Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire ♀

Marinate1016★ 10

It’s always a bitter sweet moment saying goodbye to your favourite anime in a given season. Now that it’s over, I have nothing but positive things to say about Auo. I will remember this show very fondly and miss it a lot. Three things make Auo stand out for me among reincarnation/fantasy shows I’ve seen in the past. One, the gender swap gimmick with Inglis originally being an old man and reincarnating as a hot waifu. For two, Inglis’ love of fighting strong opponents. She’s very much a meathead in the same vein as Goku, but way smarter and cuter obviously. Lastly, I love MCsthat want to do their own thing rather than saving the world or defeating demon lords etc. Inglis’ main goal is to live a lowkey life as her cousin’s squire. Because of her lack of a magic crest, she is often looked down on by this classist society. Of course, in traditional fantasy fashion, even though she doesn’t have a magic crest she is still OP which makes for some great moments in the show. Seeing the look on peoples’ faces after underestimating her only to get the worst beat down of their lives was great.After seeing the consequences of her decisions in her past life as king, she wants to avoid a repeat of those mistakes. This led some people to call her a bad MC and call out the writing, when in reality her actions and laissez-faire attitude towards certain events are extremely consistent with who she is and what the author establishes from episode 1. She’s not your typical MC and that’s why I love her. The world building in the show is actually really good, but it seems like they just ran out of time to answer everything. I’d also imagine that’s the same in the LN since you have to have something to keep people coming back to the story. But in anime form it was a little frustrating because of how interesting the world they set up was, only for it to not be expanded on more. The kingdom that Inglis ruled in the past is substantially different from that of today. Why and how that happened is one of the central mysteries of the story that we didn’t really see explained which was disappointing. Some other mysteries were teased as well that never got expanded upon, but again I’m sure that’s just an issue with the limited run. This didn’t really affect my enjoyment of the story at all though, I was here for Inglis and her cousin Rani and they delivered as a dynamic duo consistently so no complaints from me. One area where the show is definitely lacking is animation. I believe it’s a smaller studio, so that is probably down to budgetary and staffing issues, but many action scenes were quite bad. For a show about a battle junkie, you can see how that would be an issue. The art style is quite different, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it. I saw a few people describe it as Hentai-esque, I wouldn’t go that far, but it definitely has a unique look to it that some people may not like. I personally loved it. Pacing is great, haven’t read much of the LN yet to comment on if they skipped a lot or not, but from an anime only perspective I was never bored, nor did I feel rushed in any points. Auo was pretty easily my anime of the season. After a couple of shows came out hot and then fell off, this one just stayed consistent for me. Inglis earned her way into my top waifus and I even purchased the digital LN for this because there are no physicals, which I never do since I hate digital. If that’s not a testament to how good this show was for me, I don’t know what is. Auo gets a very easy 10 out of 10.

KANLen09★ 5

Isekai/fantasy plots are becoming more typical, but haphazard, because for every one copy that came out in the AniManga space, another one is ready to take its place. And set pieces, especially ones that take the tropes to a whole new level, there're many that tries to follow the trend to variable degrees of mediocrity, such is the case with novelist Hayaken's Eiyuu-ou, Bu wo Kiwameru Tame Tenseisu: Soshite, Sekai Saikyou no Minarai Kishi♀ a.k.a Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire ♀. Just in case you'd forget due to STM or something, we've actually seen a show like this before: last Winter'sKenja no Deshi wo Nanoru Kenja a.k.a She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man, which has an old man who is the strongest of his own world, through some form of means, shrink down to their youthful self, with the strange caveat that it's the "magical sex shift" trope of being a girl to do whatever the heck he feels like doing, now in a new skin of a girl. It's the same for this story, where lies the Hero-King Inglis in the Kingdom of Silvare, reaching the top of his calibre establishing his kingdom, with the only regret that he didn't achieved to be a master swordsman. Lying on his bed and ready for the natural death, with the one final wish from the goddess of the land to fulfill, and there goes the typical reincarnation phase of King Inglis, into a young woman (at the behest of the goddess), known as Inglis Eucus, ready to be Reborn to Master the Blade. The transformation from the Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire♀, Inglis, better known by her nickname as Chris, finds that other than retaining parts of her previous life, like liking only women and seeing her friends as grandchildren, the magic case use is somewhat different as well: in her old world, magic exists in the form of Aether, but in the reincarnated world, humanity has lost its meaning to use magic, so much so that the replacement for it is in the form of Runes that allow the use of magical Artifacts to fight the commonplace monsters of magicite beasts, formed by Prism powder falling on them. Together with her maternal cousin Rafinha "Rani" Bilford, the world is explored at large where even the typical "nobles vs. commoners" formula is referenced by people who live on the Surface (a.k.a Earth), as opposed to people living in the Highlands: a floating island where the rich lives in nobility from the tributes and supplies it gets from down below, to offer Artifacts to the kingdoms in return. Yelp, please bear with me...because it gets even more confusing than this. If you thought that what I've mentioned so far is tolerable enough, this next bit will make you question more: there exists special people who can turn into Artifacts, and they're recognized as the Hyral Menas. These people are treated more specially because of their temperamental uniqueness, and such prominent people are the beast girls Eris and Ripple, who can use her powers to summon magicite beasts. But there is one such magical beast that is the strongest: the Prismer, which can only be taken down by Holy Knights with a special type of Rune and wielding the Hyral Menas. They are a rare bunch and are treated as valuable assets, as such with Rani's older brother-cum-Chris's cousin Rafael. And this is on top of the usual "good vs. evil" conflict factions of the Highlanders and the anti-group that is the Bloodchain Brigade, the Knight Academy that sees both Inglis and Rani meet people like Leone Olfa, with the vendetta of getting back at her brother Leon for joining the Bloodchain Brigade as a sign of betrayal and getting shunned by the general public, to redeem her family's honour, to Liselotte Arcia joining for the ride, for she can grow angel wings and fly. Oh dear Lord, is this a case of a work that's too overly designed and complicated for its own good... I have no issues with how Inglis does her job in the new reincarnated world, but more so that her magic itself is played like a parody-sue OP for comedic purposes, using her Aether in a world where even with Runes, only those who had the semblance of the past magic will use it to their full advantage, since the world at that point hasn't experienced magic like Inglis's before. Rather than become yet another noble, her mission in her reincarnation stage is to be an extraordinary squire (hence the series's name), and so that's her train of thought when she enrolls to the typical magic academy to become Rani's squire, to fight against strong humans and monsters alike. Inglis is "Runeless", because that's a choice she makes, because her Aether power is something that must not be known nor found out, for it'll bend the rules of magic that'll benign the potential destruction of the world. And then there's her cousin Rani, which like a leech, feeds off her cousin's extravagance, which isn't a bad thing per se...but on the level of being obnoxious and showcasing too much is the breaking point for me, going closer to Yuri territory when in fact despite Inglis's love for girls, this show need not point out that fact as emphasized as it should be. The sister and cousin's companions Leone and Liselotte... are frankly quite typical and nothing special if you want that "harem" style, even in a girls' troupe. Same likewise with the Hyral Menas, though they are at least of interest...mild ones to be exact. The last notable show produced from famed Initial D studio Studio Comet was the sci-fi "ode to 1970s" Chougattai Majutsu Robo Ginguiser parody series RobiHachi all the way back in Spring 2019, and I really kinda liked that show on an on-and-off basis of it being a decent fun time. Other than the Ikemen series Fairy Ranmaru (which frankly I barr this show with absolute hatred), this is a return to form for the studio 2 years later after said series being its first Isekai/fantasy produced show, and this is where I really have to give credit where credit is due: the studio's production on this show is...dare I say, spectacular at times, though I feel that like the original source material being complicated, the visuals can be very inconsistent, with certain sections being very striking (e.g. in the case for outlining Inglis's boobalicious young woman's body) and some others just being sorta a weird 2D background mish-mash of sorts. Nah, it's too overly designed and heavily focused on the fanservice too at times. And this is one of those times where too much can never be a good thing. One weird choice I find is with the music, especially the OP. I kinda like the song that was sung by AUO feat. Win Morisaki, it's no doubt a good one outside of the show, but when in context, it...just doesn't quite mesh together...? Many a times I keep questioning whether the song and the show's thematics were one and the same at the very beginning, but overtime, I just got used to it, and it came out decent. For Yui Nishio, this is her 2nd Anisong since Fall 2021's Shin no Nakama's OP debut (which still to this day, "Beautiful Day" is such a nice and soothing debut of an Anisong), and her ED song "Self-Hug Big Love" follows that exact calm, yet slow upbeat trend of hers, into a song all on its own. It's also good. Isekai trash can still be fun, it depends on the context. But when shows like this has too much infodump that leaves you wondering how both the anime and its source material glances that and never looks back into simple explanation, the show will lose its audience retainership fast. And to befit the curse even further, this Isekai/fantasy show is also nothing special, but of an OP power fantasy that knows how to parody itself too much that it becomes boring quickly. Damn, what a shame that the original source material is trying to be too many things all at once and has no cohesive plot that's more than enough for the audience to shun this like the plague that it is. I can only recommend this if you allow yourself to be dumbfounded by infodump that doesn't take itself seriously, and of everything else being a parody that at the end of the day, leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Yuck, this Isekai/fantasy show is intolerable.