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The 8th son? Are you kidding me? (TV)

Genres: Action, Fantasy
Themes:

Plot Summary
Shingo Ichinomiya, a 25-year-old man working at a firm company, while thinking of tomorrow's busy working day, goes to sleep. However, when he woke up, he found himself in a room unknown to him and realized that he is inside a 6-years-old body, taking over his body and mind. He soon learns from the memories of the boy that the boy was born as the youngest child of a poor noble family living in a back country. Having no administrative skill, he can't do anything to manage the vast land his family has. Fortunately, he is blessed with a very rare talent, the talent of magic. Unfortunately, while his talent could bring prosperity to his family, in his situation it only brought disaster. This is the story of the boy, Wendelin Von Benno Baumeister, opening his own path in a harsh world.

(Source: MyAnimeList, edited)

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Episode 1

In theory I should be fan of what happened this episode, a starting at the bottom nobility, with details about their situation, where he would have to work hard to find success, and there were parts that got my attention, but many more that made me groan a bit. This is not Ascendance of a Bookworm, our protagonist gets everything spoon fed to him without his brother finding his total loss of memory a problem, with the focused insight of him noticing wear on walls worth little. Especially when he reads a note that sounds like the most cookie cutter recognise him as skilled at magic, trying to play it off as a cliché that he expects to have no ability. Everything is just said with him going off of a map to explain locations that he somehow knows info about. And sorry, but I don't buy that his father, the apparent lord of this territory, does not even know how to read, that sounds incredibly problematic. But our protagonist can apparently read because everything looks to be in Japanese.

I could certainly be interested if this was a story where he could vitalize the area by bringing something worth value in the territory and managing new people in. But the beginning looked like this will mostly be a standard uber strong magic protagonist, and the episode already had I think most of his older brothers leave in essentially removing their nobility and knock out what could be a unique element of this show where what could happen with seven elder brothers being shown up by him.

Just have to wait and see.

Episode 9

I'm glad that the spear twirling dude finally got hired by Well.

This show continues to be kinda amusing. I like how the main character has to deal with various social quirks and expectations of being a noble and a hero. In a way this show is more like a comedy than a power fantasy since Well's escalating power and status just seems to inconvenience him. I wouldn't recommend this show to anyone, but I find it decently entertaining.

I think "decently entertaining" is a perfect description for this show. Like you, the fact that Well's OP-ness actually is a pain for him is amusing. I too was happy to see Spear Guy finally get hired. This title along with Princess Connect and Shachibato! President, It's Time for Battle! (which is basically just corporate satire) are making it a fun season for fantasy-themed shows for me.

It seems a little phoned-in, but it's watchable. The characters are on the shallow side and the story isn't strong.

It seems like the most potentially compelling story points are very quickly handled. It's weird how short the big battle scenes are, and Well's magical apprenticeship would have been more satisfying if it had been longer, even if it was only off-screen longer.

I'm sure the villagers are grateful to have mayonnaise now.

This political intrigue thing with Well's brother has actually been quite interesting. At first I thought it was a bit silly how comically unreasonable Well's brother has been, but now I actually think it isn't that silly. Jealousy and Well's position as a hero mage has driven Well's bro to paranoia. He has convinced himself that Well is there to steal his land from him and so he thinks that anything that comes out of Well's mouth has some kind of ulterior motive behind it. Well's bro being impossible to negotiate with has forced Well to do the best he can in this situation which isn't exactly "everyone lives happily ever after" since Well's bro would forced to become some kind of monk.

Well has been taken advantage of by the nobles throughout the show due to his naivety and lack of experience, but it has mostly been for some laughs and his massive mage powers has always gotten him out of a jam. This time his magic alone can't save him and so this is surprisingly compelling writing from a isekai LN adaption.

It has me think that the best Well could do would be to come directly to his brother and explain the circumstance that they have found in where people other than himself have conspired against the brother to put Well in charge. Indeed the brother's outburst of accusing Well of using a silver tongue in adventuring is not ideal, but deciding for him that he is going to live out of a church is not the right way to go about it. To stay true to Well being someone who does not actually care about crazy recognition, and presumably someone who was raised to take over should be better than someone not exactly trained for diplomacy, Well should be trying help his homeland and family without power fantasy becoming lord of the land.

Otherwise it is like that time he just sort of agreed to take on the other girls as his mistresses, despite the fact that should not be in character. Just need to create that power fantasy of a harem with mistresses while saying Well did not go out of his way to make mistresses. If he has had plans to boost his home domain with some good economic choices, make that a part of his character, not just stumble into just being the best.

Again, I appreciate the little things the show does. For example, in previous episodes when Well was pulling down big bucks, I just assumed that was typical isakei protagonist OP-ness where everything goes his way as part of the overall wish fulfillment aspect. But no, it turns out that was actually the palace's way of making sure he has enough resources to develop the lands they want him to take over. Interesting wrinkle.

Same with Kurt's wife. She clearly knows which way the wind is blowing, so she makes sure that Well gets to know and like her two young sons. She's even blunt to Well about what her agenda is. Another interesting wrinkle.

Again, not trying to make the case that this is a stellar show, just that it is taking some interesting tacks, occasionally.

Yes, I thought that that Well should discuss the circumstances with his brother, but it's also quite clear that his brother has no interest in listening to anything Well has to say, that's why Well gave up trying to make his brother see reason. I kinda understood that Well's brother has no future as the land's lord either way since the nobles will try to get rid of him even if Well managed to convince him to see reason. Well saw it that the only way to keep his brother alive was to force him to live in a church. It's obviously not great for Well to force that decision on his brother, but he doesn't have unlimited time to come up with the best solution.

Well building a harem of girls is an generic LN adaption staple. There seems to be no escaping it. However at least in this show's case there seems to be like zero romantic tension in the air between Well and the girls that are supposed to be his mistresses.

Now I don't think this show has good writing. Just for a show, that I have like zero expectations towards, to do anything even remotely interesting is pleasantly surprising.

I'm pretty sure bro isn't going to end up in a monastery. That's what the king wants, and Well isn't on board for just being a puppet and doing what the king wants. As he said, they'd do this their own way. Dunno what he has in mind, but it will concern magic and lessons learned along the way or something. Smile

I thought the king wants the brother killed in attacking Well, that is why he is being goaded.

Yeah, you're right. I still think Well will find a happier ending than death or church exile though.

Episode 12

Hoo boy. Kurt suddenly becoming a maniacally laughing comic villain was just plain absurd. And his derpy malice ghost was so silly and I dunno if it was intentionally silly or if it was supposed to somehow genuinely portray Kurt's malice and despair.

I'm not sure if it makes sense for Well to come to the conclusion that he should become more of a noble. He was infuriated by the nobility following this incident with his brother and he has constantly been inconvenienced by the social class system and manipulated by the nobility. Him just deciding that he needs to be become a "good" noble, I guess, makes sense in a way since Well is naive and wouldn't necessarily realize that the problem lies with the system itself. But I feel like this might be more about LN isekai stories often tending to kinda glamour middle age European societies since every isekai fantasy world seems to be middle age Europe themed.

Anyway I shall grant this show the rating of Decent. It was decently enjoyable.

P.S. Gina was wrong, everyone laugh at her. Ha ha.

You know a character is great when he suddenly thinks that everything will be great if uses a dubious magical item that would presumably kill everyone except them including their land. He litereally turned into a cackling maniac that thought he would turn into a hero and his family dying would not matter because of course he would get all the ladies. Really did not feel like there was much there for nuanced storytelling for him to be anything reasonable. Was there something stopping them from physically pull him away from the flute? Was Well's takeaway about problems with the games on nobles be that he should play along?

Well be able to change the land to be more than a crumbling land that even the nobles were essentially living in squaller was like the thing I was interested in from the start, I think it being the first part shown, and was also the very last thing shown with little actual details to what it was. Is the show's answer just that Well already has money from being an adventurer and has cool magic. It is just that from the name of the show it sounds like it is going to be about him needing to fight against a little problem of inheritance, which it is technically doing at the end conflict with his brother being the firstborn that Well is artificially being pitted against. But Well's whole success comes down to rare magic talents that he inherited, and some side bits like he knows how to make miso, apparently an advanced food item that everyone in this European society adopts. There is a bit more to it than that, like he generally has a good heart, and I did rather the fact that he lost in the fighting competition where magic was not allowed, so some grace was needed.

I think that I already made my complaints along the lines that I think characterisation like him being such a nice guy that he would not be looking to create a harem with mistresses is undercut by him like instantly accepting the proposal. I would think that maybe he could care about the fact that here it kind of looks like only men are afforded positions of power and the best the women could hope for is becoming a mistress. He can bring miso, but he can't maybe aim for a bit of gender equality for these girls to be their own people outside of their character trope?

If I was to pick a character, it would probably be Brantack, the wizened older man with kind of tanned skin and a drinking problem. He kind of reminds me of Qrow from RWBY, and in general I think stood out from the younger cast in acting like a responsible adult regardless of what impressions may be and not belittling the younger people. It kind of feels like his type of character are not usually done too well in anime. How many isekai anime give the protagonist a mentor like that. I honestly don't care much about the rest.

My rating is Decent (6/10), I would say not everything was a total wash, I did like bits such as when they were forced into unlimited army dungeon, but I am close to lowering the score from things I found more of a problem with such as how the final conflict was. I also hold a big love of things like fantasy commerce, which this did not deliver in a satisfactory way. I can't decide if I am giving it as high because I generally keeping my attention a little detached and this has been a light season of anime so the amount of anime I was watching was smaller than usual. I will generally say that I would like a little more.

Yeah, I went with Decent as well. The rating would have been lower except for the fact that the show did some interesting things every now and then as has been noted above. Eh, there were worse ways to kill 23-ish minutes every week.

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