English Dub Review: I Shall Survive Using Potions! “Perks of Reincarnation, Please!”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kaoru Nagase was an average office worker who one day mysteriously died and was reincarnated in another world, but to make up for her untimely demise, she was given a special overpowered skill: the ability to create any potion she wants! But things are not so easy in a stock fantasy world as her potion making pisses off the local merchants but also makes her some allies and blah, blah, blah, blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

OUR TAKE

Here we are with another Isekai anime on the slate, one of six beginning this season (including sequels) out of the probably a couple dozen that have premiered over the past year and to the shock of no one, it is basically the same stale formula that we’ve seen from every other stock standard Isekai, just with some slight changes. In this case, the protagonist is not killed by a random stabbing, overworking in a slavish job, or even the fated meeting with Truck-kun. No, Kaoru Nagase meets her end in somehow the most horrific sounding but also somehow most harmless death: she is caught in a totally random vortex that sometimes open up between two worlds…but we don’t really see her die or get ripped to atoms or anything. On top of that, not only is she totally understanding and holds no ill will to the angel who explains the situation, but her friends and family brush it off pretty quick too. Almost like the author thought that they needed to slap on an Isekai story to get to the fantasy story they wanted to tell. That said, a story about a potion maker who is skilled enough to make whatever potion they want and the challenges they face because of that sounds leagues more interesting than whatever this is.

I’m gonna try my best not to just devolve into incomprehensible whinging about this, but this really just seems like the start to another very generic and boiler plate story about a rando being taken to another world and stuff just happening to them. I recently had to binge all of The Great Cleric, which had all of the same problems here from beginning to end, and while I doubt this series will play out EXACTLY the same (types of potions already have much more inherent variety than just being a healer), I don’t really expect it to break the mold either. Like seriously, did *I* die somehow recently and end up reincarnating in a world where I have to review the same Isekai over and over just with a different name? And then I die every time because a random interdimensional portal opens up in my exact location, and then I reincarnate AGAIN in a virtually similar reality. Well, I guess I couldn’t keep myself from the whinging, but buckle up, because I will for sure get EVEN WHINIER over the next eleven weeks! Get me a potion for THAT, why don’t ya?!