbits about this world, which sheds a little bit of light into why magic is created by nanomachines. It’s also at this point that the anime gives up any pretense that Mile is not the most powerful character in the whole world.

Overall, Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! is an average anime. It had an interesting idea, reincarnating a character that doesn’t want the overpowered abilities. However, it ended up being more of the same from what you’d expect of the isekai genre. Mile is slightly different in that she prefers to have a fun normal life, but can’t help but still be dragged into all sorts of situations.

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Wonder Egg Priority (2021)

Wonder Egg Priority is a 13 episode original anime. It follows Ai Ohto who has become a recluse, staying at home rather than going to school. The reason? Her best friend committed suicide. We’re quickly shown bits and pieces of what happened, with Ai being heavily affected. Ai feels guilty given that she was too apathetic to the things that were happening to her best friend, which ultimately led to that fatal decision.

The fantasy side then comes into play when Ai meets two characters, who give her an egg and promise that it will grant her wish. When Ai breaks it, she is sent to a dream world where while it’s a dream for her, it’s not a dream for the other people in it. The girls that are in that dream are being hunted down by “Seeno Evils”, which looks like these little evils with a crazy smile holding a knife.

Ultimately, Ai learns that she needs to protect these girls from danger, and the more girls that she successfully saves, the closest she is to bringing her best friend back. She soon meets other girls that are like her that get these eggs and tries to protect others in the dream world. Each character has a different tragic reason behind why they’re doing it. The anime begins in a more episodic manner, as Ai tries to save a different girl in each episode.

Given the episodic nature of the anime, each episode in the first half can be somewhat predictable. In the beginning, she’ll meet a new character to befriend with, then in a later episode, we will see what trauma they each carry within them. We see the reasons for their fighting. It tackles some heavier themes, and it is nothing to make light of, but at the same time, it doesn’t quite work out in certain moments, where it’s trying to be serious but then glosses over other elements.

The plot starts to go somewhere towards the end of the season. All the set up and backstories have finally finished, and it can move on. The biggest mystery of course is about the wonder egg and what its purpose is. Most viewers would suspect something bad, and the anime will deal with that plot thread. Although the pacing in general is quite slow, and it’s not as if it suddenly goes faster as a result.

The anime had production issues, and there are some signs of that, such as the recap episode in the middle of the season, and then half of the final “special” episode also being a recap. However, towards the end of the season, the plot really takes off as we finally get some more insight into the eggs. It’s still grounded in such a way that there is some psychological horror, and there’s a distinct creepiness to the atmosphere as well. The chill and dread that you’d feel as the events unfold was executed nicely.

Unfortunately, that execution and pacing couldn’t be sustained to the end. The ending felt rushed in ways, it closed off most of the plot points, but not particularly well. There are some great concepts there, but it is shown poorly. It seems after the long journey of watching the whole season, none of the character arcs come to a satisfying conclusion. It was messy, confusing and contradictory to earlier themes.

Overall, Wonder Egg Priority has moments where it shines and is full of potential. It collapses under all that expectation though, and we’re left with an inconsistent story that is at times confusing and messy. Even right until the very end, the plot didn’t feel like it could wrap up in time, and it ended up being a rushed job. Wonder Egg Priority is an average anime that gets worse as the season progresses.

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Captain Tsubasa - Season 2 (2024)

The second season of Captain Tsubasa adapts the Junior Youth Arc into 39 episodes. It takes place soon after the last season, where the next goal for Tsubasa, as well as for all the other players, is going international. It’s explained that there is an International Journal Youth Competition taking place in Europe, and a selection of characters we already know, has been selected to become the national team representing Japan. It’s a good way to select more unique characters from the first season and put them into one team, so that it can keep them in focus.

The season starts off weird in that Tsubasa is recovering from injury. The national team was picked after a short training camp, and Tsubasa, being clearly the one with the most skills, you would naturally think has a guaranteed slot. Instead, there is some friction between various players of the team in including him, which is a bit of a filler as we know Tsubasa will be in there anyway. It’s an odd choice and something that feels against his character, since Tsubasa already knows the other players well and is well regarded.

Anyway, while they may be handpicked from the best that Japan has to offer at their age group, the team gets a reality check when playing some friendly matches against the European teams. Simply put, they are thrashed given their opponents are on a whole other level. This serves to further idolize and glorify Tsubasa, so the point that he’s a one-man team and that the Japanese team cannot win without him. While that may be true, it’s a bit rich and overdoes it.

The anime naturally exaggerates the sport of soccer, sometimes to its detriment. While its target audience is one of younger ages, the constant naming of shots (basically the soccer equivalent and naming your attacks) is cringey and cheesy. You fully expect at least five to ten “nani?!” (“what?!”) being shouted by the characters each episode, but it still gets you at how often that happens. Characters are surprised or impressed too easily, and while it is supposed to showcase how impressive some of their opponents are, again, it is a bit rich and overdone.

The first season didn’t have amazing animation, but it was passable and did enough to keep the momentum going. This second season significantly drops the animation quality. For a sport with frequent fluid motions and movement, there is limited animation. It tries to compensate by adding commentary and streaking lines, but it cannot hide the fact that viewers are being told something has happened, rather than showing that it happened. It makes for some boring scenes.

The first part of the season sets up matches and it takes almost one third of the season before we finally have the tournament starting. Whie this provides crucial background information and gives us a better understanding of the characters; you can’t help but be a bit impatient. Given that you’re here to watch the matches and see Tsubasa overcomes the odds and outplay all his opponents, this wait can be excruciating.

Once the tournament starts, the fun begins. Understandably, the anime focuses a lot on Tsubasa to the detriment of the rest of the team. Sometimes, despite the lessons learned by Tsubasa, he can still make mistakes. The scenes where the crowds cheer for Tsubasa, or when he is unashamedly praised as being the “savior of Japanese soccer” can be cheesy and cringeworthy.

Similarly to the first season, most of the opposite teams have one or two really good players that makes them a tough opponent. This contrasts with the Tsubasa’s team where there are several other characters that are focused on and are shown to be formidable. The main one being Hyuga, but Misaki and Wakabayashi make frequent appearances too. This causes all of Tsubasa’s opponents to seem like one trick ponies. You can’t blame the anime too much on this given that there is not enough time to make you care about all 11 players of the opposing team in every match.

Given that this is an anime, and there needs to be excitement, there are a lot of contrived situations. These can include one where the other team may hold a three-point lead but Tsubasa and team Japan will be able to find a way to overcome it and win. Or when the match is down to penalty kicks and the two teams are tied down to their last kicks. Characters also manage to randomly show up when they are most needed to take control of the ball and shoot. To be fair, this is a wholesome series and one that shows the right message of sportsmanship, grit, determination and belief. When the characters work together as a team and then score a goal, it is a great feeling.

The earlier games in the season are faster, whereas the semi-finals and finals take longer, spanning multiple episodes to the point where it can drag out. The surprise is not Japan winning, but more so how they win and how they grow as a team. After the finals, the final few episodes focus on Tsubasa and his future, as he moves onto the next goal of becoming a professional player.

Overall, the second season of Captain Tsubasa may not be the most realistic, but it provides plenty of thrills and excitement. It’s a wholesome series, even though there are way too many contrived situations, and the skill difference between Tsubasa and everyone else can be too big a gap to be believable. The development during each match is interesting enough to even overcome the drop in animation quality.

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Solo Leveling: Arise from the Shadow (2025)

Solo Leveling: Arise from the Shadow is the second season based upon the South Korean web novel and is 13 episodes long. Takes place in a world where some of the population awaken latent abilities (magical, physical etc) and they are ranked as Hunters from S class to E class. The reason being that gates open with monsters inside. These Hunters need to enter the gates and clear the dungeon inside, otherwise the monsters would get out and destroy the world.

The anime follows Sung, who was a Hunter of the weakest class. However, in the previous season, after a near death experience, he can “level up”, the only one to do so, and rapidly gains strength. By the end of the first season, he was already overpowered, and, in this season, he continues to be overpowered. Early on, the anime teases about the secret behind his powers, as well as the gates and monsters. You have some suspicions based on the clues provided.

The anime makes it appear that leveling up is easy for Sung, given that we’re shown that he gains multiple levels every time he defeats some enemies and a boss. It severely cheapens the result, and makes it feel that he doesn’t deserve the power. The first season had this issue, where Sung can just take on anything that are much more powerful than him with little issues (yes, he’s shown to be “struggling”, but that’s all for a minute or two). While the issue still exists this season, it manages it a bit better.

In fact, the season starts off strong. Sung joins a raid and shows off his new powers. It tries to paint him as the underdog, where higher ranks look down upon him given he’s still officially an E rank Hunter. Sung proves them wrong and it paints a bleak picture where most of the Hunters are horrible terrible people. One thing though is that the anime shouldn’t have used a ranking system, as it’s just pointless when the protagonist doesn’t fit into any of those ranks and can easily mow down anything and everything.

The anime also tries to play it cool, to the point where it feels like it’s trying too hard. Compare Sung from before to now, and you can see that he has completely changed from the scrawny kid into the super cool guy that’s powerful, handsome, and popular. It’s a dramatic change whereby he’s a completely different person that is unrecognizable from before. He then just… stays there without developing much more as a character. Despite what the plot tries to show, there are no stakes and no effort. We know that Sung will easily overcome all those that go against him.

The second half of the season becomes more predictable with its plot developments though. When Sung sets out to complete what he started, and clears a massive dungeon, the anime skips through most of it until the final dungeon boss. Even the final dungeon boss isn’t important enough to have more than a third of the episode, so it feels incredibly rushed and underwhelming. All the powers that Sung rapidly gained feels like you were told he got them, rather than seeing him earn them.

Given Sung’s basically cheating with his powers, there are no stakes or tension anymore. Everyone else is rendered useless and is easily overpowered by the enemies that appear. Only Sung can save the day and while every protagonist has plot armor, it’s just too obvious here that there is no challenge anymore (and to make matters worse, he continues to severely outclass others when he gains even more convenient powers each time). His personality is now too cool and stoic (perfect for a self-insert protagonist) but this makes him too bland and generic.

The anime consistently pulls scenarios from other anime but doesn’t do much with it. It feels cliched and generic, and the plot can feel like a mishmash of ideas that doesn’t coherently gel together. Despite its attempts, there is no overarching goal or objective, apart from Sung encountering more enemies so that he can get stronger. That lack of objective is what makes the fights, no matter how flashy they are, somewhat pointless and lack any sort of stake.

Overall, Solo Leveling: Arise from the Shadow is an improvement over the first season in many ways. However, it doubles down on all its flaws as well. Sung lacks personality, and every other character is a “hi and bye” moment because as soon as that story arc is over, they are regulated into the background. Sung far outclasses everyone else so much that it’s boring, because before the fight even starts, you’d know Sung will save the day and win without any issues. While a power fantasy can be fun and enjoyable, Solo Leveling trends more towards the generic side.

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Chronicles of the Going Home Club (2013)

Chronicles of the Going Home Club is a 12 episode anime based upon the manga series. It’s a slice of life, following Natsuki who has just entered high school and needs to join a club. She originally intends to join the “going home club”, which basically means not joining a club and go straight off. To her shock, there is an actual Going Home Club, and she is kind of peer pressured into joining along with Karin, another freshman.

The Going Home Club eagerly accepts them and upon meeting the original trio of the club, you’ll get an idea of the tone of the anime. The president is Sakura, an ordinary person for all means. She’s joined by Claire, someone of rich background, to the point of being unrealistic in her views of the world giving just how much money her family has. And finally, Botan, a girl of extraordinary strength.

The common thing that unites all the characters? Their sheer craziness. The goal of the club is just to have fun, doing whatever they like, as they live out their youth, given that they’ll only experience this once. The difference is, the things they do is completely random. They are fully serious about the most stupid of things, and there is a lot of slapstick humor, as well as breaking the fourth wall. The result is an anime that’s loud, full-on, and full of sheer madness, in a good way.

There’s no complex plot or even a plot. Yes, we learn about the background of the characters, but only just enough to pin a stereotype to each of them. Their personalities get along well with each other, and every episode (and every segment within that episode) is full of randomness. You cannot guess what they are going to do next, and they can make even the most mundane of topics into something that can be discussed for five minutes, while keeping it entertaining.

You’ll soon realize that the driving force of the group is Sakura. She is the one that comes up with all the random ideas and activities, and the one that has exaggerated reactions while taking things seriously. The others are along for the ride. Although it’s not a home run every time, there are times where the activities are just that bit too mundane, so even with all the bantering, it doesn’t quite become engaging enough.

There are many smaller segments in each episode, and they each have a different gag. These gags vary in quality. Sometimes they are great, sometimes they’re a bit underwhelming. They are consistent in that Sakura is usually the weird one, and Natsuki is the sane one yelling at whatever craziness is currently going on. It does reuse gags often, adding onto it, but can still be tiring.

Overall, Chronicles of the Going Home Club is an easygoing slice of life gag anime. It’s not over the top hilarious, although it has over the top reactions. There are some gems within its writing, while other times there is a lot of boredom or what they’re attempting to achieve doesn’t quite work. The characters frequently break the fourth wall which is one of its charms.

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Deca-Dence (2020)

Deca-Dence is an original anime, with the season being 12 episodes long. We get a quick background of Natsume, who lives in a mobile fortress called Deca-Dence. There are monsters known as Gadoll that prowl the landscape, and the fortress has dedicated teams that fight the Gadoll, as well as harvest their meat for sustenance. There’s a hierarchy, and Natsume wants to become part of the team that heads outside to fight the Gadoll.

The true nature of Deca-Dence is quickly revealed, although maybe not with as much clarity as it could have given. There’s a dual purpose to Deca-Dence and it gives it a weird dynamic between the population within Deca-Dence, and the population outside of it, which also seems to have a significant influence. Although at the end of the day, the anime is still about Natsume, and her experience in first learning to fight, and then actually becoming part of the team to head outside.

The unique thing about Natsume is that she lost her left arm early as a kid, and in its place is a mechanical one. However, that is more of a liability for her. She meets Kaburagi, who is an amazing fighter, but Kaburagi harbors a big secret about himself. He’s part of the other civilization in the background of Deca-Dence. To be honest, this connection between the two populations is somewhat weird and not sure how it works out since at the end of it, it is all one big illusion.

Once the concept and premise of the world becomes clear, and how it works, it soon loses its uniqueness. It’s not that unique at all. Yes, maybe the roles are reversed but the events of the anime has stock standard development. Kaburagi is the true protagonist, and he gets a change of heart in the way he views the world, and who he wants to help. He builds a connection with Natsume and in wanting to protect her, he basically wants to destroy the Gadoll, and with them, the current world order.

Even though the events become more predictable and generic, a development and decision by Kaburagi in the second half of the season increases the pacing. It helps to overcome the staleness of the plot, and while it isn’t anything new or revolutionary, it helps kick things into gear and there is more meaningful action as the characters have proper objectives. It also lightly touches on the more philosophical aspects of its plot, albeit nowhere near its full potential.

Unfortunately, the anime falls flat in its finale. Yes, there is a big enemy that the characters have to fight. Yes, everyone that they’ve met joins together in a display of camaraderie to fight against the threat. And yes, there is a big battle where the good guys win and there is a wonderful ending. However, it does this in the most predictable of ways.

Overall, Deca-Dence is a very average anime. It has a slightly unique premise, where it is the reversal of the normal scenario in isekai anime. It then promptly reverts to a predictable formula with a story that falls flat. The characters are bland, the concept doesn’t quite gel together, and there is a lack of ingenuity and excitement.

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