English Dub Season Review: I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World, Season One

Based on the Japanese light novel series, written by Miku and illustrated by Rein Kuwashima. The story follows the adventures of Yūya Tenjo. An overweight, short, and meek middle school kid who is bullied at school and tormented by his family, except for his grandfather who was the only person who cared for him.

When his grandfather dies and leaves Yūya as the sole heir of his house. His parents expel him from home, forcing him to live alone. After discovering a hidden passage in his grandfather’s house, Yūya encounters a portal to a medieval fantasy world, where he obtains the power to change his life forever…

On the technical side, the series was produced by TMS Entertainment and animated by Millepensee, with Shingo Tanabe directing, Shin Itagaki (Director of the 2016 Berserk Series and the 2007 Devil May Cry Anime) serving as chief director and supervising the scripts, Hiromi Kimura adapting Rein Kuwashima’s character designs for animation and serving as chief animation director, and Akiyuki Tateyama composing the music. The opening theme song is “Turnabout Drama” by Tsukuyomi, while the ending theme song is “Honey” by Shikao Suga.

The isekai power fantasy story is nothing new but the glorifying of the protagonist being an attractive hyper-capable badass is too overwhelmingly ridiculous with how seriously the show tried to take it. The entire story and premise mostly rely on the main character’s incredible ability to happen to be in the right place at the right time. He does nothing of his own volition other than react, heroically of course, to the situation unfolding in front of him, while attempting to tell two stories at once, but it’s a mixed bag at best.

As previously stated in my Mid-Season Review, a lot of its themes and story structure shares the same problems as Lookism in trying to have its cake and eat it too by satirizing the hypocrisy of superficial beauty standards, while flaunting that physical beauty and ideal appearances are the only things that matter in interpersonal relationships. I say this because Yūya starts out being just a short pudgy ugly person. But much like the aforementioned Lookism and even the author’s previous work Fruit of Evolution, he’s thrust into a situation out of pure happenstance that overnight, he’s physically transformed into a handsome, tall superhero-like being even if it was something he didn’t ask for. He then proceeds to lead a happy life with a new circle of friends and supporting characters with very little in the way of weaknesses, limitations, or stipulations.

To me, the biggest mystery is in regards to the hidden passage that leads to this other world within his Grandfather’s house that Yūya Inherited. Did his grandfather just stumble into this other world and make the hidden passage before he died? Or was it always part of the house? None of this is properly explained. And much of the supporting cast remains one-dimensional, bland, and almost easy to forget except for a few that almost go into borderline “Harem” territory. With either the dude’s being jealous and dumbfounded by his extraordinary abilities, or most if not all the girls fawning over him with the exception of a small few that he interacts with the most such as his classmate Kaori, Princess Lexia, and the one who got my attention the most, Luna. A Purple-haired female assassin with the ability to manipulate razor-wire like she’s Walter from the Hellsing Anime/Manga franchise. Outside of that, the English Dub is for the most part passable with Lee George voicing Yūya even if his performance sounds recycled from something else I covered a while back.

What also impresses me the most about Yūya is that despite everything he gains along with his particularly undesirable abusive upbringing, and unwanted bullying that had been done to him in the past, he never once loses sight of who he is as a person or his sense of integrity. He has such an idealistic boy-scout attitude. He doesn’t have ambitions or personal desires, He doesn’t care about fame, power, or even money. He is just… himself. He has numerous opportunities to become malicious, arrogant, greedy, lustful, and power-hungry from the benefits of his newfound gifts or be a brutal and vengeful bastard towards his past tormentors, but doesn’t ever consider doing so and always stays true to his principles, no matter what happens, and it’s one of the few compelling and inspirational aspects of his character.

As the show further progresses, he starts to at times think less of himself and perceive his newfound skills as “cheating” despite earning them through hunting/killing monsters in self-defense in the other world he’s able to easily travel between and starts to do ridiculously impossible feats such as being hand-picked as a Magazine Model, gaining magical pet allies, jumping off a 4-story building unscathed complete with a Superhero landing, Single-handedly taking on a Biker Gang of delinquents, Wrestling with a Grizzly Bear and winning, saving his friends from a fire in a shopping mall by using water magic, and even learning Kung Fu from a talking Rabbit (I did not make a word of this up…). And the power scaling system despite using JRPG-like Mechanics doesn’t have any structure and the scenes where actual reading is involved may require turning on subtitles for at least 70% of the show since casual audiences can’t read Japanese Text whenever Yūya is reading his stats.

The art style is beautifully drawn, visually both worlds are distinctively different and the characters are stunning to look at. When they show up on the screen, that is, because the compelling art style and beautiful characters are marred by a severe lack of animation and mostly static poses, Occasionally there’s some 3D rendering for the protagonist in the relatively sparse action scenes, by Shin Itagaki but they’re nowhere as bad as the 2016 Berserk series in combination with studio Millepensee who also animated the Anime adaptation of So I’m a Spider, So What? which shows the level of effort of them learning past mistakes as it doesn’t distract or overshadow the focus of the action scenes.

Overall, this series will go down in history as the most immaculate depiction of Gary Stu-ness that has ever graced the land of the rising sun, but nowhere as ridiculous as In Another World with my Smartphone. Don’t go expecting some insane character development or deep storytelling and enjoy it for what it is, a fun power fantasy trashy isekai. The villains don’t become much of a threat outside of two in particular in the last few episodes, and there is no clear goal or sense of urgency until much later in the episode when Yūya meets the talking Rabbit and the way the Season Finale ends, I wouldn’t have known it was a finale until the epilogue during the credits. If Season 2 ever becomes a thing, I’d be willing to see what direction it’ll take…