Since dipping my toes into the niche world of light novels, How A Realist has become a favorite book series of mine. I have purchased and read every single volume that has been so far translated via their American distributor J-Novel Club. I have even re-read several of the volumes, a rare feat for me when it comes to regular books. For those who may be wondering, my favorite volume is #6 (second season just for animated Naden, please!).
Due to my excitement pre- and post-viewing of the first episode, I wanted to record my thoughts on it.
BEWARE: BOOK SPOILERS/LATER EPISODE SPECULATION BELOW!
Don't let the above image fool you. I really enjoyed the first episode. I had a big stupid grin on my face watching it, thrilled at seeing all of my favorite characters being given life.
However, if I wasn't a big fan and had no experience with the books and manga, would I still enjoy this episode? Honestly, I would have probably thought this series looks fun and be a bit interested to see where it goes. But I would've more than likely waited to binge it properly or at least enforce the "three episode rule" before being committed to watching it weekly.
Given the sheer pace of the first episode, plus what has been revealed in the promotional videos, it is quite clear to fans that this season will just be an adaptation of the first two volumes. Thank god!
Though the opener is not a standout in the slightest, I did think the song by Inori Minase (who also voices Liscia) to be pretty good. Plus, the cameo of Little Musashibo could mean that the side adventuring party will make an appearance in the series.
There clearly needed to be some creative decisions when adapting the book to television but this first episode featured quite a few major changes.
So far, the show's tone appears to be more comedic and sarcastic than it is in the book. This was probably implemented mainly in order to help the show get through its introductory growing pains. Additionally, punching up the writing does help distract the viewer from the show's less than glorious animation style.
The king's mediocre abilities as a ruler is now more closer to near incompetence. It also appears that the makers decided to now leave him in the dark from the series' big twist.
I really liked how they changed Kazuya Souma's attitude to being summoned. The book basically had him shrug his shoulders and go "oh well" at the forced teleportation. Here, he gets pissed once he hears the details and reason for his summoning. His initial contempt, coupled with his blunt strategy to be the new king just for the short term, will surely be messed with in the coming episodes, making him more likable to viewers and eventually circling back to the talk about "family" brought up in the show's prologue.
Biggest shock of the first episode: the very early reveals of Roroa (and Sebastian) and the Euphoria sisters. The later pair makes a bit sense since the first episode discusses the Gran Chaos Empire and their "request" for tribute. But having Roroa just pop in at the start, coupled with the new material of what happened to the "Group B" treasures, threw me off.
Biggest disappointment: giving up the ghost of Juna being a secret spy for Excel. The makers didn't even try to have her hidden in shadow or anything. They just placed her right in the middle of a bright room and did a useless tilt up of her front appearance before cutting away from her face.
Changing the reveal of the king and queen post-abdication happily eating cake to ear cleaning kinda stunk. Still got a laugh out of me.
I knocked it a little but overall the animation is fine. Not the best of all time but serviceable enough to be pleasing. The 3D camera movements were quite interesting to say the least though they were pretty distracting.
The voice cast is pretty much the best thing of the series so far, at least according to other viewers and critics. Yusuke Kobayashi did a great job as Souma. From the small amount of Inori Minase as Liscia we got at the end of the episode, I thought she did quite well playing up the tomboyish side of the character.
I looked at other people's opinions and it seems so far most people have it around the middle, usually as a 3.0-3.5 out of 5. Most appear to have the opinion that I had above if I was a non-fan. Then you had the others that made me roll my eyes and/or shake my head: the isekai detractors who have nothing better to do than sneer at a show they didn't watch, the easy pleasers who saw the Yu-Gi-Oh joke and clapped at the reference they got, and the easily enragers who couldn't get past the idea that an 18-year-old teen was smarter than the royal court of a medium nation.
Also, I had quite a laugh at all of the dummies who have immediately written the show off because they believe it will just be stuck in the castle and involve nothing but office work. The comments about the queen being useless beyond smiling made me chuckle as well.
Though a good chunk of the initial reviews/comments are laughable, many fans and non-fans brought up some good criticism, such as the bombardment of world info, the intro of too many characters and how the episode lacked a big bang moment. I may laugh at those Yu-Gi-Oh people but I can't do the same for those who felt it was dull.
I'll of course be spending every Saturday for the next 12 weeks watching this show but this will probably be my first and last piece on it until I do my wrap-up of watched anime next year. I don't really have the intense urge to do reviews of each and every episode unless the show pulls a Promised Neverland Season 2 and somehow complete botch it. But more than likely, the show is in nice hands and will play out fine.
