English Dub Review: Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs “I Hate This World”

Overview:

Leon dies and gets reincarnated into the world of an otome game. He then goes on a journey to find an item he bought in the game and try to get into the love academy.

Our Take:

Another anime season, another isekai series. This premiere episode follows the usually isekai formula. The main character somehow dies and gets reincarnated in another world. In this case, it’s in the world of an otome game, which is also not a new concept. However, a couple of interesting spins are put on this premise.

For one thing, it’s customary to see the protagonist reborn in the world of a game they like. In this show, our protagonist Leon, hates the game. He says it’s unbalanced and too wild to even be considered an otome game. From the little bit of the world we get to see in this first episode, he seems to be right about that. The world of the game involves mechs, which isn’t standard otome fare, but we didn’t get to see a lot of that in this episode.

The other interesting aspect is that Leon is a background character in the game, also known as a mob. After seeing several instances of someone being reincarnated as a main character in a game, it’s refreshing to see this perspective. It seems like Leon is going to work his way up the social ladder and become a main character in this new world, which would only make sense. At least we get to see him start at the bottom instead of already being thrown in the mix.

Upon first glance, Leon is enjoyable enough as a protagonist. He doesn’t do anything in this episode to set himself apart from other protagonists in similar shows. That aside, I found his commentary over the game at the beginning of the episode to be very amusing. Based on his actions here, I can safely say that I’ll enjoy his personality moving forward unless there’s some sort of drastic change.

The way this episode sets the show up is nothing new or exciting in the grand scheme of things. We don’t much about the world or its character and what we do know is a bit confusing. However, the little glimpses we get at some different touches at least raise the level of intrigue. It’s a fairly promising start to what could be a nice change of pace from the usual otome isekai.