Isekai Office Worker: The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter

Episodes 1-3

While most of the isekai that get talked about fall under the heading of either a power fantasy or a romantic fantasy, the genre can actually be quite broad. Not often discussed is what I like to call “isekai for grown-ups,” a subset of stories where a working adult gets whisked away to another world and has to just carry on business as usual. Before The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter's adaptation, the closest we got was The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent, but that runs counter to what Isekai Office Worker and related series take as their central point, because Sei is, in fact, The Chosen One. But Seiichiro (and his closest analogue, Shiori from Housekeeping Mage From Another World, which has yet to be adapted into anime, though the books are available in English) is just a regular guy. He's got no special powers, and in fact is so ordinary that his body has trouble adapting to his new world. And that means that he's just got to carry on like the adult he is, figuring things out and finding a way to keep going. If it's a fantasy, it's one about a sudden job transfer to a foreign country.

Of course, not many job transfers start with a good deed gone wrong. Poor Seiichiro was just walking down a Tokyo street when he heard a girl screaming; like the decent human being that he is, he ran to help her…and found her getting sucked into a weird glowing symbol on the ground. Attempting to free her only resulted in him getting pulled in too, landing him in another world entirely. And while the girl, Yua, was specifically summoned to be the Holy Maiden, Seiichiro is just a tagalong. No one wants him or knows what to do with him, and to be honest, it doesn't seem like they really understand why he felt compelled to try and save Yua from her summoning in the first place.

This, really, is what sets the tone. To Seiichiro's mind, Yua has been kidnapped. To the folks who summoned her, she's been given a grand opportunity to save their world. How could the honor of saving them as the Holy Maiden possibly be viewed as anything else? They never even consider that this is a sixteen-year-old child they've stolen with no chance for her to tell anyone what was happening. And they waste no time in helping Yua to drink that Kool-Aid – when Seiichiro tells her that she's been kidnapped and to think really hard about whether or not she wants to go along with the dangerous task her kidnappers want her to do, Yua gets huffy with him. How dare he logically counter what all of the isekai media she's likely been at least tangentially aware of has been telling her?!

To Yua, this is a glorious heroic fantasy. To Seiichiro, it's a palace full of child-abducting lunatics who can't even budget properly. And so, if he can't save Yua and he can't go home, he may as well do what he knows how to: fix their finances.

That opens the door to the other bit of commentary on the standard isekai plot. Seiichiro isn't a hero by any means; he's what Yua unkindly calls a corporate drone, and by god, the man can do math. Of course, he's used to doing it on a scale that requires him to exist on energy drinks and no sleep, but hey, if it worked in Japan, it should work here, right? Yeah, no. Like with Sei in The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent, Seiichiro's work ethic absolutely horrifies everyone who witnesses it, and when his new buddy Norbert tries to help by introducing him to “nutritional tonics,” things go badly. It turns out that Seiichiro doesn't have the same antibodies to “magicules,” and the energy drinks have basically caused him to overdose.

What's the only cure? An injection of someone else's magic. This is a BL series. I'll give you three guesses how that's going to work, and the first two don't count.

Sarcasm and plot contrivances aside, the romance element of these first three episodes is quite well handled. Episode one, before Aresh finds Seiichiro overdosing, spends a long time with him in the background. Seiichiro isn't aware of him, but we viewers can see Aresh watching the other man. Although his stoic face doesn't give anything much away, it still feels clear that he's drawn to, or at least fascinated by, Seiichiro, something borne out in episodes two and three. Seiichiro may think that he and Aresh had an emergency one-night stand (Aresh's face when Seiichiro runs out the next morning is priceless), but the knight captain clearly does not agree. I'm not sure we can call it love at first sight, but the alacrity with which he throws himself into Seiichiro's life is truly impressive. Aresh is invested in Seiichiro's well-being, and it's not just because he saved him with a magic “injection.” Even Yua, who is not the most perceptive person, is starting to figure that out.

You know who else is going to figure it out? Whoever just hit Seiichiro over the head. I don't think this relationship is going to stay secret for much longer…Seiichiro's feelings about being romantically involved with someone younger notwithstanding.

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