The Winter 2023 Anime Preview Guide

Ningen Fushin: Adventurers Who Don't Believe in Humanity Will Save the World

Veteran adventurer Nick's life is falling apart. Despite all the knowledge and expertise, he's devoted to his adventuring party, his respected leader kicked him out, his girlfriend dumped him, and his teammates shamelessly accused him of embezzlement. Tired, heartbroken, and looking for a drink, Nick chances upon a few kindred spirits who are jaded as he is. Together, these disillusioned adventurers form an unstoppable team out to save their bleak, depressing world. (from manga)

Ningen Fushin: Adventurers Who Don't Believe in Humanity Will Save the World is based on Shinta Fuji's light novel series and streams on Crunchyroll on Tuesdays.

Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:

This premiere episode of Ningen Fushin suffers from two major problems. The first is that there is too much crammed into a single episode. We get three of our four leads' backstories alongside their origin story as a party. Twenty-two minutes is not enough time for all this. Nick's story is especially poorly conveyed as it is told in a matter of seconds—giving it no real emotional weight. Tiana and Zem get a bit more time dedicated to them, but it still feels like we're getting the Wikipedia summary more than actually seeing and feeling these tragic moments—moments that have caused them to give up on humanity in general (you know, the central conceit of the entire series).

The second major issue is tone. In this episode, not only do we see a woman psychologically destroyed by the insecurities of the person closest to her, we see a man imprisoned and exiled on falsified charges of being a child rapist. These events have scarred our heroes to their cores— creating lasting traumas which have caused each to cope with unhealthy addictions like gambling. These are serious issues and should be treated with the weight they deserve—which they are, except in the case of Nick.

Nick's issues, trauma, and addiction are treated as comic relief. He's kicked out of his guild, and his girlfriend reveals she was using him for money and tells him she was cheating on him the whole time. He then continues to throw away his money on another woman—in this case, an idol—by buying far more of her merch than he can afford. While not as tragic as Zem's story, it is a sad one—except that it is treated as a joke from the start (and every other time it's brought up). This creates a kind of tonal whiplash. We start silly, go tragic, then super tragic, and finally end up silly again, before going serious in the closing seconds. While you can certainly have both serious and comedic scenes in an anime, it doesn't work and leaves the viewer feeling off-balance about how they should feel about what they are watching.

As a fan of the manga, I really wanted to like this one. But while the overall story between the two may be the same, the way the story is told is not—and it shows in the worst way.

Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

This is a premiere that genuinely surprised me. Going by the synopsis, I expected a KONOSUBA-esque cynical comedy about a bunch of rejects banding together out of pure desperation. While that's partially present, there's also a decent amount of sincerity here. Our quartet of adventurers are all (emotionally) wounded rejects who end up commiserating over a pint, and Nick's backstory is treated with some level of comedy, but by and large, the episode seems to want us to sympathize with our band of misfits.

This could have just been an anime version of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, where the joke is seeing how shamelessly awful and cynical our heroes are. Instead, it does a commendable job of making them interesting with somewhat grounded personalities, if not immediately likable. Nick (the character, not me, to be clear) is an awkward doofus who loses himself in idol fandom to avoid his problems. Tiana is believably self-centered, but not in a way that's malicious or cruel, and she comes off as the most endearing of the cast so far. By the end of the episode, when Nick (again, not me) was making his inspirational speech for them to form a party together, I actually bought it and was curious to see what would happen next.

At the same time, this premiere managed to dampen that enthusiasm in equal measure across its runtime. The episode is busy, trying to juggle three separate backstories alongside the characters' present-day meeting, and it makes for a jumbled and tonally dissonant experience. The editing in the first half is incredibly bizarre, sliding between multiple layers of flashbacks in an unclear and disorienting way. And in general, the comedic timing isn't there, with the lion's share of jokes not landing well at all. On the serious side of things, while Zem's backstory of being falsely accused of abusing a young girl isn't as bad as it could have been (*cough*shieldhero*cough*), it's still an extremely loaded way to characterize one of our main cast, and I don't blame anyone for being put off by it. Combine that detail with Nick (again, not me) being bitter over his ex-girlfriend, and there's a lot of room for some noxious misogyny depending on how the story goes from here.

The presentation is an equally mixed bag. It took a bit for me to warm up to the designs, but I think they work pretty well in motion. I especially love Tiana's constantly angry eyes, and there are some pretty funny expressions despite a very subdued face game. There's also an...attempt, I suppose, at visual flair throughout the episode. Odd angles, clever transitions, and some theoretically interesting storyboarding are present, but they're constrained by a threadbare production that can't make most of them work. Characters often look divorced from the backgrounds in ways that I can't imagine are intentional, and there's not much animation to speak of outside of some talking heads. The direction is trying to make something energetic that can balance the drama and comedy of the characters' stories, but it can't quite land it with such limited resources.

Like I said, this surprised me, though. Maybe that's shallow expectations from other “kicked out of the party” anime that came before. Perhaps I'm biased because I finally have an anime character with the same name as me. Either way, there was just enough in this introduction that I'm willing to watch more, though I can't give it a very hardy recommendation just yet.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

The problem with adaptations is that it's difficult to decide where to start adapting. If you throw the viewer into the middle of the story, you risk confusion; if you opt to start right from the novel's beginning, then you may run into the problem that this show has: it's just a little bit excruciating. It is, however, important information – since the title has alternately been translated as Apparently, Disillusioned Adventurers Will Save the World, we need to know what it is about these adventurers' pasts that has made them so disillusioned. It turns out to be a pretty mixed bag: draconid woman Karan was the victim of theft, while defrocked priest Zem was the victim of an astoundingly unscrupulous underage girl's frame-up job. Fighter Nick and mage Tiana fall somewhere in the middle; he was booted out of his party for apparently being too bossy, while her insecure boyfriend dumped her. It isn't entirely clear whether or not he poisoned the well (so to speak) and forced her to leave their prestigious magic academy; whether she left on her own or not, the important thing is that she is currently on her own and down on her luck. Each member of the group has developed their own vices in response to their hardships, again really running the gamut from the relatively innocuous overeating to the decidedly less so gambling addiction.

And now that we have all of that pesky setup out of the way, what's going to happen next? Presumably, they'll get around to saving the world despite their lack of faith in humanity, but you'd only know that from the narrator at the end of the episode because it ends before they've all agreed to form a party together. While there is something to be said for a story taking its time to establish who everyone is and what their motivations are, the unfortunate result here is twenty-three minutes of some pretty damn depressing anime. There are a few fun moments, such as when we discovered that this D&D influenced fantasy world also has Japanese pop idols (Nick's new vice is being an idol otaku), but that's not quite enough to counteract the overall bleakness of this episode. Having read the first novel of the source material for the Fall '22 Light Novel Guide, I know that things will not necessarily remain this uninspiring, but it doesn't feel like this first episode is a fair representation of the story.

Obviously, the most divisive element of the episode is Zem's backstory. It feels almost irresponsible when authors use the “man is falsely accused of rape” storyline to establish someone as a sympathetic character, and it's so much worse than anything that happened to the other three members of the group that it is jarring, to say the least. Is it a reason not to watch the show? That largely comes down to your tolerance for the trope, but even having read the first light novel, it doesn't make me want to continue watching this adaptation. But it isn't an isekai story, there's no mention of levels or stats, and it's a pretty straightforward swords and sorcery fantasy, which is appealing all on its own, if only because the genre has been sparse in recent years. It may be worth the three-episode test if you're hurting for non-isekai fantasy.

Caitlin Moore
Rating:

Have you ever felt like the world was unfair? Like everyone has turned against you for no reason, or like you've been misunderstood through no fault of your own? Of course you have; life as a member of society is an unending struggle to understand and be understood, and some missteps on both sides are inevitable. Ningen Fushin: Adventurers Who Don't Believe in Humanity Will Save the World leans into that feeling, bringing together four adventurers who have been ejected from their positions and decide to band together for… survival? To fund their addictions?

That last part is unclear primarily because of the premiere's jumbled writing and direction. From Nick's ejection from his party to his idol obsession to Tiana and Zem's sad backstories to everyone getting blackout drunk, it feels like the narrative is missing some serious connective tissue. The story starts with Nick getting kicked out of his party for nebulous reasons, to him at an idol concert, to him sitting sadly alone in the rain when he's approached by a girl he somehow doesn't recognize as the idol plastered all over his room. It jumps back and forth between mildly clever comedy to fairly painful angst without ever giving itself time to settle into one or the other, so both have little impact to speak of. How am I supposed to feel the weight of Tiana's fiance accusing her of bullying and bribing her teachers for falsified grades when a few seconds later we're being served gags about men approaching her and being scared off by her resting bitch face? And if they all got so plastered that they didn't remember the night before, how does Nick know enough about them to suggest they form a party of rejects?

(Also, Tiana, please don't force yourself to smile more. Your existence is not ornamental!)

Some structural changes would have gone a long way to serve the story better. Picking a mood and sticking with it, whether dark comedy or tragedy with some comic relief, would have been a better way to establish the show's tone and set viewer expectations. Replace the backstory info dumps with quick hints and instead depict the characters drunkenly carousing and venting, although maybe not to the point of blacking out. I'm still trying to figure out what the point of that scene with Agate was.

Oh, and I hope you weren't thinking we'd get through this without addressing the false rape accusation plot. I will try not to climb up too high on my soapbox because I sincerely believe that storytellers have a right to tell whatever kind of story they see fit. That does not, however, shield them from criticism. Studies have shown that depictions of false accusations of sexual assault can affect reality, as people who consume media where they are prevalent tend to be more suspicious of even credible reports and take the side of the accused. With that in mind, I am harshly critical of the choice of Zem's backstory, in which a child accuses him of rape when he turns her down for sex. Young people are too often looked at as evil temptresses looking to lead innocent men astray. Depicting a priest in that situation, considering the long history of supposedly holy men taking advantage of the trust their followers put in them, is grossly irresponsible.

All that aside, Ningen Fushin isn't bad; it just isn't good, either.

Considering how wall-to-wall packed with stone-cold bangers last season was, it seems only fitting that the scales of nature balance themselves by kicking off the Winter 2023 season with Ningen Fushin, a series that appears laboratory-engineered to be as aggressively mediocre as possible. Granted, I should maybe be counting my blessings since we're talking about a fantasy light novel adaptation about a scorned loser that got kicked out of his adventuring party that just so happens to feature an appearance by everyone's favorite trope: The False Rape Accusation That Completely Ruins an Innocent Man's Life. We all know how terrible shows with that oddly specific (and reoccurring) set of clichés can be, after all.

Thankfully, aside from the annoyingly shallow and stupid false accusation plotline that we get in the Cleric's backstory, Ningen Fushin wisely avoids many of the sub-sub-genre's grossest tendencies in favor of a sitcom hangout setup that, to be perfectly honest, has potential. On his own, our sad sack idol-obsessed hero, Nick, is about as bland of an ineffectual protagonist as you'd expect from a show like this, and the story would likely be a complete waste of time if he were our only main character. With the introduction of Tiana the Mage, Zem the Cleri, and that amusingly sloshed Dragonian lady, though, Ningen Fushin presents us with a group of sad sack losers who will seemingly band together to defeat the Demon King out of little more than wanton hedonism and pure spite. Now that's a premise with some potential, even if it is the same potential you see when McDonald's announces a slightly gussied-up variation on one of its artery-clogging hamburgers. Nobody will call this haute cuisine, but it'll fill you up without making you feel too queasy, especially if you've got a couple of intoxicants on hand to wash it all down.

I know, extended food metaphors are the isekai light novel anime of pop-culture criticism, but “When in Rome…” am I right? Ningen Fushin is clearly not trying too hard to impress its audience or reinvent the wheel, so you'll forgive me for taking some creative shortcuts of my own. I'd probably have more to say about this if the premiere offered us anything outside the most basic establishing points for its core premise. Still, we don't see any chemistry or fun vibes that would make Nick's would-be crew of social outcasts fun to hang out with. The art and animation aren't doing much to impress here, either, so all we're left with is a cliché premise with an ever-so-slightly interesting gimmick that has been executed to a thoroughly whelming degree of “Meh.” Maybe it'll pick up once the cast finds its groove, or maybe it'll disappear into obscurity like the other seventy-five or so similar shows we're likely to get this year. Only time will tell!