The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide - A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai

Takeru Kamishiro is a regular guy with an ordinary office job, but finds himself summoned to another world. Takeru starts his new life in "Madeus", a world with swords and magic, fully equipped with multiple skills. Not only does he have enhanced physical and amazing magic abilities, but he also has the power to "search" for valuable items. With the cheat skills he's been provided, Takeru starts his new adventure in the new isekai.

A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai is based on the light novel series by Masuo Kinoko. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

It doesn't happen every season, but quite often there's an isekai show that I could've sworn I've seen already, or at least read. I scramble to check my reading and reviewing history, and in some cases, I have. But just as often, I have not, and it only feels familiar because it's so incredibly similar to a plethora of other stories in the same genre. So it goes for A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai. I have neither read the light novel nor the manga, but I could still predict nearly every plot point with pinpoint accuracy.

That's mainly because the hits are all here: an ordinary Japanese guy who lives an ordinary life dies without warning, and a random god decides to give him a new life in a different world with plenty of bonuses. The guy's one request is for a “cute partner,” and this is where the one clever bit comes in: he gets one, all right, but they're not “cute” as in “a cute girl,” but rather as in “a baby animal.” That's the kind of creativity I'd like to see more of in these boilerplate isekai stories – just a little tweak to the formula, but one that makes a difference.

Or at least I'm hoping it will, apart from making me sit up and take notice of this small change to the framework, because everything else is remarkably standard. Oh, sure, there are playing card suits as markers of where forageable items are and how good the quality is. Still, the episode fumbles that almost instantly: the first time we see Takeru use it, there are all four suits spread over the landscape, but later, he says that he's never seen a spade marker before. He spends most of the episode talking to himself, even when he's in a town, and his horror at there being no baths for the masses in a pseudo-Medieval western-style fantasy is mildly baffling. It's kind of interesting that he's taller than most of the people of this new world, as is his meeting with a second god who says he's toning down some of Takeru's cheats, but for the most part, this just isn't bringing enough that's new to the table. If you already enjoy this kind of story, that's fine, but don't go into it expecting something that will break the mold in any meaningful way.

It's funny to think that the actual most common, basic kind of plot in anime these days could ever be framed as "exciting" or "out of the ordinary." But as with so many easily impressed reincarnated Melvins, main dude Takeru of A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai is thrilled to leave his humdrum office behind for a humdrum life of wandering through stock RPG Maker assets. He hasn't even battled a monster or confronted anything that could remotely be considered thrilling before the end of this opening episode. Yet looking at some pop-up displays and cooking a decent stew is enough to prompt him to declare, "isekai is awesome." There's really no hope for this particular Costco Kirito, or this show in general, if those are the standards we're operating on.

It's the sheer lack of imagination, of creative ambition, that, as usual, drags down Gatherer's Adventure. Takeru's main way of engaging with his new world is in the titular gathering—collecting "materials" as in one of those open-world craft-em-up games that are so ideal for so many gamers. Never mind that in a non-virtual setting, "gathering materials" amounts to little more than Takeru spending hours picking up sticks, rocks, and animal poop up off the forest floor. This wouldn't even be exciting to watch someone do in a game, let alone as a narrative thrust. But because this is the kind of white-knuckle action the author has married themselves to, everyone in the game world is wowed by Takeru's stuff-picking-up abilities, heaping monetary rewards and major quest assignments on him. It'd be worth framing as satire if I thought Gatherer's Adventure had any capacity for self-reflection.

But that would require storytelling that had ever engaged with media beyond timesink video games and other isekai series, and Gatherer's Adventure is having none of that. Takeru wanders from the first shopkeeper to talk to him up to a mountain because he's got nothing else to do. He casts magic simply by guessing the correct word for a spell whenever he needs it. The presentation affords less time and reverence to him burying a fallen fellow adventurer than it does to him giving himself a magic sponge bath. Even when Takeru stumbles upon the dragonic demi-god of the mountain he's questing on, the conversation with the cardboard cutout of the colossal creature has all the gravitas of a restaurant exchange in Seinfeld—and it's significantly less profound.

I don't know what else you want me to say about a show like this. It's an anime about a guy who picks up sticks and gets paid for it. It certainly demonstrates how there's nothing isekai anime nerds are impressed by more than just overlaying game interfaces on regular-ass things. There are a couple of quirks I can glom onto out of desperation: it's almost interesting how overly tall Takeru is compared to all the fantasy NPCs, he's animated with a little cartoony dynamism and sound effects a couple of times, and the contrasting God boy characters are kinda cute. The latter of those two providing the idea of an overarching isekai God who actually induces challenge and friction on an overpowered hero's goings-on is an idea, but in practice, all it's done thus far is bestow Takeru with a cute mascot character to accompany him. Just play one of these games yourself if you're really desperate for this kind of material.

It's getting to the point where these lazy, unoriginal, bare-bones, reincarnation-slop anime aren't just annoying to sit through; they're actively depressing even to consider. Almost every single one of these things gives us a “protagonist” whose sole defining feature is that they are utterly lacking in passions, interests, meaningful relationships, or even a fundamental survival instinct; the single most meaningful thing to ever happen to them is that they die. These days, half the shows don't even bother with giving the hero a meaningful death that communicates something about their heroes' fundamental strengths as a character. Takeru, for instance, sits his ass on the couch while whining internally about being bored with his entire existence, and boom. He's dead. Some random god is giving him the spiel about reincarnation and magic powers. Roll credits. Now, his life will finally mean something.

I'm sorry, but I don't care how many magic powers and overbuffed stat menu entries you give to a guy like Takeru. He's never going to be interesting, or thrilling to watch, or the kind of character you end up rooting for to succeed despite the odds. With an introduction like that, the only emotion I could possibly muster for Takeru—and all of the Takeru-likes that are clogging the airwaves—is a bitter, hollowing pity. He's the human equivalent of a bologna-and-mayonaise sandwich that got left in the back of the fridge for too long. Not long enough to sprout mold or anything, mind you, but just long enough that you don't trust it not to give you food poisoning. It was never going to amount to much more than empty calories on the best of days, but now its only use is wasting space in the garbage bin instead of the leftovers shelf. I would be begging the Isekai Gods for the sweet release of death myself if I were unfortunate enough to end up next to Takeru for too long in an exceptionally long line at the post office. God forbid I have to spend several hours following him around on his meandering adventures in some generic fantasy otherworld.

Around forty minutes spread across several weeks, though? I can tolerate that much, at least. A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai doesn't have an ounce of personality to speak of so far, as its visuals or music are concerned. Still, it's not actively hideous to behold, either, so you won't go blind attempting to watch it, at least. The single positive thing I can say is that, after twenty agonizingly pointless minutes, Takeru makes friends with a cute little dragon fella. Is the dragon enough to make A Gatherer's Adventure in Isekai worth anyone's time, or a share of their precious subscription revenue? Absolutely not. This show is trash. That is not a crime on its own, but it's also boring as sin, and boring trash deserves to be hung from the rafters and left to rot as an example to the rest of the industry.