My Isekai Life

Episode 8

My Isekai Life continues its trend of sticking close to genre conventions, but that isn't holding it back from delivering an enjoyable weekly experience.

The basics of episode 8 are simple enough: Yuji wants better armor for his slimes and Proud Wolf, and the smith requires certain materials to make them. Those materials can only be found by slaying certain monsters. So off he goes to slay those monsters. Hijinks ensue.

It's a relatable enough plot if you have played basically any roleplaying game over the past forty-odd years. You want the best gear for your party? Well you better get out there and grind monsters until those loot rolls go your way. Heck, if I try and reflect on how many hours I have spent grinding for endgame gear in the Dragon Quest series alone I'd probably have to change my name and move to a different state out of embarrassment (and I'm sure my total hours pale in comparison to others).

The episode is mostly a bunch of goober dragons getting farmed for jewel drops. Nothing about it is all that mesmerizing, but it does look pretty darn good when Yuji is launching spells through his slimes. But most importantly, we get a great sequence where the slimes and Proud Wolf try out their brand new gear and absolutely love it. Seeing a tiny slime friend in a tiny cap is enough to keep me going in this dark, cruel world.

There are a few other little touches that make this one fun. First of all, the existence of a survey team is a nice bit of worldbuilding. Plenty of fantasy settings have adventurer's guilds and the like, but I've yet to encounter this idea of a guild having a survey team go out to scout and verify rumors of new monster developments. It's a pretty logical thing for a guild to do in hindsight, but the concept was novel enough to me that it stood out as a fun twist on an existing formula, and a sign that My Isekai Life is a little more thoughtful about the fixtures of its genre compared to its peers.

I also just really liked the visual reference to Godzilla from the giant lava dragon at the end. I'm a simple creature, and My Isekai Life is pandering to my basest desires.

Rating:

My Isekai Life is currently streaming on HIDIVE.