Review Episode 6:
There are pretty much two ways an audience can take this show: either it is an uninspired and derivative rehashing of every other light novel isekai story that has ever come before it mashed into one trope laden season OR it is an intentionally derivative story that lets the audience smile even as it packs in every possible cliché and trope it can find into episodes that are full of energy and humour.
Basically, I’m in the second camp which is weird because normally this kind of show would either bore me to tears as they pull out the full on harem (no longer even hinted at really) around the oblivious and protagonist and in desperate need of an exciting end to an episode that otherwise involved setting up house, playing games in a carriage and shopping, the suddenly pull out a dragon attack on a village. If it didn’t bore me, I’d find one (or all) of the cast sufficiently annoying that I’d let it go anyway.
And while I’m not going to argue that In Another World With My Smartphone is actually original, because it isn’t, I kind of think the writers here have actually managed to not just shovel masses of tropes toward the audience and expected them to swallow, but they’ve actually kind of considered what makes those tropes fun. While that might not hit the mark for everyone, I have enjoyed Touya (bland and overly nice protagonist that he is), and each of the girls in his harem are quite pleasant in their own way. The individual adventures have been fun and more jokes have hit the mark for me than missed. Plus, we are definitely getting more integration between smartphone and magic now, so the title is becoming less a cheap gimmick and more an actual part of the plot.
Hopefully they don’t lose their sense of fun in the second half of the season.
Review Episode 7:
A bunch of stuff happens this episode and yet you could also argue very little happens. It seems like some of this may become important later, particularly Touya meeting the sassy fairy girl and creating his own gun from a dragon fang as that seems like it should have some far reaching implications. But other bits feel mostly pointless. Entertaining, but pointless.
Like his fight with the king where about the only thing of note is that using Slip is still hilarious (I’m never going to get over finding that funny) and that Touya really can just use whatever spell he likes once someone explains how it works. Otherwise, this match was entirely without narrative purpose and really took up too much of the episode for the few jokes it delivered.
The fairy girl on the other hand looks like she could be a fun character and hopefully she won’t become just another harem hanger on.
Episode 7 was fun but unlike previous episodes I can’t really say this was the slime episode or the dungeon episode or the whatever episode. Very little focus.
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Karandi James.
