What’s the show? The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar, Episode 1.
That’s quite a mouthful! That’s not the only thing that’s a mouthful…
I wasn’t going to draw attention to it because I don’t normally reference the titles of these reviews, but really ‘Game of Boners’? What are you, twelve years old? Listen, listen, it’ll make sense in a minute just trust me on this one…
Fine… So what kind of show is this anyway? It’s an Isekai, you know protagonist ends up in another world—usually a vaguely fantasy one—for whatever reason! Except within the first few minutes there’s already some really interesting subversions to the genre that I found particularly refreshing!
Go on then… Well first of all the series doesn’t start with him going to another world but rather he’s already been in this world and for two years no less! What’s more he’s already ascended to the head of the ‘tribe’ known as the ‘Wolf Clan’ but most of that’s due to the assistance of his solar powered smart phone that lets him look up battle techniques and technology that puts his tribe ahead of all the others!
Stop. ‘Solar powered smartphone’? Really? And what’s more how does he connect to the Internet if he’s in another world? I’m getting to that! Geez!
Sorry, sorry…So here’s another ~interesting~ thing about this series, despite being in “another world” he’s at the very least determined that he’s still on Earth (due to the constellations) and that he’s somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere between the years 2000 and 1200BC. Also, he still has communication with the world he left behind, ‘Present Day, Japan’—as long as he’s near the crystal ball/disc he can communicate to his childhood friend Mitsuki via his smartphone. Whatever this crystal ball/disc/thing is it can seemingly transcend time and space!
Well, okay this does honestly sound kind of interesting. Is now the part where you completely ruin it for me by mentioning something distinctly ‘anime’ about this show? Ruin for you maybe, I think it’s a fine and fun harem anime!
Oh dear… The girl’s (and there’s a lot of them) in their skimpy outfits are the best, plus all of them try and get in the protagonists pants throughout the course of the episode.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear… There’s even a part where the main girl, stupendously busty Felicia wakes up our protagonist Yuuto and he’s sporting a bit of ‘morning wood’ which both her and his “daughter” Sigrun offer to give ‘release’ to.
No! What?
His daughter?! Oh calm down, all of the women in his Isekai life are designated as “sister” or “daughter”, they’re just honorary titles they’re not actually blood related, what do you think this is, Game of Thrones?!
That’s not the only reference to Game of Thrones you sought to draw parallel with this show is it? Surprisingly, no! Forgetting for a moment that Yuuto and co represent the wolf clan (aka the Stark’s) this series’ ‘Bronze Age’ semi-primitive aesthetic is very reminiscent of Game of Thrones, not to mention the bloodiness of the battle that opens the episode as well as some of the background music, and the allegiance based politics that feature throughout! I’m not saying this is the Game of Thrones equal in anime form, but there are significant parallels that I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention!
Okay fine. But what’s your opinion on the show? I like it… it has some issues but I think it could turn out to be a pretty good series on the whole!
“Issues” you say? Please do elaborate! Geez, someone’s keen for me to find fault with this show! Okay, so the two year thing (i.e. him having been living in this other world for two years before the show starts) is a double edged sword, while it puts us immediately into the action and forgoes a lot of teething troubles these types of shows may have early on it makes the tired harem tropes all the more obnoxious. Like he’s still all nervous and chaste around busty Felicia even after TWO WHOLE YEARS, I find that extremely hard to believe! Maybe the first couple of months, but not two years, there’s no way anyone would be saying no to a bit of “morning glory” with that blonde bombshell after that long away from home!
Maybe he’s in love with the childhood friend that he talks to on the phone and is saving himself for her… ever think of that Mr. Pervert Horndog? Oh, right, her…
Ugh, anything else you wanted to talk about? Nope, that’ll do for now…
Okay then… so do you recommend the series? There’s a lot of Isekai this season… or maybe I’m just watching more than normal… either way I think if this is your ‘thing’ you could do far worse than watching this series, while there’s some ~questionable~ behaviour both to and from some of the female characters I think a lot of it is pretty explainable by both the time this series is set and the kind of show it is. That said, if “harem shenanigans” aren’t your thing then your reasons for watching a probably slimmer and slimmer, I like the show, but I don’t expect it to be one that’ll be particularly memorable once it’s over.
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Anime QandA 
I’ll probably watch a bit more of this one but I’m not planning to review it. Hopefully it does something with its more interesting traits and doesn’t just become hopelessly generic but we’ll see how it goes. I already like the protagonist more than normal because he seems actually capable of making a decision every now and then so hopefully that continues.
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Yeah, having the series be two years after initially going to this ‘other world’ definitely helped the protagonist feel more accomplished.
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I thought this wasn’t bad. I don’t mind the girls making the moves on the guy in this fashion. Both isekai shows I’ve watched have been better than usual, although they still need to back off on the slavery-lite stuff, since this one has it still implied (even as Yuuto rejects the idea of making the Horn clan into slaves, Linnea is still kinda thinking that she’s gotta do what he tells her to…).
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‘Tis the Summer of Isekai slavery apparently!
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It’s actually not as bad as the last year has been. Like with Isekai Death March, which was all slavery all the time (on top of being tedious with the “being in a game and having to level up” bit). But then I also try to remember that a lot of these things are literally written by teenagers. And they’re inspired by the things they’ve been seeing, which are isekai shows with slaves. Ah well, it’s a phase, I think we’ll probably pass through it in another year.
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Didn’t watch Death March, sounds like I didn’t miss out on much! Wonder what the next trend will be after Isekai…
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Heh, I actually didn’t watch Isekai Death March either. I just heard about it from a friend who continued it. I found the first episode tedious, not because of slaves, but because of the boring monotone way that the main character kept discovering new abilities. It was just ponderous.
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