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dlamp-dictator · 2 years ago

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Venting About Strongest Exorcist

Alright, before I go back into my little corner of watching Ippon Again and Reincarnated as a Sword’s dub I need to talk about this one. The Reincarnation of the Strongest Exorcist in Another World (these goddamn titles), or Strongest Exorcist as I’m going to call it from now on, is certainly a show. A show I don’t really like and I had a hard time figuring out how to put it into words until now. In a somewhat similar vein to my Tomodachi Game essay this is a show that just hasn’t left my mind and after watching 7 episodes of it I just can’t anymore. I knew I was walking into a C-tier show, but not even the decent-ish action can make me shrug this series off.

I... I need to bitch about this for a bit. I need to vent and have my voice be seen, at least for this show. So folks, bear with me for a moment as I let out some of my frustration on this show. Because to be frank it’s either I bitch about bad anime or I bitch about politics, and I think I know which is easier to stomach.

But first, a synopsis.

Haruyoshi Kuga was known as the strongest Onmyoji mage in his world, so powerful were his abilities that his very existence led to many both within his mage order and political circles holding grudges against him. This quickly culminated toward a betrayal and assassination attempt, both successful. With this prodigal mage’s life about to come to an end he released one last spell, one that would let him reincarnate to a new world where he swore he’d use that second chance to survive, to take all his power and knowledge he obtained and use his cunning to live peacefully rather than starring in the spotlight for his second life.

And so Haruyoshi was he was reborn as the bastard child of the famed Lamprogue mages with the new name of Seika. He learned that while his new body didn’t hold any of the magical ability of the new world he lived in it was very adaptable to his Onmyoji abilities and possessed spiritual potential. Thus, he lived his new life with the goal of not meeting a similar end as his former.

If I had to give the short version of my issues with Strongest Exorcist it’d be the following:

Seika makes no effort to hide his powers despite the premise.

The setting not understanding or wanting to understand Eastern/Onmyoji magic feels wrong given the focus on magic.

Seika is not an interesting character outside of his powers.

But... we’ve got some things to get through before I break some of that down.

The Good

For all my issues with this anime there’s a few good ideas in it that I want to talk about. I’ll be doing this in list form since... frankly, there’s not a lot to mention. The long and short of it is that there’s a lot of good elements and background details, but they’re barely utilized within the series so far.

The premise is actually interesting. The idea of Eastern magic clashing with Western ones hasn’t been used much in an isekai series before, at least not in this way. I think the closest to it was Spirit Chronicles and... well, both these shows have the same amount of interesting background elements, I’ll say that much.

I like the idea of someone that is strong having to be perceived as weak for the sake of blending in. It’s been done a few times to varying effects and creates a lot of good chances for them to sneakily use their powers in clever ways while making the scenes where said strong character go all out feel cathartic after having to hide in the shadows for so long. The moments where Seika gets serious and uses the full extent of his Omnyoji powers is entertaining at the very least.

I like a lot of the side characters, and there’s no asterisks to that phrase either, they’re all legitimately fun to watch. Efa is a good girl and something of a magical medium between Seika’s Omnyoji and the world’s sorcery. Amu is a fun tomboy character was a decent amount of backstory to keep her interesting, and Mabel is a very interesting character given her background as a child soldier and general quiet nature giving some more quiet retrospective to an otherwise rowdy cast.

There are parts in this show that are good, but the execution is, frankly, very poor and boring. Case in point...

Seika & the Premise

Like I said in the synopsis Seika originally transferred to a new world with the goal of being cunning, hiding his abilities, and focusing on his future survival first and foremost by living as a simple and normal person. Given his new body has no magical abilities and his spiritual Omnyoji powers can be used in very subtle ways you’d expect him to use his magic carefully, quietly, and with controlled experiments. At first he does, using disguised shhikigami as an information network, summoning only the ayakashi that can maintain a believable disguise and act human when needed or be hidden with barriers, making sure to not rock the boat of his family’s social structure unless someone in his inner circle was under dangerous threats. He even goes out of his way to use Efa as something of a test subject to figure out how his Omnyoji magic works compared to the world’s sorcery.

And then he just stops playing the quiet game for what feels like no reason by the end of episode 1.

No, you didn’t read that wrong. Since the very first episode he actually was scheming a way to get a large monster to rampage through both his family’s town and the manor his family lived in so he could flashily take it down in front of the entire manor’s staff, gaining the attention of both his father and likely the wider town via rumors and information spreading. He did this for the sole purpose of being sent to the magic academy where everyone in the kingdom can see how strong and powerful he is.

Almost immediately after Seika’s declaration of wanting a quiet life living where he survives on his cunning he goes back on it and throws it right out the window. If the manga or light novel explain this as him making some cunning move to avoid attention then I’d love to hear, but he’s gone against this idea several times after this point.

During his magic test he used the most powerful of his skills to even outdo the top student who was the prophesied hero of yore according to the worldbuilding. He blatantly shows off to those of pull and reach within society such as the hero and child soldier with connections to the kingdom’s underbelly. He nearly even tries to revive the dead just because he wanted until his ayakashi reminded him of the damn premise and he canceled that idea.

You’d be forgiven for thinking this man was trying to repeat his mistakes of the past. This does get mentioned in episode 7, but it’s too late by then, at least for me. At that point, when his Ayakashi reminded him that saving people so flashily will bring the jealousy of those weaker than him and he’ll have people betray him again if he shows off too much Seika has already done too much flashy acts for me to believe he really cares. Even if a lot of those moments have some asterisks that keep him from being found out that feels like more of a contrivance of the the author and less him playing things cautiously.

Speaking of contrivance...

The Setting

In a world of magic, and especially a world of magic where Seika is in a family of high-ranking mages, the fact that no one either realizes Seika is using a different magic system or is at the very least curious about his methods feels like another contrivance. In no way would a magic school see Seika casting fireballs, summoning barriers, and creating stone pillars on the same caliber as the heroes of yore not at least examine his methods and ask him some questions about it. Despite having a body that has been hard confirmed to have no magical potential he can still use what looks like magic that not only matches, but overpowers the world’s current level of it. There’s a lot I can let roll off of my suspension of disbelief, but when your premise revolves around the main character being cunning and he’s failing at it, it should be called out. The fact that it hasn’t is annoying and makes it clear the author refuses to acknowledge that fact. It feels like the world bends to Seika for the sake of letting him getting away with things he really shouldn’t and it’s grating.

Speaking of Seika...

Seika as a Character

If anyone has read my essay on Hundred, namely my feelings on the main character being the least interesting person in the show, my opinion in regards to feels similar. While I hesitate to say you could outright remove Seika from the story and get a better one I will say that every other character is more interesting than him at the moment and doesn’t go against the premise of their character. Efa is the medium between Omnyoji and Sorcery, her very existence proves people of the world Seika isekai’d himself to has the potential to learn a completely different magic system. Amu is the prophesied Hero that is isolated due to her strength and love of fighting being since as bloodthristy and heartless. Mabel is a child soldier meant to be the hero’s shadow double and possible sacrifice if things go south with the prophesy. And while Seika should be interesting as someone that has to hide the fact they’re the most powerful being in the kingdom for ultimately selfish reasons of wanting a peaceful life it never feels that way.

Again, Seika -despite his goals- never hides his abilities in a way that really matters. If not for everyone in his circle lacking even the smallest bit of critical thinking he’d be in a very bad position, likely seen as a test subject for a new type of magic or be interrogated by the less savory forces of the kingdom to force information out of him about his abilities.

And there are so many other shows that did this premise better.

I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level’s Azusa lived in the outskirts of the countryside for 300 years as an immortal witch and herbalist that cured illnesses and saved her village from the occasional plague once a century, only realizing her high power level after she decides to double check her level at the local guild and the secret getting out against her will. Until she 1v1′d a goddamn dragon and won she just thought her high level was matter of her long lifespan.

As mediocre as it was, Black Summoner’s Kelvin goes out of his way to gain skills and abilities that hide his maxed out stats, only to have someone suss him out before he gained those skills and only agreed to keep quiet about it and let him live in peace provided he do the occasional odd job for the town’s guild, even rewarding him if he does a good job in being their protector/contracted mercenary.

Even Your Eminence in Shadow, as much as I hate that series, has Cid pretending to be a normal guy as the entire running gag of the series . And those are just the anime off the top of my head, there’s plenty more with this idea of the strongest person faking their abilities to hide from political/social troubles and Seika just doesn’t do it well compared to all of those. Episode 7 just had me throw my hands up and realize this anime doesn’t want to do anything interesting with its premise and I could find more interesting shows elsewhere. This anime has fun moments, but moments don’t make a whole show.

Allen’s Fanfic

At this point I would usually try to say something good about this show, to at least give it a little credit for existing as a symbol of a writer’s effort, but I already did that in the first section and I can’t bother to talk about this show in a positive light without drinking something frothy and fizzy. I just don’t like this show and the few bits I do like aren’t anywhere near enough for me to give an outside false hope of a something decent.

So... I’m going to do a little writing experiment to banish this show from my mind.

I don’t like the idea of rewriting or “fixing” a series for a myriad of reasons, but this anime has been in my head far too long for me to not think up some alternatives to how the plot and premise could go down. So... I’m going to finish my venting with a short little outline on how I could see things go.

I want to stress I’m doing this mostly to wash my hands of this series. I’m no author and I’ll at least respect the fact that Kiichi Kosuzu wrote a series with at least 5 volumes and is making enough money off those volumes to get an anime deal out of it while I only have smutty action fanfics on Ao3. This is just get some closure, nothing more.

With that said... I’m just going to tackle my top 3 issues in how to tweak the show enough so they aren’t issues anymore.

In the first episode Seika hides his powers properly. He still uses talisman shikigami to gain information, he still uses Efa as a medium/test subject for magic, but the key difference is that he makes little effort to show off his powers despite the ridicule he gets for his lacking sorcery, only showing off his abilities once when his older brother taunts him and he lets off only low-powered Omnyoji when prompted to try magic to hide his abilities. Seika’s father realizes while he can’t do sorcery he can use some type of magic that’s unfamiliar (this happens in the actual show so not much changes). However, due to not fully understanding it he has Seika study privately rather than teach him personally. The salamander attack in episode 1 is not a product of Seika’s manipulation, but an honest incident that forces him to reveal his true strength in front of everyone to protect the manor. This shows that while Seika is cautious, he’ll let his morals and desire to help/save others cast his cunning nature aside, something that was said in episode 7 but held no weight given how flashy he usually is about his powers.

With the evidence of Seika’s full potential revealed his father pushes to send him to the magic academy, much to Seika’s chagrin but he accepts knowing he ultimately has no choice lest he has deal with shadier means of forcing information out of him, the duel between him and his older brother still follows for the same reasons and Seika decides to stop dicking around for a moment to finally shut him up. He still takes Efa with him as his test subject and social shield for his abilities, but also due to knowing that Efa on her own will make her prey to his older brother and her going with him is for her protection.

During his magical test Seika sees how power Amu is beforehand and assumes she’s the base of power, using too much power and accidentally being seen as on par with the hero. However, Efa’s equally powerful performance gets some of the heat off him and he’s just seen as an above average student of this year’s class. He still defeats the demon spies in the background and uses them as a way to test out how to hold back better.

His interactions with Amu play out the same way, with him not holding back around her because she can keep a secret and the two bond over their strength being seen as a threat. She offers to keep Seika’s strength a secret so long as she can spar with him in private and go on adventures with him.

The tournament plays out somewhat similar, though Seika joining more so to protect Efa from a possible plot against the students of the magic academy and the likelihood of the tournament turning into a bloodsport. Seika tries to hold back, but realizing the threat Kyle is he has use a bit more power than usual to beat the competition to defeat him personally in order to save Mabel’s life.

A lot of this fanfic is less a complete rewrite and more a slight tweaking of Seika’s motivations and methods to maintain the premise. The goal is keeping Seika’s goal of quiet existence intact by making his push to prominence against his will until he nearly snaps and reins himself back in.

And with that, I can finally close the book on this series and walk away.

Conclusion

Overall I can’t recommend this series. I think too many other shows have done this sort of premise much better and this is probably the least fun show to watch outside of the action, which is barely passable given the competition this season. I’m hoping the actual light novels are better about this, but I doubt it.

Anyway, I’ll try and talk about something I like soon. Until then I’ll see you folks later.

#The Reincarnation of the Strongest Exorcist in Another World #saikyou onmyouji #saikyou onmyouji no isekai tenseiki #your dictator is speaking

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