English Dub Season Review: My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1 Season One

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Satou Ryouta (Patrick Mealey), a salaryman working for an exploitative company, suddenly finds himself inside an unfamiliar dungeon in a strange world where monsters drop all sorts of items as loot. With the help of a girl he happens to run into named Emily (Kelsey Maher), he’s able to check his own stats… and finds that all of them, both physical and magical, are at rank F (the weakest)! What’s more, his level is stuck at 1 (the lowest)! Ryouta is on the verge of utter despair… but then he learns that he also has “Drop Skill: All S,” the most powerful unique skill there is! Can Ryouta manage to survive in this bizarre world?! The strongest and weakest adventure of all is about to begin!

Our Take:

My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1 is an anime adaptation of a light novel series written by Nazuna Miki and illustrated by Subachi. It was produced by Maho Film and directed by Takeyuki Yanase. Yuka Yamada handled the scripts, while Miyako Nishida, Eri Kojima, Kaho Deguchi, and Yuko Oba designed the characters. The music is composed by Endō. The opening theme song is “Chase Me” by Nora from Konya, Ano Machi Kara, and the ending theme is “Tamborine no Naru Oka” performed by Airi Miyakawa.

Throughout the summer season, I watched two isekai shows containing a similar premise: a salaryman who dies a tragic death and reincarnates in another world. One of those shows I’m looking at today is My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1, a series involving a salaryman reborn as a level-one character with an extremely high skill level. The other, which I’ll get to eventually, is The Great Cleric, which has a salaryman training to be a healer and find peace in another world after being shot to death in the real world. Both shows follow the isekai formula that we have usually seen a thousand times since its inception, whether it involves fantasy action or slice-of-life. However, one happens to be slightly more enjoyable than the other despite the derivative narratives, and it sure as heck isn’t this one. 

Regarding its narrative, My Unique Skill offers what you’d expect from an isekai series, ranging from its main character building a harem team to the RPG elements. Additionally, the series has more of a slice-of-life vibe to its tone than the other isekai shows with action-packed scenarios. While it periodically features battles between the characters and the monsters, they’re portrayed light-heartedly instead of having each showdown be filled with dangerous stakes. That’s not to say it’s terrible since most isekai shows with slice-of-life elements worked wonders in impressing its fans wanting a stress-free experience with the genre. Of course, the tone would have to depend on the execution of its concept and enjoyability.  

My Unique Skill is no exception, as it showcased the joy of battling enemies without any sense of urgency. However, that can only take the series so far in its grinding. It’s got a few charming moments in its characters to maintain my interest. Unfortunately, they’re not enough to bypass its limitations to surpass the low-level isekai shows. Regarding its formulaic plot, characters, and direction, the series isn’t exactly what I would call an OP addition to the ever-growing isekai collection.

One of the plot’s issues is its world-building. My Unique Skill introduces us to another fantasy realm filled with RPG elements, like dungeon raiding. However, it puts more emphasis on loot items, in which everything can be dropped by monsters, including food and magic weapons. Surprisingly, that also includes humans, as Ryota appeared as a loot item in the first episode. This element was later revisited in its ninth episode, “We’ve All Been Waiting! It’s Eve’s Turn to Shine”, in which a young boy from the real world appeared as a dropped item after a young Eve killed a monster. The boy eventually returns to his home for some reason, while Ryota remains in the fantasy world. The series didn’t explore this logic much, so I’m assuming that the humans who are alive in the real world can return whenever they want. Since Ryota died in the real world, that would mean his soul is stuck in the RPG realm. Hopefully, it will revisit this element in its potential second season.

The direction of the show’s episodic introduction also gave me problems. At the start of each episode, except the season finale, Ryota narrates the series’s concept: that he is a miserable salaryman reincarnated into another world. He then teased what was about to occur in a specific episode. On the one hand, it gives newcomers an idea of what it’s about if they’re jumping into any point of the season. Unfortunately, it gets incredibly repetitive way too quickly for those watching the entire season. This obnoxious idea proves that it’s best to allow the viewers to understand the concept rather than let it spoon-feed us in almost every episode.  

As mentioned earlier, the characters in My Unique Skill offered plenty of charm that makes it slightly tolerable, mainly due to the voice cast. Sadly, they’re bogged down by their bare-bones personalities despite their hints of background information. Ryota is another reincarnated OP protagonist striving to help and protect others from suffering a fate similar to his. This was showcased in its seventh episode, “This Dungeon Battle Is a Vortex of Schemes”, where Ryota helps an overworking fire mage, Celeste, who’s in charge of burning a sheer amount of trash dropped by monsters. Ryota, decently voiced by Patrick Mealey, signifies himself as supportive, determined, and generous towards others. Kelsey Maher was also decent as Emily Brown, a young, bright adventurer with a massive hammer who fights as well as she can cook.

The supporting characters didn’t help much either, including Eve Callusleader, the Killing Rabbit. Eve is a powerful bunny girl with a deathly fatal blow who’s also incredibly obsessed with carrots. Her obsession led her to join Ryota’s team since his high skill level allowed him to get carrots from monsters. Despite being in a few episodes and Trisha Mellon’s voice work, the bunny girl’s habits became a tad annoying after the first couple of encounters.

Along with its charm, the animation in My Unique Skill is another element that kept me slightly engaged. Maho Film is known for producing other shows like By the Grace of the Gods and I’m Standing on a Million Lives. However, the company is also responsible for I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss, another isekai series that I watched before this series. While I wouldn’t call its style unique, it benefits from its vibrant visuals, mainly for the action scenes and backgrounds. The animation was bogged down a bit by its rough CGI effects for specific creatures, like the skeletons. Besides that, it was tolerable enough to suitably display the series’s isekai world. 

Overall, My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even at Level 1 is anything but unique regarding its formula. It’s got plenty of charm and vibrancy needed to elevate most of the narrative shortcomings. However, they’re barely able to gain much experience to max out the show’s intended quality. It’ll likely impress plenty of isekai fans who are in the mood for something light-hearted and fun. Those wanting the next genre classic may want to look in a different dungeon.