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Al's Anime Reviews - Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon
a month ago
When Light is kicked out of the Concord of the Tribes, his former comrades instantly turn on him. Light escapes this diabolical act of betrayal by the skin of his teeth, only to find himself in the deepest part of the Abyss, the most dangerous dungeon in the realm. To avoid being eaten by carnivorous monsters, he uses the Unlimited Gacha, his sole magical skill. But where it previously only produced junk items, this time Mei, a gorgeous Level 9999 fighter in a maid outfit, springs forth. Fast forward three years and Light has carved out his own kingdom in this backwater dungeon, summoning more beautiful max-level warriors who swear absolute fealty to him. Now a powerful overlord, Light plans to ascend to the surface and take revenge on his betrayers one by one.
And the award for Most Obnoxiously Long Title in Light Novel-Based Anime History goes to (y'all ready for this?)... Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon: My Trusted Companions Tried to Kill Me, But Thanks to the Gift of an Unlimited Gacha I Got LVL 9999 Friends and Am Out For Revenge on My Former Party Members! And if you think I'm ever typing all that out even once again in my life, you can go fuck yourself all the way to Big Bill Hell's!
God, what a muddy, ugly, mean-spirited, miserable time of a show. I often wonder how much the people producing these cynical light novel stories actually like these subgenres or the conventions they embody. Even the video game elements can feel tacked on out of obligation, to the point of forcing in mechanics that most people don't even like in games. So sure, the special power this week is gacha. Leading lad Light gets the power of "Unlimited Gacha", and seemingly never thinks to roll it more than two or three times at once. It produces useless trash and limits his options, but at least a multiracial party of encouraging adventures is here to welcome him into their fold anyway! Considering the title of this show is Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon, it's pretty easy to guess that things aren't going to go well.
Everything that sucks about this anime is laid painfully and embarrassingly bare in its title. I mean, Jesus, just look at it! It's equal parts insipid, pathetic, insulting and shamelessly on the nose. It proudly broadcasts the kind of petulant perspective that could only come ripped straight from the hastily scribbled journal entries of a maladapted, myopic teenager who refuses to even try developing the most basic of social skills. That queasy, sinking feeling that lodged into the pit of your gut when you read that title? That's exactly what watching the show is like, with the one difference being that reading the title doesn't steal an entire half-hour of your life away.
Stories of vengeful vindication can be engaging. Just look at May I Ask for One Final Thing?, which premiered the exact same day--that show made its case effectively, and seeing said vengeance was actually fun, like watching John Wick come after the monsters who killed his dog. The problem with Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon is that it has zero interest in context. The concepts and tone driving them exist purely for their own sake. Light feels useless and discriminated against because it appeals to the author and target audience for some reason. Humans as the oppressed race in a fantasy setting could be a fine, functional idea, but the story virtually skips over all of Light's time with his party of nonhuman false friends, jumping straight from being brought in to being betrayed for this exhaustingly detailed, cruel contrivance of a plot.
Getting the means to the vengeance is just as chimp-simple as setting up the circumstances in Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon. Everyone betrays you because they think you're dumb and gross? What if you could just summon girlfriends? What if you could just summon a sex maid who could fight for you and loved you unconditionally and thought you were the specialest boy and would never betray you? The contrivance of Light's "gift" is so transparent because the story doesn't even bother to detail the system under which other "gifts" in this world function. What do regularly "good" gifts look like? How do their users come into them? Seriously, is there any reason Light never thought to roll the dang thing more than a couple times when he knew, from its name, that it was "unlimited"? Who cares! It's gacha, you know how gacha works! Look, it's got card rarities just like in that mobile game you sunk a bunch of time and money into!
Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon exists in diametric opposition to the actually fun and thrilling revenge fantasies out there, like May I Ask for One Final Thing?, Taken, John Wick or The Count of Monte Cristo. Instead of offering a main character who's inspiring and cool, we get Light, an oblivious and pathetic dweeb undeserving of sharing his name with one of the best villain protagonists ever, whose entire personality has been precision-engineered to require maximum coddling from a gaggle of literal gacha summon waifus. Instead of a creative and compelling fantasy world, we're stuck with the same old stock MMORPG bullshit, watered down, filtered and recycled like Kevin Costner's piss. Instead of a cast of villains that are at least compellingly evil and stupid, Light's titular backstabbers are just a bunch of human-hating beastfolk and elves whose personalities begin and end at "We're the bad guys, yessiree!" The character designs are bargain-bin generic. The direction is completely phoned in. There is so little effort on display here that I'm shocked they even managed to work a word as inspired as "Backwater" into the title.
There's not even any good action in this, the fantasy world design and backgrounds are bland exercises in genericism, and the character designs are a mishmash of forgettable flailings of flair that make me go "Yeah, that's what I'd expect from a C-tier gacha game that inevitably dooms itself by collaborating with a far better IP." This show is begging for a pity roll from anyone it can appeal to, and the best thing for both it and the viewers is to just let it go dark.
And the award for Most Obnoxiously Long Title in Light Novel-Based Anime History goes to (y'all ready for this?)... Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon: My Trusted Companions Tried to Kill Me, But Thanks to the Gift of an Unlimited Gacha I Got LVL 9999 Friends and Am Out For Revenge on My Former Party Members! And if you think I'm ever typing all that out even once again in my life, you can go fuck yourself all the way to Big Bill Hell's!
God, what a muddy, ugly, mean-spirited, miserable time of a show. I often wonder how much the people producing these cynical light novel stories actually like these subgenres or the conventions they embody. Even the video game elements can feel tacked on out of obligation, to the point of forcing in mechanics that most people don't even like in games. So sure, the special power this week is gacha. Leading lad Light gets the power of "Unlimited Gacha", and seemingly never thinks to roll it more than two or three times at once. It produces useless trash and limits his options, but at least a multiracial party of encouraging adventures is here to welcome him into their fold anyway! Considering the title of this show is Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon, it's pretty easy to guess that things aren't going to go well.
Everything that sucks about this anime is laid painfully and embarrassingly bare in its title. I mean, Jesus, just look at it! It's equal parts insipid, pathetic, insulting and shamelessly on the nose. It proudly broadcasts the kind of petulant perspective that could only come ripped straight from the hastily scribbled journal entries of a maladapted, myopic teenager who refuses to even try developing the most basic of social skills. That queasy, sinking feeling that lodged into the pit of your gut when you read that title? That's exactly what watching the show is like, with the one difference being that reading the title doesn't steal an entire half-hour of your life away.
Stories of vengeful vindication can be engaging. Just look at May I Ask for One Final Thing?, which premiered the exact same day--that show made its case effectively, and seeing said vengeance was actually fun, like watching John Wick come after the monsters who killed his dog. The problem with Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon is that it has zero interest in context. The concepts and tone driving them exist purely for their own sake. Light feels useless and discriminated against because it appeals to the author and target audience for some reason. Humans as the oppressed race in a fantasy setting could be a fine, functional idea, but the story virtually skips over all of Light's time with his party of nonhuman false friends, jumping straight from being brought in to being betrayed for this exhaustingly detailed, cruel contrivance of a plot.
Getting the means to the vengeance is just as chimp-simple as setting up the circumstances in Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon. Everyone betrays you because they think you're dumb and gross? What if you could just summon girlfriends? What if you could just summon a sex maid who could fight for you and loved you unconditionally and thought you were the specialest boy and would never betray you? The contrivance of Light's "gift" is so transparent because the story doesn't even bother to detail the system under which other "gifts" in this world function. What do regularly "good" gifts look like? How do their users come into them? Seriously, is there any reason Light never thought to roll the dang thing more than a couple times when he knew, from its name, that it was "unlimited"? Who cares! It's gacha, you know how gacha works! Look, it's got card rarities just like in that mobile game you sunk a bunch of time and money into!
Backstabbed in a Backwater Dungeon exists in diametric opposition to the actually fun and thrilling revenge fantasies out there, like May I Ask for One Final Thing?, Taken, John Wick or The Count of Monte Cristo. Instead of offering a main character who's inspiring and cool, we get Light, an oblivious and pathetic dweeb undeserving of sharing his name with one of the best villain protagonists ever, whose entire personality has been precision-engineered to require maximum coddling from a gaggle of literal gacha summon waifus. Instead of a creative and compelling fantasy world, we're stuck with the same old stock MMORPG bullshit, watered down, filtered and recycled like Kevin Costner's piss. Instead of a cast of villains that are at least compellingly evil and stupid, Light's titular backstabbers are just a bunch of human-hating beastfolk and elves whose personalities begin and end at "We're the bad guys, yessiree!" The character designs are bargain-bin generic. The direction is completely phoned in. There is so little effort on display here that I'm shocked they even managed to work a word as inspired as "Backwater" into the title.
There's not even any good action in this, the fantasy world design and backgrounds are bland exercises in genericism, and the character designs are a mishmash of forgettable flailings of flair that make me go "Yeah, that's what I'd expect from a C-tier gacha game that inevitably dooms itself by collaborating with a far better IP." This show is begging for a pity roll from anyone it can appeal to, and the best thing for both it and the viewers is to just let it go dark.
