English Dub Review: The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me? “The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me?”

https://youtu.be/-qLnPnTpnGA

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Ichimiya Shingo was just a lowly salaryman when one day he fell asleep and found himself as a five year old boy. As one does. Not only that, he’s the eighth son of a noble family that has long since lost its luster. He now takes on the name of Wendelin (or Vell for short) and finds himself third in line for the estate, though not if his second oldest brother has anything to say about it. Thankfully he learns that he has a great aptitude for magic, which attracts the attention of a great sorcerer who says that Well will be even greater than him!

OUR TAKE

Three words to describe this first episode (and possibly this whole series): Lazy, lazy, lazy. I’ve covered a few Isekai (trapped in another world) shows before and seen far more, so I’ve learned to pick up on certain tropes and clichés that tend to pop up throughout them. This show seems to barely bother with even fitting the bare minimum. Typically when setting up how are usually whitebread protagonist enters this new fantastical world, we tend to see what their life was at the start, what about it is lacking, and how they’re sent to this strange new place that has more of what they could not find before (usually because someone in that world summoned them there as a hero). Except we don’t even get that for Ichimiya/Vell, who just nods off before dinner and BAM he’s a five year old. We only got one scene of him being tired from work, but I don’t know if the solution to that is becoming a fifth of your age.

And he seems to totally forget about his old life once he’s aware he’ll have food to eat, which was hardly a problem in his old life. No worries about the people he might have left to worry about where he went, or what happened to his old body, or even if maybe he just possessed some little kid whose soul could be dead, in someone else’s body, or even back in HIS body! It almost seems like that set up was only for giving exposition and becoming technically qualified as an Isekai. He does start with max level magic and looks like he’ll be getting a harem soon, so that checks off some tropes on the list. But those aren’t exclusive to Isekai stories, so that just makes the opening part more puzzling. Also not sure where the being the eighth son is going to factor in, especially since he looks to be making his own way as a magic user and the estate isn’t worth much.

This show doesn’t look like it’s going to be a very thrilling watch, but it also looks to be one of the few shows that’s managed to complete production in this anime season before everything got shut down for the time being. So for now, it’s one of the few solid things we have to enjoy. I don’t exactly expect much in the way of enjoyment, but maybe we can at least take some lessons on what NOT to do in a story like this. Or heck, it might even surprise us and be an amazing masterpiece. But not likely.