Anime Review: In Another World With My Smartphone

In Another World With My Smartphone (UK Rating: PG)

After initially arriving in the world, Touya lucks into some cash by having a merchant buy his clothes off him for a considerable amount of cash, giving him some bank to get started. Then, after meeting up with a pair of young, beautiful, twin lady adventurers, it seems this could be a slow tale of him learning to read, starting to take on the most basic of quests, and finding his life here… but, of course, that doesn't happen. Isekai series are all based on a simple power fantasy - being able to enter another world, especially a fantasy world, with special powers, to have a real-life version of becoming the protagonist of an RPG. In Another World With My Smartphone swings heavily to the overpowered protagonist. Touya arrives with his stats set to maximum and just happens to become the most powerful magic user in the world.

Individuals in this world have the potential to cast magic, should they have an affinity for it. The most skilled have an affinity for between one and three elements from the seven. Some have a unique special spell from the strange seventh element known as null. Touya just happens to have an affinity for every single element. If that wasn't overpowered enough, he is also able to cast any and all null spell, just by hearing about it. He's practically a god in this world. He also happens to stumble upon a coat, which nullifies damage from magic that he has an affinity for, with the double-edged sword that he would take double damage from magic he doesn't have an affinity for, of which… there are none...

The art and animation are as uninspired as the story. The adaptation comes from Production Reed and it feels like it had nothing to say with this series. It has put out a few decent series, but little that really stands out. The team is known best for the classic Vampire Hunter D from 1985, and Azumanga Daioh from 2002. The character designs are utterly forgettable and fall into age-old tropes. Touya gets an edgy long coat, while his face and hair are generic anime protagonist looks through and through. The girls in his party are generic samurai girl, a duo of purple-haired fantasy twins, blonde loli princess, and a gothic loli queen of the fairies who is actually 600 years old. The animations are worse… with the few action scenes looking particularly terrible.

This release comes with both the original Japanese dub and a new English dub. Considering the series is a relatively minor release, the English voice cast is surprisingly impressive, with serious veterans such as Josh Grelle, Chris Sabat, and Monica Riel in attendance. The Japanese is not quite as star-studded, although it does include the superb Akasaki Chinatsu (Nakiri Alice from Shokugeki no Soma). On the bonus feature front, there is the usual textless opening and closing and a brief animation collection, along with an audio commentary of Episode 8 and a video commentary of Episode 2 with the English cast.

3/10

Bad

Some anime fans tend to think of Isekai as a four-letter word these days, but that isn't necessarily always the case. There are some fantastic shows out there, but sadly In Another World With My Smartphone isn't one of them. There's no hook, no twist, nothing to keep the viewer interested. The quality across the board is low, from the presentation, to the characters, to the narrative - all just poor.