If 'Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest' Manages to Entertain, It's Mostly in a So-Bad-It's-Good Way

Among all the isekai shows I’ve decided to watch for at least a full season, Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest is easily the worst.  For the record, I also initially watched new isekai shows Isekai Cheat Magician and Demon Lord, Retry! at the start of the recently finished summer season – the same season Arifureta debuted in – and they were pretty underwhelming, too.  But I had to drop them after a few episodes because I – even though I consider myself a fan of this already over-saturated genre – only had time to follow one bad isekai (and another passable one) for the season, and I went with Arifureta.

This anime series follows Hajime Nagumo, an otaku high-schooler (i.e. the stereotypical isekai protagonist) who is summoned along with his teacher and classmates to a fantasy world where they have to save humanity from a demon apocalypse.  However, while his classmates are bestowed with job classes that have great stats, potential, and usefulness in battle, Hajime is given the job class Synergist, whose only unique skill is the nigh-useless transmutation skill.  He’s already someone who is looked down to by most of his classmates, and this only further made him prone to being belittled.

While on a dungeon crawl in the Great Orcus Labyrinth to level up, the class encounters the Behemoth, a monster that’s way out of their league.  During the bedlam, Hajime is betrayed by one of his classmates.  Under the guise of an accident, he’s sent plummeting into the dungeon abyss.  He survives the fall, but he finds himself at the bottom level, which is occupied by very powerful monsters.  There, he nearly dies a couple of times, but despite the unlikelihood of survival, he manages to do so by the skin of his teeth.

The whole ordeal radically changes Hajime’s appearance and personality.  Initially timid and charitable, he becomes more cold-hearted and ruthless.  He’s not necessarily vindictive and obsessed with revenge.  But his end-goal exclusively becomes getting back home, and he will annihilate anyone – whether demon, human, or deity – who gets on his way.

On the course of his tenacious trek through the dungeon to find an exit, Hajime becomes stronger and stronger.  He starts creating different weapons and equipment for himself, and learns multiple deadly and invaluable abilities.  He also gains a powerful ally in Yue, a vampire princess whose loyalty and affection he wins after freeing her from her centuries-long imprisonment.  By the time he finally leaves the dungeon, he’s already quite OP (hence, the show’s subtitle, “From Commonplace to World’s Strongest”).  His formidable party only expands further once they’re outside with the eventual addition of the klutzy rabbit-girl Shea Haulia, who has the ability to see a few seconds into the future and whom Hajime armed with a giant war-hammer, and the masochistic dragonlady Tio Klarus.

Based on the synopsis above, we can tell that Arifureta both has cliché and interesting elements.  Hajime soon becomes an archetypal overpowered isekai MC, but his rag-to-riches, I-will-be-vindicated-and-you-will-all-bow-down-to-me style of arc to get there (which is reminiscent of The Rising of the Shield Hero) adds somewhat of a fresh twist to it.  I also like that he’s wielding badass guns and other sci-fi-looking weapons and prosthetics, as this gives him an uncharacteristically science fantasy presence in this high fantasy world – which is pretty cool.  Moreover, although the shameless power fantasy-ing and harem-building certainly makes it self-indulgently trashy, it’s so unapologetic about this that there’s some fun to be had from it.

Arifureta definitely has noteworthy aspects, and it might’ve even been a decent isekai show if the execution and production had been handled better.  But its adaptation into anime was botched up so badly that it ends up being one of the worst isekai ever – or, in my case, the worst isekai I’ve seen.  The choppy pacing; the decision to incorporate shockingly terrible, cheap-looking CGI – by Jove, that friggin’ CGI! – into its animation; and the uninspired direction – on top of the problems already inherent to its story – overwhelm whatever little redeeming factors it has left.

Moreover, what’s so funny is that there was actually an Arifureta anime adaptation slated for last year.  But it was supposedly so poorly made that the original creator vetoed its release.  Most of the core staff was replaced, and production went back to square one.  Wow.  If this disaster of a 2019 anime adaptation was the one that manage to get greenlit, can you just imagine how godawful in comparison that 2018 version must have been?

In the end, I didn’t hate Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest.  But any substantial entertainment I had from it is simply the “so bad, that it’s good” variety.  Still, I won’t really rule out me watching season 2.  We’ll see.