That Time at Anime Frontier that I Watched an Anime Premiere with an Absurdly Long Name, even by Anime Standards! It's Called Bogus Skill < < Fruitmaster > >?!

I've encountered many anime and light novels with absurdly long names. Remember WorldEnd: What do you do at the end of the world? Are you busy? Will you save us? But even among whatever you want to call that genre of title, nothing I've yet encountered can hold a candle to Bogus Skill < < Fruitmaster > > ~About that time I became able to eat unlimited numbers of Skill Fruits (that kill you)~ (henceforth Fruitmaster, because I can't be bothered to remember that behemoth of a full name—let alone type it out every single time). Am I saying it correctly? I certainly hope so. That's how Adam Sheehan announced it at the start of the premiere.

In any case, the title is pretty much the only thing unique about this anime. It's another dime-a-dozen RPG-set anime, without much of anything setting it apart. Our protagonists, Light and Lena, live in a world where you're given a skill fruit that grants you an ability at a certain age. You can only eat one, or else you'll die, as the skill fruits become poisonous after you consume one. That ability will dictate what you do with your life. Light wants an adventurer skill, and Lena wants something that will allow her to hang out with Light. So Light's taken completely aback when Lena is granted a super rare and powerful S-rank adventurer skill (called “Sword Saint”) and all he gets is Fruitmaster—master of growing fruits well and quickly. Within a few months, Lena becomes a super popular adventurer and part of an S-rank party. Light, meanwhile, works on a farm with a girl named Ayla. He learns that one of the perks of his Fruitmaster ability is being impervious to poisoned fruits. In other words, he can eat as many skill fruits as he wants to finally become the adventurer he's always dreamed of being.

The pacing in this premiere was breakneck; as though the episode was terrified to give its audience time to breathe, or soak in what they just saw. We went from Light and Lena eating the fruits to Light becoming an adventurer skilled enough to take down a powerful ogre all by himself, all in about 20 minutes. At the speed at which things were happening in this episode, I felt like if I blinked, I might run the risk of somehow missing an entire story arc.

In any case, I honestly think that in the right hands, Fruitmaster could've been really fun. You could get hammy with its concept—over-the-top—and have Light gorging himself on fruits and becoming godlike at literally everything he does, no matter how epic or mundane. The comedy of it all practically writes itself, and it would lend itself to letting Light go about his adventures in a unique way. Instead, this first episode of Fruitmaster feels weirdly restrained for how goofy its concept is. Maybe that'll change as the series progresses, but as it stands right now, this premiere didn't wow me.