Content Consideration: depictions of natural disasters
What’s it about? Reborn into a new life in the warrior culture of the Meeres Empire, 13th prince Noah Ararat is determined to use his incredible skills to do good. But that might just make him a target in his brothers’ struggle for succession.
“Oh fucking Christ, it’s another one,” I said with a heavy sigh. Noble Reincarnation sure does have the trappings of a ripped-from-Narou novel: it’s a reincarnation isekai with stat screens where the unseasoned block of tofu at the center is the specialest-est boy, female characters fawn at his feet and suffer through wearing armor that is simultaneously impractical and unfashionable, all the bad guys have ugly mugs and spiritual moustaches, and the animation production has not been granted the same juice as a show about a pedophile.
The bar is always planted firmly in Hell with this type of title, and it’s in that light that I must approach it. This is not an especially good show. I won’t be watching another episode, and it feels pretty concerning that animation corners are already getting cut from the jump. But y’know what it doesn’t have? A protagonist who embraces misogyny and slavery. That puts it ahead of an awful lot of entries in the genre.
In fact, this is a power fantasy specifically about Noblesse Oblige: the idea that the privileged are duty-bound to use their advantages to help the less fortunate. The noblesse frequently do not oblige in real life, of course, and philosophies like “effective altruism” are simply modern spins on how those interested in amassing wealth can trick themselves into believing they have the Greater Good in mind. But it’s a nice idea in theory, and I think we’ve all had a fantasy or two about how we would fix the world if only we were in control of those billions of dollars.
The moment that unlocked Noble Reincarnation’s heart for me was about halfway through the episode, when obligate potato Noah learns that his maid’s hometown has been destroyed by flooding. His immediate order is to buy up land in the surrounding area, so that bad actors can’t engage in price-gouging. He mentions that he’s “seen things like that” during his first life, which I have a hard time reading as anything but a reference to Fukushima. My heart can’t help but soften to the idea of imagining a world where you can simply behead the corrupt and powerful profiting off the back of the suffering; like Scarlet’s furious fists last season, it’s primal and simple in its appeal.
That said, I just don’t have confidence that this is going to reach the level of something like Ascendance of a Bookworm. Too much of the episode is weighted down by the genre’s more tiresome, if not offensive, tropes, and the transparency of the villains means it can only do so much with the promise of courtly intrigue. The lack of details around Noah’s past life give him more appeal than the average tuber, but every time I thought I might start to like him his internal monologue would barge in to mention how he only saved his maid from having to become a survival sex worker because it would reflect badly on his title. And if he continues to amass status, eventually this boots-on-the-ground view of human suffering is gonna start to get real abstract while we hear more about how cool and noble our hero is. It totally will not be a problem to rest all the powers of the state on the presumed grace and stability of a singular human being. Monopolies are good, actually, and whatever you remember about Right Stuf is a lie.
Still, despite my cynicism, if you specifically like a power fantasy isekai in your lineup, this one at least has a glimpse of sincerity at its heart. That’s pretty rare in the absolute sea of churn that gets adapted every season, and for that I give it a modicum of my respect. Can’t wait for someone to turn up in the comments and inform me that in volume 7 of the light novels Noah finds that the only way to save a burning orphanage is to magically enslave all of the coincidentally female children.
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