Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles (2021)

[精霊幻想記]

Season 1

Director: Osamu Yamasaki
Studio: TMS Entertainment
Starring: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Akane Fujita, Yuki Kuwahara
Episodes: 12

Synopsis:
After being killed in a traffic accident, a college student's consciousness merges with that of an orphan boy on another world, unlocking incredible powers.

Impressions:
Oh, yay, another isekai. With its generic title (which, honestly, I'll take over the obnoxiously long LN titles that seem to be all the rage these days), I wasn't expecting much, but the character designs looked fairly appealing, so I thought I'd give it a shot. This series uses the concept of transferring the consciousness of the main character to an existing body in the other world, similar to Ascendance of a Bookworm, but unlike that series, instead of taking over the host body, Haruto's consciousness is largely made subordinate to Rio's, nearly to the point of making you wonder why they even bothered making this an isekai. (There are plot-relevant aspects to it, but you wouldn't lose much by ditching the isekai concept and just playing this as a straight fantasy.) Also, unlike Ascendance of a Bookworm, because Rio is fantasy Japanese, there's not the same cultural dissonance that was an interesting aspect of that series.

There's not much depth to characterization here, especially for antagonists. The depiction of class conflict is incredibly two-dimensional, but my bigger issue is that Rio is yet another bland overpowered isekai protagonist. Particularly when he dons the black overcoat, I pegged him as budget Kirito and it was only then that I realized he was being performed by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka doing his bland MC voice. With a sword and with the spiritual arts, he has no real match, nothing to compel him to struggle and grow. I remember being particularly disappointed when he travels to his parents' native land of Yagumo and is challenged by one of the greatest warriors in the land, with the premise that he'll be taken under that warrior's wing to train and hone his skills, but, no, he wins easily and goes on his way, with the trip only serving to bolster his Stuness. He only faces something resembling a challenge in the final episode, but I imagine that was only because he was pulling his punches.

I hear from fans of the source material that this is a poor adaptation, but I doubt the LN does much to alleviate my fundamental complaints. If you've never seen an isekai story before, you may not mind so much, but I've seen too many at this point and about the only way you can make an OP protagonist work for me at this point is as a parody. This is generic isekai trash with a few redeeming qualities but not enough to make it worth a watch for anyone who's seen anything in this subgenre before. Pass on it.

Rating:
Avoid It