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Al's Anime Reviews - The Ossan Newbie Adventurer
a year ago
Rick Gladiator is a guild clerk who strives to become an adventurer. Common sense dictates that it's best to start the path of an adventurer at a young age, as it takes a lot of training to gain magical powers. However, Rick started after he turned 30. Thanks to working with Orichalcum Fist, a legendary party of the most powerful adventurers in the land, he's already lived an unimaginable life with top-ranking fighting abilities. With skills honed by literal "Monster-class" masters from dragons to vampires, Rick takes on one elite adventurer after another.
Two minutes into this episode, my computer abruptly decided that connecting to the internet was a bad plan, and it took me 20 minutes to convince it otherwise. Is this event connected to how unimpressive the episode is? I can't prove it, but the thought did occur to me. Mostly though, what's disappointing here is that we've seen so many of these same story elements in better shows, most notably Suppose a Kid From the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, which has a similar concept of someone with no real idea of how strong they are believing themselves to be weak and unimpressive. The only major change is that our hero this time is, by shonen anime standards, old.
I'm gonna be generous and give the premiere of The Ossan Newbie Adventurer a little bonus point on account of how it managed to make me laugh exactly two times. Yes, the bar is that low by now. Anyway, the first time I chuckled was when our hero-guy Rick got all confused about how pathetic a snobby little mage boy's fire magic is, seeing as his trainer would fling fireballs ten times that size at him just for fun. After that, Rick douses everyone at the hero test place with a bunch of green slime that reminded me of watching Uh-Oh! back in the day (this didn't make me laugh, but it made me feel vaguely amused for a second, so I'll allow it). The second laugh came much later when the mage boy's sister was dueling Rick for her brother's honour or whatever. At the end of the fight, she trips over a rock and skids face-first into Rick's fist, which results in her flying off like a pinwheel. I will not pretend that these were smart or well-constructed jokes, but hey, sometimes my inner 12-year-old wins out.
Sadly, those two mildly funny scenes were just about all Ossan Newbie Adventurer had up its sleeve. The rest of it is the same old thing we've seen a million times by now, except this time the gimmick isn't that the comically overpowered MC uses a weird class or has some convoluted rules that his powers have to follow. He's just...older than your average adventurer. If you just take any of the "My Overpowered Whosimawhatsit is Helping Me Conquerize the Dungeonmajig!” shows we get every season and paste the words "But you're 32 years old!" into the dialogue every two minutes, then you've got Ossan Newbie Adventurer in its entirety. I wouldn't even be surprised if that was the exact method the creators used to make the damn thing.
It's a shame too, because as a man well into his 30s, I'm all for anime that dare to focus on characters old enough to rent a car and accrue crippling amounts of debt and lower back pain. I wouldn't even mind the brazen laziness of the storytelling if it bothered to throw in even one scrap of interesting characterization or worldbuilding that related to Rick being a first-time adventurer at 32. There are plenty of funny parallels you could make to switching careers in the modern day or trying to balance a new job with keeping the old bills paid and all that. But no, the fact that Rick has the cajones to still exist after the age of 29 is just a minor gimmick that's being exploited to keep Ossan Newbie Adventurer from being sued for copyright infringement.
The thing is, as a comedy, the show just isn't funny. There's a single joke, repeated ad nauseam: Rick thinks he's weak. Everyone around him assumes the same because he didn't start training as an adventurer until he was 30. Then he does something absurdly powerful and everyone around him sits there, slack-jawed, buggy-eyed! Sometimes his busty partymate gives him advice while staring blankly ahead. And it's all done with zero comic timing or flare. Seriously, it can't be overstated just how stale the single joke of "Rick thinks he's a weakling but is secretly a god in human form" gets in just this one episode. That's partly because this exact same goddamn joke has been used in countless other shows just like this one, where everyone underestimates our secretly legendary protagonist, only to have their minds blown to smitheroons when he scores infinity on every test. There's even the standard joke where the magic testing device flunks him because he's too powerful for it to read. Every single angle that's ever been used in this type of setting to mislabel a protagonist as an underdog so they can immediately prove all their one-dimensional haters wrong is here in succession, and they're all as boring as they were the first time.
But I'd still take all that over the eight-minute fight sequence that consists entirely of an arrogant lady knight who rarely speaks below a shriek running at Rick while bragging about her speed as he stands stock still and marvels at how slow she is. I kind of get how he feels though--I felt the same way watching the progress bar inch along.
That could perhaps be remedied if any of the characters had some kind of engaging personality, but everyone here is as flat as the humor. Rick's sole defining characteristic is that he's 32, so everyone thinks he's old and dumb and a big wimpy loser who belongs at Weenie Hut Jr's until he punches a hole through a castle wall. His elf maid companion Reanette provides emotionless support and a pair of breasts for Rick and the audience to stare at whenever things get boring, which is always. Reanette is also introduced tits-first, which is never a good sign. This, we quickly learn, is absolutely Rick's point of view, as Reanette remarks that her eyes are up here, thank you very much, while Rick denies that he's got her breasts in his sights with the single-minded fixation of a dog staring someone down for their sandwich. Then when the aforementioned screamy lady knight Angelica shows up, her coat is carefully tailored to frame her chest. Add in that the best-animated scene in the whole episode is the guild receptionist leaning forward while her breasts squish onto the counter, and we know what value this show places on its female cast.
Speaking of the animation, 90% of this premiere looks like ass. Not good ass either, I'm talking some flat, tiny Hank Hill ass. It's constantly struggling to find any consistency between scenes. The brief action moments are stiff and awkward, straining to convey any movement at all, let alone something with tangible impact. In combination with the repetitive humor and obnoxious characters, it makes for a premiere that feels three times longer than it is.
This is the point where I thought of trying to say something positive, because first impressions aren't always accurate, I've absolutely been wrong before and I'd very much like this show to prove itself, but I'm struggling this time because the unattractive art, the lackluster animation, the repetetive humor and the way it treats its female characters aren't giving me much hope.
Two minutes into this episode, my computer abruptly decided that connecting to the internet was a bad plan, and it took me 20 minutes to convince it otherwise. Is this event connected to how unimpressive the episode is? I can't prove it, but the thought did occur to me. Mostly though, what's disappointing here is that we've seen so many of these same story elements in better shows, most notably Suppose a Kid From the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, which has a similar concept of someone with no real idea of how strong they are believing themselves to be weak and unimpressive. The only major change is that our hero this time is, by shonen anime standards, old.
I'm gonna be generous and give the premiere of The Ossan Newbie Adventurer a little bonus point on account of how it managed to make me laugh exactly two times. Yes, the bar is that low by now. Anyway, the first time I chuckled was when our hero-guy Rick got all confused about how pathetic a snobby little mage boy's fire magic is, seeing as his trainer would fling fireballs ten times that size at him just for fun. After that, Rick douses everyone at the hero test place with a bunch of green slime that reminded me of watching Uh-Oh! back in the day (this didn't make me laugh, but it made me feel vaguely amused for a second, so I'll allow it). The second laugh came much later when the mage boy's sister was dueling Rick for her brother's honour or whatever. At the end of the fight, she trips over a rock and skids face-first into Rick's fist, which results in her flying off like a pinwheel. I will not pretend that these were smart or well-constructed jokes, but hey, sometimes my inner 12-year-old wins out.
Sadly, those two mildly funny scenes were just about all Ossan Newbie Adventurer had up its sleeve. The rest of it is the same old thing we've seen a million times by now, except this time the gimmick isn't that the comically overpowered MC uses a weird class or has some convoluted rules that his powers have to follow. He's just...older than your average adventurer. If you just take any of the "My Overpowered Whosimawhatsit is Helping Me Conquerize the Dungeonmajig!” shows we get every season and paste the words "But you're 32 years old!" into the dialogue every two minutes, then you've got Ossan Newbie Adventurer in its entirety. I wouldn't even be surprised if that was the exact method the creators used to make the damn thing.
It's a shame too, because as a man well into his 30s, I'm all for anime that dare to focus on characters old enough to rent a car and accrue crippling amounts of debt and lower back pain. I wouldn't even mind the brazen laziness of the storytelling if it bothered to throw in even one scrap of interesting characterization or worldbuilding that related to Rick being a first-time adventurer at 32. There are plenty of funny parallels you could make to switching careers in the modern day or trying to balance a new job with keeping the old bills paid and all that. But no, the fact that Rick has the cajones to still exist after the age of 29 is just a minor gimmick that's being exploited to keep Ossan Newbie Adventurer from being sued for copyright infringement.
The thing is, as a comedy, the show just isn't funny. There's a single joke, repeated ad nauseam: Rick thinks he's weak. Everyone around him assumes the same because he didn't start training as an adventurer until he was 30. Then he does something absurdly powerful and everyone around him sits there, slack-jawed, buggy-eyed! Sometimes his busty partymate gives him advice while staring blankly ahead. And it's all done with zero comic timing or flare. Seriously, it can't be overstated just how stale the single joke of "Rick thinks he's a weakling but is secretly a god in human form" gets in just this one episode. That's partly because this exact same goddamn joke has been used in countless other shows just like this one, where everyone underestimates our secretly legendary protagonist, only to have their minds blown to smitheroons when he scores infinity on every test. There's even the standard joke where the magic testing device flunks him because he's too powerful for it to read. Every single angle that's ever been used in this type of setting to mislabel a protagonist as an underdog so they can immediately prove all their one-dimensional haters wrong is here in succession, and they're all as boring as they were the first time.
But I'd still take all that over the eight-minute fight sequence that consists entirely of an arrogant lady knight who rarely speaks below a shriek running at Rick while bragging about her speed as he stands stock still and marvels at how slow she is. I kind of get how he feels though--I felt the same way watching the progress bar inch along.
That could perhaps be remedied if any of the characters had some kind of engaging personality, but everyone here is as flat as the humor. Rick's sole defining characteristic is that he's 32, so everyone thinks he's old and dumb and a big wimpy loser who belongs at Weenie Hut Jr's until he punches a hole through a castle wall. His elf maid companion Reanette provides emotionless support and a pair of breasts for Rick and the audience to stare at whenever things get boring, which is always. Reanette is also introduced tits-first, which is never a good sign. This, we quickly learn, is absolutely Rick's point of view, as Reanette remarks that her eyes are up here, thank you very much, while Rick denies that he's got her breasts in his sights with the single-minded fixation of a dog staring someone down for their sandwich. Then when the aforementioned screamy lady knight Angelica shows up, her coat is carefully tailored to frame her chest. Add in that the best-animated scene in the whole episode is the guild receptionist leaning forward while her breasts squish onto the counter, and we know what value this show places on its female cast.
Speaking of the animation, 90% of this premiere looks like ass. Not good ass either, I'm talking some flat, tiny Hank Hill ass. It's constantly struggling to find any consistency between scenes. The brief action moments are stiff and awkward, straining to convey any movement at all, let alone something with tangible impact. In combination with the repetitive humor and obnoxious characters, it makes for a premiere that feels three times longer than it is.
This is the point where I thought of trying to say something positive, because first impressions aren't always accurate, I've absolutely been wrong before and I'd very much like this show to prove itself, but I'm struggling this time because the unattractive art, the lackluster animation, the repetetive humor and the way it treats its female characters aren't giving me much hope.
I mean Kafka from Kaiju no. 8 is in his thirties but he also is a hero, you are never too old to do things
