OP Sequence

OP: 「ギャンブル」 (Gyambaru) by syudou

「勇者…失格」 (Yuusha… Shikkaku)
“Failed… Hero”

Summer isekai may be headed by the might which is Tensura (and potentially Hamefura X if being generous), but there’s always more to a season than meets the eye and Tsukimichi is here to helpfully reinforce the point. It’s bog standard, it’s derivative, and – oh yes – far too indulgent in self-reflecting campy humour, but if you think this one will prove boring best think things over again.

As delved into in the RC Preview, Tsukimichi is pretty much an alternate flavoured Tensura. A lot of the same concepts and themes permeate this series, everything from the wickedly overpowered MC in Makoto (Hanae Natsuki) to the simplistic and very open-ended premise of surviving and finding a role in isekai life to the little things like fantasy race design and certain contractual obligations. Indeed Tsukimichi could be considered a loose copycat of Tensura, except for the fact its source material actually predates Tensura’s by nearly a year. There’s plenty of similarities shared between these series to make them worthy comparisons to each other – and plenty more which Tsukimichi uses to differentiate itself.

Case in point of this is the isekai origins here. Instead of featuring oft-misunderstood Truck-kun or his merry companions Train and Overworking (or Murder when Overworking is feeling frisky), Tsukimichi just goes full self-actualization and has Makoto be the son of isekai transplants. That’s right, reverse-isekai is now officially a thing. Kind of surprising such an idea hasn’t popped up in isekai anime before, but it does give a nice foundation to conveniently explain Makoto’s sudden transfer to fantasy central, especially when accounting for his ludicrous abilities supplied in part by the god Tsukuyomi (Maeno Tomoaki).

Where things get fun, however, is in the details. Besides the sly hilarity of initially flipping the hero script with Makoto banished to the end of the world because the world’s ruling goddess (Ueda Reina) hates his looks, we also have the entertainment which comes from the kid himself leaning fully into the comedy routine. Want to make the stereotypical go places? Just accept the material and embrace the chaos. Fully. While most of this is undeniably down to Hanae Natsuki doing what he does best, a good deal also comes down to the likes of puppy dog dragon Shen (Sakura Ayane) and orc Emma (Hayami Saori) giving some tasty foils for Makoto to bounce his actions off of. Both girls already showed the potential of such after all, and once things get going you can bet such scenes will be just the tip of the iceberg.

While Tsukimichi will certainly need a few episodes to get a decent grasp of, given the material at hand and the developments likely to come down the pipeline (just imagine who the Goddess recruited for new heroes in place of Makoto) I think this one will prove to be anything but boring.

 

ED Sequence

ED: 「ビューティフル・ドリーマー」 (Biyuuteifuru Doriimaa) by Ezoshika Gourmet Club

Preview

7 Comments

  1. Aye, Dragons turn into Cute Girls and join the Harem. “Ohm.. We are just another Isekai Anime and no need to hide it or come with an explanation!”.. But the Hero there to “save this World Goddess?” Well. That’s new

    But not how to take on Girls from Dungeons (extra not right spelled for the impact) is right the next corner, too

    So, how serious will they go with this own Mash of many Isekai’s boring coping stuff?

    Worldwidedepp
  2. This series felt kinda disjointed to me. It was weird. On the one hand, it wanted to openly mock Isekai and the tropes involved, while on the other hand, it was pretty much guilty of every single one of them. As a result, it ended up feeling uneven, like they were trying to have their cake and eat it too. I mean, you either be the straight up power fantasy, maybe with some humor mixed in, or you can be the contradictory, isekai tropes are nonsense, parody, but doing both is very difficult.
    I still enjoyed it somewhat, but I’ll have to see where it goes to see if gets its direction more under control going forward.

    hjerry
  3. While both Tensura and Tsuki both have OP MCs and are about finding roles for themselves in an isekai, I would not say they are copies of one another. Tensura places more focus on OP characters having OP fights, as one might imagine from the existence of the Demon Lords.

    If there’s a spectrum of isekai from hot-blooded shonen to atypical, it might go like:

    Tensura > Death March > Tsuki > Genjitsuka

    My biggest concern about Tsuki is that it has a LOT of ground to cover, and I’m afraid that in the grand tradition of anime, a lot of the wonderful little side-stories and details will be cut out.

    Blue
    1. Yupp they’re technically not and I even mention that in the post. I brought it up more as a comparison as both series do feature similar material and started publishing quite close to each other.

      As for story yeah a lot probably will be cut. This adaptation is only going to have 12 episodes so unless it’s split cour I expect some rushing and chopping. We’ll just have to see how the next couple of episodes perform.

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