Okay, so nobody in their right mind is going to call me a fan of the isekai genre, but I'm not going into these shows wanting to dislike them. A lot of them are just, y'know, bad.

But some are good! Take TsukiMichi, for instance!

Now, full disclosure, I came into this one late due to other shit getting in the way, starting it around the end of July, and I'd kinda been putting it off because it wasn't high on my priorities when it came to the season's new releases. To make up for that, I'm covering the first four episodes right in the initial review. Get comfy, this'll be a lengthy one.

Given how absurdly ubiquitous the light novel isekai fantasy has become in recent years, I'm more than happy whenever a more satirical take on the genre comes along to take it down a peg or two, and actually does it well. Tsukimichi is exactly that, a straightforward but genuinely funny takedown of your usual isekai cliches. Since the general pattern of humor is to directly subvert broad archetypes, the jokes can be hit and miss, but what ties it all together is that this series possesses what so many of its straight-faced inspirations lack: A strongly written, compelling protagonist.

Makoto Misumi is no reinvention of the wheel, he is in fact barely distinguishable from so many similarly designed potatoes that you'll find in so many series like this. He's a bit short, he's prone to flailing about in times of duress, and he's got messy black hair with that distinctive ahoge that identifies him as the doofus hero of an anime comedy. Even in his writing, he's nothing particularly novel, in that he's a generally nice and well-meaning but otherwise typical teenage boy, awkward at school, unlucky in romance, and happy to spend his free time reading fantasy novels and enjoying sexy cartoons. That is, until Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto, the Shinto moon god, whisks him off to a void in space-time and reveals that Makoto is to be returned to the stereotypical fantasy realm that his parents originally hailed from, so that he can be the hero its goddess requires.

So aside from it turning out that his parents reverse-isekai'd to begin with, nothing special, right? Well, sure, and that's part of the point, considering that Makoto's story is a satirical one. More importantly though, if Tsukimichi proves anything, it's how much execution matters in turning a decent premise into a great premiere, and it all begins and ends with Makoto. For one, he's voiced by Natsuki Hanae, who absolutely kills it when it comes to selling Makoto's charm and earnest, fumbling attempts at heroism. This should be of no surprise, since Hanae has made a career out of voicing characters like Tanjiro and 9S (ie. some of the industry's Goodest Boys™). The jokes at Makoto's expense are also consistently funny without veering too far into shrill or mean-spirited territory.

The charm became evident to me in the start, when Makoto wakes up floating in a field of stars instead of his bed. He gets a handle on what's happening pretty quickly, but he's still surprised, upset and confused about just why it's happening when he should be having a typical morning eating breakfast with his family. He's informed by Tsukuyomi that as the son of two legendary warriors from another world (which he had no idea about), it's up to him to become the new legendary hero in their home world.

And then he's called the ugliest thing alive, relentlessly berated for petty reasons and banished by that world's high goddess.

At this point, the story could easily have gone into revenge fantasy mode, and I am delighted to report that it doesn't. Sure, Makoto gets banished to the ends of the world, but at least Tsukuyomi pops back in to let him know that everyone knows the goddess sucks (which in all fairness, he did mention before as well) and that he'll be fine because he's ludicrously overpowered because reasons. And after three days of wandering the barren wastelands, Makoto learns that he can kick straight through a giant two-headed dog monster's neck and decapitate it. It's certainly not the isekai fantasy he was expecting, or that his light novel author father wrote about, but he does somehow manage to kind of make the best of it. Not long after, Makoto meets Emma, a sweet-natured shortstack orc girl who basically just looks like an adorable anime version of Miss Piggy.

In some ways, this premiere is great because of the things it doesn't do, like turn into a borderline misogynistic revenge fantasy, take itself too seriously, pile too many gags on top of each other, make fun of Emma for her appearance, etc. In fact, I was pleased by the way literal best girl of the season Emma was treated overall, because it would've been very easy for this to just lazily make fun of the fact that she looks like a bipedal pig in a wig. Instead, she and the rest of the orcs are just people Makoto meets on his travels.

So yeah, this world's goddess rejects Makoto as a disgusting, vile piece of garbage that should never reproduce and isn't even worthy of a heroic title, but his natural superhuman abilities make it easy for him to accomplish such feats as wandering a desert alone for three days without dying and accidentally going Saitama on enemy monsters. Later on, he attempts to save a community of orcs from a mean dragon named Shen. Shen, as it turns out, is positively tickled by Makoto's exploits as a thoroughly average human teen, so she decides to transform into a beautiful anime girl and become his first sidekick. Speaking of organ annihilation and dragon battles, the show's production values are just shiny enough to sell the idea that Makoto really is a supremely strong badass with the potential to be a true hero, if only he didn't find himself transported to a universe that seems to actively seek out new and creative ways to make him look like a dork.

So, now that we're a few episodes into TsukiMichi's run, is the show living up to the potential it demonstrated in its premiere? I'd say it is, yeah! It's no great masterpiece or anything, but episodes 2 and 3 do a fine job of leaning into the series' best attributes, and nothing overly stupid or lascivious has happened to ruin the fun. It remains a funny and exceedingly likeable spoof of the isekai trend, and it has just as much fun indulging in some of the genre tropes as it does lampooning them.

Out of all of its main ingredients, I'd say TsukiMichi's secret sauce is its cast, especially the chemistry between our hero Makoto and Shen (or Tomoe, as she ends up deciding to be called instead). Makoto is a solid lead if for no other reason than the fact that he's allowed to have a real personality and some flaws and hurdles to overcome in the strange wasteland he's found himself in. Sure, the power he received from Tsukiyomi has left him so overflowing with mana that he may as well be a god himself, but Makoto's had to deal with the terrible wrath of the spiteful goddess, a population of humans who perceive him to be a demon lord, and the endless shenanigans brought about by the beautiful monster women who keep crashing into his life.

Speaking of monster women, my favourite aspect of TsukiMichi aside from Emma (who's taken on a bit of a supporting role as essentially the Isabelle to Makoto's Mr. Mayor) is easily Tomoe. Tomoe is great, whether she's using her vast dragon power to facilitate Makoto's heroic journey or actively sabotaging his life by ransacking his memories for her favourite reruns of Japan's TV dramas. She's a schemer who dreams of living out the adventures of a noble samurai, and I love her so much that I don't even mind the fact that she's shaping up to be the lead girl in a whole harem of murderous monster girls that Makoto is inadvertently recruiting. It helps that Ayane Sakura works so well with Natsuki Hanae during the many moments of banter.

Mio, the Black Spider of Calamity, is also a fun addition to the crew, but her arrival in episode 2 is also when TsukiMichi really starts to double down on the video game-y aspects of this world. I normally start to violently roll my eyes whenever an anime makes its "unique fantasy setting" function like some bargain bin MMO, so I suppose it's a testament to how much I'm vibing with this show that I found its gameification to be...perfectly fine, I guess. The whole deal with Makoto building up his own personal kingdom of monsterfolk inside of Tomoe's pocket dimension is actually pretty fun, since it seems like a game I'd have fun playing myself. I'm less keen on how the human village functions like your stereotypical RPG introduction town, complete with an adventurer's guild that doles out all of its quests via letter-based ranking system from E to triple-S and uses magic scrolls to measure out people's "levels" and stamp them onto ID cards.

Look, I have to be honest, when it comes to level-ups, new skills and the complex inner workings of an isekai world's magic systems, I generally could not care less. I find all that stuff to be tedious filler at best. If you're the kind of reader who's looking forward to in-depth breakdowns of which character is what level or how Makoto's powers are giving the finger to the established rules of the system, I'm probably going to end up disappointing you.

Episode 3 plays around with the "rules" of the fantasy world in a more interesting way to me, with Makoto having to find a way to learn to communicate and mask his positively evil-looking magic aura. This is also where Tomoe and Mio cement their relationship as partners in service but rivals in love, and while it may be a tired dynamic, it's pretty cute here, especially when Makoto has to pick out their names. The ladies may have nearly 3,000 levels split between them and powers beyond human comprehension, but they're not above squabbling over Makoto's attention either. It's a funny reminder of how, with his godlike powers and army of monsters at his beck and call, Makoto has kinda stumbled his way into being this world's antihero. I don't know if the show is actually going anywhere with this idea, but I'm just happy the story has any direction whatsoever. Makoto has a legacy to uphold, and his pursuit of his parents' old trail is a great way to keep the story connected to his Earth roots while also teasing out potential mysteries to be found regarding his place in this new world.

I'd say episode 4 is a slight improvement over the already solid previous episode, if only because the story gets to build up to a pretty funny joke as its capstone instead of an awkward cliffhanger. The little girl that showed up out of nowhere in episode 3 is Rinon, and she's searching for her missing sister Toa. We eventually learn that Toa was deep in debt after failing to secure a profitable career as an adventurer, and Rinon has been living on the streets ever since Toa was presumably captured by her debtors. Also, bright red hair aside, Toa is the splitting image of Makoto's childhood friend.

I'm not entirely sure what the significance is of Toa being that girl's doppelganger, maybe she got hit by Truck-kun mere moments after Makoto got whisked away or something, but it's enough of a mystery to get Makoto in an uncharacteristically serious mood, and soon enough, Tomoe and Mio are on the case. Now, if you're only experiencing the plot of the episode through my abbreviated recaps, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this might be a fairly lame setup, and I'd be lying if I said the hunt for Toa was a particularly interesting or well-written adventure. The "twist" is that the powerful hero Mils Ace is the one who kidnapped Toa, and his goons have gone as far as attacking Makoto's crew and coercing Rinon into stealing their valuables to pay off her sister's debt.

If I were grading TsukiMichi on its ability to thrill and excite me with its storytelling prowess, this would be a C-tier episode at best. At no point are Mils and his cronies presented as anything other than obviously skeezy, and the search for Toa is barely a search at all. One minute, Mio and Tomoe are off to find her, and by the time we catch up with them, they've broken into Mils' base of operations and revived Toa from her near-death delirium. It's one of the inherent pitfalls of these kinds of stories, since our heroes are so powerful that it's pointless to even pretend that such a basic rescue mission would pose a problem for them. If TsukiMichi were playing these story beats completely straight, it'd be like spending a half-hour watching your buddy grind out low-level daily quests for an MMO that he's already pumped a thousand hours into. Y'know, boring as fuck.

Thankfully, TsukiMichi is a comedy first and foremost, and what makes the episode worth watching is the fact that it does what any good sitcom does: It takes some tried-and-true cliches and uses them as hooks upon which to hang some funny jokes. I won't pretend that it had me on the floor or anything, but the show knows how to squeeze some chuckles out of me, which is all it needs to do. The running gag of Tomoe sliding further and further into her pit of weeb indulgence is especially great--this episode has her insisting that she be allowed to use the word "mineself" instead of "myself", because god forbid she slip out of character as she and Rin are taking out low-level goons without breaking a sweat.

Speaking of which, the climax of the episode is where it really gets its work done, because it keeps up the show's smart use of its characters' strength as comedic fodder. It isn't just that Mio and Tomoe beat Mils and every last one of his goons into paste by the time Toa is rescued, they straight-up obliterate the entire town in their quest to prove who between them is truly worthy of a head pat from their beloved master. Toa makes for a great straight man to the monsters' antics, manically nodding her head whenever either of them wants her to confirm that they brutally slaughtered more of the bad guys than the other.

If I had one complaint about this turn of events, it's that the show's middling production values end up limiting the impact of the comedy. A lot of the action ends up being communicated through quick cuts and still slides. I can only imagine how much funnier Tomoe and Mio's merciless smackdown would've been if the show had played the spectacle straighter and turned out some genuinely impressive action animation. It would've been funny to emphasize how completely stupid the entire situation ended up being for all parties involved.

Makoto, for his part, also gets to play the straight man for the majority of the episode, and he's just as good at serving as the beleaguered, responsible adult to his monster girlfriends' antics as he is when the entire universe is actively shitting on his every attempt to succeed. That's a good sign for TsukiMichi's future, since it means the show has flexibility in how it structures it gags and whatnot. I'm also glad that the show is continuing to utilize elements of Makoto's past life in building this new story. It helps make him feel more like a real person, and it's infinitely more interesting as character development than simply having him aimlessly wander while he effortlessly smacks down any obstacle and builds his harem. If TsukiMichi can keep this up, it'll definitely earn a spot on the coveted "Isekai Anime That I Actually Had Fun With" list. Don't let me down, TsukiMichi!