A calmer episode to catch-up on some much needed backstory and world-building. Also saves budget.

One wonders why the Demon Lord created a creature and then made them a dungeon boss. Does the Demon Lord have some access to the system then?

Oh my, what a twist, nobody could have seen that coming. I definitely did not see this happening since episode 1. Now withot Commander Saran to invent Saran wrap, now all our food will spoil.

Anyway, another episode of cramming 2-3 eps worth of content it.

The MC revealing himself to the princess is an obvious rookie mistake. But this mistake is to demonstrate that our MC is not a "Kirito" that is has plot armour and impervious to screw-ups. But if this is a one-time thing, then it's not really good character growth or progression. Also, finally another Isekai MC where the goal is "I want to go home."

Judging by how the King is turning the heroes into pawns, I'm hoping this is not going to be another, the villian was infront of you this whole time, type of thing. Quite cliche. I found Frieren's, they are bad and always bad quite refreshing, honestly. But sure, let's hope it gets more interesting.

The show is still in the midst of setting up a bunch of mysteries after all to be resolved later.

Also, busty elf companion who is also a princess. Yay, Fanservice. Also fanservice ED with a banger song.

The character designs felt so nostalgic. Then I saw that it is being animated by Sunrise. So that explains it. It feels like I'm watching a late 90s or 2000s anime.

Standard old-school Isekai where the entire class gets teleported to another world. Though there is some subtle nuance. Apparently they "responded" to the call of being summoned. What does that mean?

World-building: Architecture suggests a setting closer to the renassiance era (Not medieval). They've also use magic to construct some modern-equivalents of technology like survelliance cameras. Always love those small details.

The MC is not useless, nor an outcast. He actually has some semblance of a personality. He also is initially cautious and doesn't take everything at face value (Shield Hero could learn from him).

Anyway from what I grasp. The term "Hero" referes to a class with certain attributes. So my guess is that if the MC's stats are is "stronger" than the Hero despite not being a "Hero" class. It could mean that the "World" or "System" simply chose the MC to be the real "Hero."

By the way, has anyone noticed that the Dungeon's exterior art is modelled after the literal Biblical Tower of Babel. Is this deliberate? What the hell is going on here.

I'm not a big fan of one-dimensional villians. But if they're played straight as in this show, it's fine with me. Let's face it, real people like that do exist so it is not absurd.

Also many recent anime have played the sympathetic villian card, so a punching bag villian is quite refreshing.

The MC being a supposed genius but also lacking in general self-awareness is likely to allow the android companion to better fit into her role. Though it is rather forced. I'd like to see if the MC keeps being generally daft, or if he gets "better" over time.

I'm loving the backstory and plot, the mysterious evil organisation that hoards tech and resources is not too far fetched. Let's face it, if there is a global catastrophe, the nations of the world would hand over power to form an international organisation that if it fell into the wrong hands, would easily take over. It's a bit too realistic on that front.

The animation direction is mediocre and compounds the paltry animation budget.

Seems like J.C. Staff is too busy animating "My Gift Lvl 999" to bother with give One Punch Man S3 some proper justice. Can they not produce 3 animes in one season if they can't handle it. I mean, "Vivy" was produced by Wit Studio's B team.

Seems like the MC managed to get a lizardman husband before meeting any fanservice characters.

They definitely had a long "talk" that night.

Late comment lol. I gave this anime a pass when it first aired, but since it showed up on Netflix. I decided to give it a go.

Wasn't a big fan of the "Neopolitan man" arc and everything before episode 14.

I expected a boring death game nonsense, a la, Mirai Nikki. But my expectations were subverted.
This anime is the reason why I even watch anime in the first place. To see deep, mind-boggling philosophical concepts shoved into a boring death game work of fiction.

That "epilogue" was basically the hidden climax of the show and the destruction of life on Earth the final resolution. But, something this complex would have definitely passed over many people.

Here is my intepretation of the ending:

1. "God / Creature" exists in the "past." It is revealed in the anime that "God" experiences time slower than Earth and the rest of the universe. When "God" committed suicide, their death would occur in the "past" which explains why in the ending, Earth is shown to have changed into a completely different planet. It doesn't explain why the buildings were still there and decayed, perhaps the change to the timeline only affected life on Earth and non-living things remained unaffected.

2. God interacted with "LUCA", the "Last Common Universe Ancestor" which are theorised to be the first lifeforms on Earth and gave rise to all life on Earth as we know it today. Some of the "LUCA" that interacted with God / Creature then became the angel Nasse. Thus, "God / Creature" interfered with life on Earth in the distant past. The "death" of God could have erased their entire existence. God never interfered with "LUCA" and life on Earth progressed differently, perhaps never giving rise to Humans or even multi-cellular lifeforms. Which is why all life on Earth vanished.

3. The universe in this show is Deterministic (All actions can only occur from prior actions, events) and Eternal (The past, present and future all exist at the same time). This means that the future is fixed. Which is explained by the professor when he stipulates that humanity will already go extinct. So this likely means that God / Creature's suicide was inevitable as a way for humanity to go extinct.

How does that explain the ending?

The professor mentions that humanity would have gone extinct by doing two things:
1) Achieving Immortality
2) Transcending time.

In a deterministic and eternal universe, that would mean an Immortal and Transcended civilisation would know every event that happened, in the past, present and future. Combined with Immortality, that would make for an incredibly BORING LIFE where you are basically a slave to determinism, you are forced to perform every action DESPITE knowing that you are about to take that action and have no way to change it.

Basically, a deterministic and eternal universe has no free will and the flow of time is an illusion. Unevolved humanity believes they have free will and that time flows because they have not evolved beyong seeing through that illusion.

So where does God come into play? God was created by these Immortal and Transcended civilisation(s) or Beings as a means to create a form of life that could destroy them. Which explains why God "came" to Earth as it was in its primodial state 4 billion years ago or so.

A "true" God, as humans of our real world believe in, would have created the universe and existed since the dawn of time.

So, the fact that humanity perishes at the end of the anime is a GOOD THING. It was the only way to avoid becoming immortal and transcended in that universe which would basically be "Hell."

Because the end result would be that humanity advances to the point of 1) Achieving Immortality and 2) Transcending Time. Thus succumbing to the despair of being in a Deterministic and Eternal universe and trapped to play things out as intended without any free will despite being able to "see" the cogs of the machine so to say.

Think of "Nietzsche's Eternal Return." Imagine if you lived your life and the after you die, you came back with all your memories and had to live the same life down to the last detail, and repeated that over and over and over and over and over again. That is how life is like for the "transcended" beings. Which explains why they wanted to die and resorted to creating "God / Creature" to create life (on Earth it was humans) that could have eventually evolved into something that could kill them.

I give the ending a 10/10. Incredible.

Finally, a speculative science fiction anime that asks questions about soon to be real world issues.

Production quality was fine. It's not an action anime. My main issue is that some topics are not explained well. For example episode 10 where the humanoid murders a random woman to "thwart" the Super AI. The reason behind it is not well explained (I already know what he is trying to do, but the rest of the audience might not).

The anime handles the topics of "identity of the self" and "continuity of the self" really well. Though I wish they would delve a little deeper.

The show is an 8/10 for me. I wish it had better directing.

Edit: The point of having a baby in the intro was to be creepy.

This is pretty much what the Japanese government expects should another "Great Kanto Earthquake" strike (Minus the part where the Tokyo Skytree collapses since it is designed to handle big Earthquakes).

Meanwhile, the Nankai Trough Earthquake is projected to wreck every city facing the Pacific in South Japan. The usual planning you need to do when living on one of the most seismically active regions on the Planet.

Deus ex Machina was my favourite character. It even appeared twice in a row.

The first season closely followed the manga, some scenes were ripped straight from it. Though with mediocre animation. Hopefully the 2nd season will see an animation bump. Not holding my breath on that.

I regret eating while watching this episode. The part where she slides out of the monster's mouth is hilarious.

Wow, it took 6 episodes for S2 to officially start. Yay... Why are they padding out the story so much? One of the reasons why S1 is so good was the faster pacing.

Trying to figure out why people "hate" a particular anime is as challenging as figuring out why people "like" certain anime. The premise of the show is intriguing to say the least, the characters aren't completely generic and the world-building has been great (Except for a few brief info-dumps here and there).

I was surprised by the great animation. But now I just feel sad that JC Staff had gone so downhill in recent years that mediocre animation became the norm.

Kind of weird to see Giant titans swimming underwater without any problems. I mean physics? What's that? Also I don't think the producers know what "Final" means...

And Souma's harem keeps growing faster than the speed of light. I honestly didn't expect the author to take the idea of political marriages so seriously. At this rate Souma will be marrying into the royal families of every kingdom on the continent.

This is just my interpretation of the events, maybe the source material explains it better. And I could be 100% Wrong.

From what I gather, the issue is that nations that signed on the "Mankind Declaration" could hypothetically invade non-signatory nations (and also it actually happened with Amidonia) and when those nations retaliate in kind like what Souma is doing right now, they could then invoke the Declaration to hide behind the Empire's superior military might.

Souma is trying to prevent such an event from becoming status quo by making it clear that nations who use the declaration will have to pay compensation to non-signatory nations they invade. In addition to that, the "secret alliance" is to demonstrate to other signatory nations that non-signatory nations can also have close ties with the Empire. Souma sending his country's troops to the neutral (from his perspective) and Mankind declaration signatories, the "Union of Eastern nations" is a signal that the Empire and the Kingdom have developed a close strategic relationship.

This also sets a precedent for other non-signatory nations to do the same should they wish to do so and sends the message to signatory nations that they can no longer hide behind the "Mankind declaration" to initiate hostilities against their non-signatory neighbours, because their neighbours might also be allies with the Empire.

I like how the 1st episode immediately begins with the "pay off" from the last season. It is really satisfying to see Souma putting the Prince in his place. Though I see the animation budget is still about $20...

The most consistent thing about this series is the weird and irregular pacing. Episode 5 was just right but now they're going really fast.