Posted by Prologue
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“Potatoes in Oden”
ED Sequence
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ED: 「Prosit!」by Clammbon
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“Juicy Kara-Age”
For those wondering, Crunchyroll plan on releasing two 15 minute episodes once every fortnight, resulting in this weird release schedule.
With one of my most anticipated shows finally airing, what do I make of these first two episodes? Some interesting ideas were bounced around, particularly the live segments at the end of each episode. Those weren’t too bad, and offered some unique insights. But unfortunately, I took massive issue with the presentation style. I get that Sunrise were trying to replicate Japanese Variety TV. However, the tacky signs cluttered the screen, and this issue was compounded by an additional layer of translated subs.
Yeah, the premise is great. I love oden, I love beer, I love kaarage. Not to mention, isekai + food will never fail to entertain me. However, that’s 100% thanks to the impeccable source material. In my opinion, Sunrise deserve little credit for bringing this series to life. And as far as I can tell, it seems like Isekai Izakaya is merely some non-committal one night stand, before the studio returns to the next instalment of Love Live or Gundam.
Even though Isekai Izakaya’s source material preceded Isekai Shokudou, I’d be hard pressed to blame you for thinking that this was a cheap ripoff. A semi-blind person could see that they funnelled a minimal amount of resources into producing poor Isekai Izakaya. Sure, the food looked amazing. But the visual quality for everything else was potato, more so than the actual potatoes that featured in the oden. I didn’t think that Boruto’s new OP panning over the ground for 10 seconds could be beaten, if we’re talking about rubbish animating from this season. But Sunrise might be contending Pierrot at this point. It’s unacceptably lazy, when you have two repeated frames over 20 seconds, where the section chief ate nothing but pickles on loop. Worse still, they kept on recycling frames and they actually reused a couple between both episodes, specifically with Shinobu and the beer.
As a short, some viewers might find that it’s worth their time. But as someone who really looked forwards to this series, due to my love for the source material, I don’t think I can get over such extreme disappointment. Just my luck. Make that my umpteenth show of the season which had its adaptation crapped on via sheer incompetence.
That said, if the premise interested you, and you weren’t put off by the style, I encourage you to continue watching this series. There’s a hidden gem beneath the pile of dirt. However, I highly recommend checking out the manga or light novel. I can guarantee that both are miles better than this sight for sore eyes, and you’ll find a really comfy story about an Izakaya, serving customers in a reimagined medieval universe.
Omake
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Preview
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For those wondering, Toriaezunama (translated as whatsontap) beer has a dual meaning in the original Japanese script.
Normally, toriaezu nama (とりあえず生) is a Japanese phrase translating as “For now, we’ll have beer.” (Toriaezu = For now, Nama= draft beer)
Commonly used in an izakaya for ordering beer. https://learnjapanesepod.com/top-10-izakaya-japanese-phrases/
The medieval people mistakenly think “toriaezu nama” is the beer’s name, and call it トリアエズナマ (toriaezunama) in the source WN/LN.
Note the katakana’s used to refer to what the customers think is the foreign beer’s name.
I wonder if Nobu’s anime format is because it’s less popular than Shokudou.
Compared to Shokudou, Nobu’s webnovel rankings are much lower.
http://yomou.syosetu.com/rank/list/type/total_total/
Shokudou is currently #13, despite the last update being over 3 weeks ago after a 9 month absence.
Nobu is #97 by comparison, despite the more constant updates.
Assuming their webnovel fandom also translates to LN fandom (not accounting for extra readers), maybe the production committee decided not to commit as much resources to something they determined as less popular according to reader numbers.
PS. Maybe the readers were more enamoured by Shokudou’s concept of various fantastic races meeting delicious food, compared to Nobu’s more lowkey approach of using normal medieval humans.
I can honestly say that is the case for me.
I mean dwarves dranking beer to the face with a thousand year old dragon telepath taking orderes?!! Come on!! Thats a WIN WIN if i ever heard one.
BEER IS LOVE!
Interview with Nobu’s anime director:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnlofAzrncw
Because the interview appears to be sponsored by the Live Japan Perfect Guide Tokyo travel service, there are guesses the anime was (re)purposed into a short advert to be tied in with a Japan tourism campaign (likely for budget purposes). Especially given the looming Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
God damn it, this piece of information might just about explain everything. Thanks for sharing as always zztop, and it’s such a shame that Isekai Izakaya got reduced to preliminary advertising for the 2020 Olympics :///
How great is the food in this show? SO great, none of the initial 6 thumbnails in the main page show any characters!
What main characters? I’m only seeing cardboard tourism prop ups 😛