(L) Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou

[orion]

Originally Posted by zztop

Considering Arifureta's popularity and decent sales, I'm surprised the anime didn't get a 2-cour run like Slime Tensei or Shield Hero.

I'm also surprised the anime producers also didn't do an hour-long 1st episode to cover the story setup and Hajime's eventual fall, just like Re Zero and Shield Hero did.
<snip>

Why? It doesn't take that much time to establish guy got wimpy powers in a new world and is of no use to them according to his peers, gets backstabbed during a quest. *His spot could have been used by someone who was more experienced if all they needed was an Alchemist.* It's expected that in a school environ the weak will get bullied. All of these elements are common anime troupes.

[FlareKnight]

Originally Posted by orion

Why? It doesn't take that much time to establish guy got wimpy powers in a new world and is of no use to them according to his peers, gets backstabbed during a quest. *His spot could have been used by someone who was more experienced if all they needed was an Alchemist.* It's expected that in a school environ the weak will get bullied. All of these elements are common anime troupes.

Because it doesn't work otherwise. You have to establish the elements of a story even if they are familiar. What has happened to other characters in other shows doesn't matter in regards to this character, in this show. They needed to pace it out and build up to the events in this episode. Even if the double length first episode was essentially all the events leading up to this episode in that first half and more or less the same episode we just got.

You still need to cover who Hajime is, his situation in school, the class being summoned, and how things unfolded from that. There's no emotional reactions to get without it. We barely know anyone in his class beyond the most vague of first impressions. Just placing them into established cliches isn't good enough.

They either needed the first episode to be extra length or they needed to not even touch the stuff we saw here in the first episode. If you cut out or speed through familiar elements in every show...you are going to be left with a lot of butchered series. Make the first episode of something like shield hero after dumping all that stuff. Toss him being summoned (that's been done in isekai), speed up the explanations of the world and situation (it's saving the world, how complicated could it be?), toss the training sequences (how many training montages have people seen anyways), within 15 minutes just get to the betrayal and let's see how well that works.

[Huh...?]

Well from what i hear, the mess and lack of an 1 hour special with the first episode is mainly because of financial constraint which occurred because of the cancellation of the first draft of the anime last year (which resulted in the delay).

[RDNexus]

Friday already and no episode preview so far.
I just hope they don't keep people in the dark between episodes

[frodonk]

Huh, I thought there was only 3 isekai shows this season, guess I was wrong.

The first episode was alright, guy ate some monsters like rimuru, but this time he's human and his revenge fantasies kept him alive.

I can see why people are saying this episode should've been an hour long, but that's the advantage of not knowing the source material, I don't know what has been skipped and if it was essential to the plot, so it's good enough for me, at least for now

[Itlandm]

Since random-kun went from ordinary to world's strongest in episode 1, does that mean I can skip the rest of the episodes? Like, are they all backstory to episode 1?

[Look43]

Originally Posted by Itlandm

Since random-kun went from ordinary to world's strongest in episode 1, does that mean I can skip the rest of the episodes? Like, are they all backstory to episode 1?

At the end of the episode, you saw that he resolves himself to "go home"? With no spoilers, somehow that is the setting. See if worths your time.

[rladls2121]

But really, who knew eating monsters can make you powerful and gain its abilities.
Something like that can happen only in the games?

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by rladls2121

But really, who knew eating monsters can make you powerful and gain its abilities.
Something like that can happen only in the games?

I think that was mostly the magic healing water. Normally you would just die if you tried to eat monsters like that but the water kept him alive and he developed an iron stomach power possibility based on his starting alteration power but turned inward.

[rladls2121]

The water did kept him alive, but for his stats to go up just like that.
Still, damn it to be betrayed by his own comrades?
He risked his life to be a good help, and trying to be useful.
Really, for that to happen is really no joke.
I want to see its resolution.

[FlareKnight]

On the positive side I think the second episode raised the quality level up to acceptable. In reality it is a tough road to recover from that kind of first episode. But at least it wasn't frustrating. Hurrying through quite a number of floors sure. But just walking around by himself in a death trap can only be done in so many interesting ways.

I'd still prefer filling in background first since otherwise you risk losing your audience in one episode. But at least they are starting to backfill character relationships. Nice place really, summon a class to fight in your holy war. Props to them in some ways. Most settings only aim for one or two people. Why stop there? Just summon your own small army.

The fight against the cyclops duo was fairly enjoyable. Some decent effort to mix in tactics and take advantage of openings. And even got to the point of saving an ancient vampire trapped in a mystical prison. Certainly says a lot of where his personality ended up that he would initially bail out. And while they played up the reaction with too much sound effect, I can buy that he'd change his mind upon betrayal entering the picture. A classmate trying to kill you will do that.

[zztop]

Arifureta's author is accepting people's reviews/impressions of Ep 2 in their Syosetu account. So if you can write in Japanese and have things to say...
https://mypage.syosetu.com/mypageblo...ogkey/2363777/

[4th Dimension]

This is a considerably better epsiode than first one. I'd even say it's good IF we assume they HAD to get to the end of vol 4 in 12 episodes. So it's not suprising they just blew past 50 floors. On the other hand it makes me wonder why not put all these flashbacks into first episode. Oh well, for me they worked here too, even though the worldbuilding one was out of place.

What I'm wondering more is, given that all monsters in this episode (and all off monsters in ep 1 that weren't on the bridge) were actually animated rather than terrible CGI, why is that? The only answer I can give is that either everything was CGI in the original, OR this CGI replaced the original animation they had for ep 1.

On the bad, I have NO IDEA why did they add that fade effect on Yue's arms where they go into the box. She was literaly submerged into it. Why the fade instead of sudden cutoff. Also I'm pretty sure Hajime wasn't able to make the whole cube go away just dug Yue out.

[Rasty]

I waited till the second episode to start watching, so as for my impressions (I read WN long ago).

The first episode is downright terrible. I agree with starting in the abyss to make it bit more dramatic and ominous while explaining through flashbacks, what I hate is the execution. The animation is bad, sound not better and voice acting is laughable (really, I started laughing on the "It ate my arm!" part), the directing would be the worst I guess.

As for the plot, having no emotional buildup to the transformation made it even more cringeworthy than it already kinda was. And as was already mentioned placing the flashbacks during the transformation might have helped. I also dislike how easy they made his fights, later on, be, making him super OP, which he shouldn't have been. To highlight the difference with the monsters, he spent like an hour to slowly "drill" it to death after trapping the first wolf (because no other means could even scratch it), not just easily killing it.

The second episode, on the other hand, is decent. While it isn't a masterpiece, it is average isekai anime quality, so I am content with it. The only thing I would like to change would be with Yue. I would like to see her more "worn down", like being almost only skin and bones and hoarse voice acting in the beginning, to make her more pitiable (and overall increase emotional impact).

[Ichinotachi]

This episode was much better than the first one but that's not saying much considering that Arifureta is fanfic tier at best. Looks like all the budget went to Yue, not that I'm complaining about it

This is still getting rushed but I belive they're slowing down the pace, we'll see what's going to happen with the next episode, maybe the beginning of this adaptation took the worst part of this mess of a series.

[felix]

Spoiler for Ep2:

Was much better. At least the monologue is not annoying and cringe anymore.

Honestly I feel they chose to not make it dark and go more fluffy? Especially given how Yue sounds.

[Go0gleplex]

Well, this ep was watchable, though the directing/story board planning SUCKS! Pacing is all over the place along with the flashbacks though they were mercifully fewer this time.

I really really enjoyed the books...and had such high hopes for the anime. Too bad they seemed to have hired amateurs to produce this hack job. I get budgets and having a massive amount of material to deal with...but seriously?!

Oh well...hasn't hit the point where I'll drop it...yet. Hopefully it'll improve more instead. *sigh*

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

On the positive side I think the second episode raised the quality level up to acceptable. In reality it is a tough road to recover from that kind of first episode. But at least it wasn't frustrating. Hurrying through quite a number of floors sure. But just walking around by himself in a death trap can only be done in so many interesting ways.

I'd still prefer filling in background first since otherwise you risk losing your audience in one episode. But at least they are starting to backfill character relationships. Nice place really, summon a class to fight in your holy war. Props to them in some ways. Most settings only aim for one or two people. Why stop there? Just summon your own small army.

Maybe the others are afraid a big group of isekaied heroes would cause problems. I mean, 30+ people together, with legitimate reasons to be pissed at those who press ganged them, pressured to stick together, and abnormally powerful...

[rladls2121]

The word "Betray" must mean a lot for this series I guess.

I have a bad feeling though, Hajime who isn't really 100% human anymore, he may not be welcomed by everyone.
There's the King, its castle, and all these history's story.
What happened to Hajime is something that is uncommon, so.

Maybe something is really wrong with the world these people are living in, it is matter of time that some secrets will be no longer a mystery.

[SilverGlavenus]

Originally Posted by rladls2121

The word "Betray" must mean a lot for this series I guess.

I have a bad feeling though, Hajime who isn't really 100% human anymore, he may not be welcomed by everyone.
There's the King, its castle, and all these history's story.
What happened to Hajime is something that is uncommon, so.

Maybe something is really wrong with the world these people are living in, it is matter of time that some secrets will be no longer a mystery.

At worst, he will be considered a demon, I mean the humans and demons have been at war, so they should despise each other very much.

The "betrayal" part is something that the anime messed up. Instead of delving into Hajime's pain and suffering (with proper build up and context) to highlight how he felt when he was betrayed, they made it into a meme worthy scene.