What’s it about? When the war ends, the hero Dias is rewarded with land, only to discover it is untilled grassland. With nothing but time on his hands, he starts to rebuild from the ground up, only to meet a mysterious girl with a blue horn that might liven up his rustic life.
Episode 1 begins with the end of a war and the start of former warrior Dias’ departure from the royal capital to his land. Granted to his as a reward, he finds that the domain is lush, but… barren. No one lives there and while the grassland is beautiful, it’s… empty. But Dias has faced worse as a warrior, and now that he has been granted a domain—and presumably a title—he has plenty of funds to at least make something of a life in peacetime.
Then a young woman named Alna comes crashing into his life, and Dias realizes he’s not as alone as he thought. Swept into the live of a nomadic oni village, Dias has a lot to learn and get accustomed to out on the frontier before he finds his footing and is actually able to rise to the occasion as a lord of his newly acquired land.
The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects is, simply put, just okay. It’s not interesting, it’s not boring: it just sits in that middle ground that a lot of anime adaptations of novels do, not because they’re not trying but because they’re hamstrung by the source material. And while the source novels and manga are available in English, I haven’t read them nor plan to because I’m just not interested enough.
Plus, the romance that’s developed between Alna and Dias just isn’t my thing, especially since the age gap is more nebulous here. I can’t decide if Alna is the age of majority or not, but she’s designed in such a way that I immediately was side-eyeing her blushing around Dias so much. Granted, it’s more one-sided, but still… Dias didn’t seem to have an issues with it occurring.
Visually, this looks like a lot of anime these days: a kind of mass-produced sameness interspersed with CGI fantasy beasties. It’s… fine, a word that I feel like I’m using a lot in this review, but that’s just kind of what it is. It’s fine from start to finish, though the ED does hint at some potential for transphobia and definitely makes it clear that Alna and Dias are going to be a thing.
The shame of all this is that there’s an interesting conversation about land rights and fantasy indigeneity here that will never get explored. Alna’s people are clearly written to be an allegory for non-white indigenous peoples within this world, but even in this first episode, that’s just not touched upon even once. Instead, Dias does what a good, white lord would do: he declares that he’ll take care of the denizens of his realm, land that he was given, but… land that is only his by proxy of being part of the law of the land. Much like a “good slave owner” Dias is a “kind, supportive lord” of land he doesn’t deserve outside of his royal decreed rights.
That’s not to say that there’s not a tidbit of a conversation related to this—and I really do mean the smallest crumb you can possibly imagine. For you see, when Dias first meets the village elder, Moll, it’s made clear that they are not his people but enemies of the king he waged war for. And… yeah, that’s it really: the story immediately moves on and doesn’t even go into detail about the fact that oni live in yurts because they often have to flee.
And if you don’t think these oni are meant to be indigeous peoples who are nomadic because of colonialism, just watch the fantasy bison scene and compare it to how the American government devastated buffalo herds to disenfranchise and genocide indigenous peoples all over land that was meant to be communal.
Upsetting indeed.
Overall, The Frontier Lord Begins with Zero Subjects isn’t bad, nor is it good. It’s perfectly in the center, especially now that seasons have dozens of new premieres. And perhaps that’s its biggest sin. In a sea of over forty new premieres, Frontier Lord just doesn’t stand out when there’s so many other dynamic series for Summer and overall this year, even within the fantasy genre.
Still, I remain stalwart in my vicarious joy for others. I’m sure there’s a lot of folks who find comfort in this series, who have been waiting for it to be adapted, and who are excited to experience it in a different medium. For that, I can understand, as a reviewer, why someone might find what I found perfectly okay to be deeply satisfying. However, I found this premiere really uncomfortable, primarily when it came to Alna. She changed so immediately for anime John Smith—including changing her makeup and personality—that combined with the jarring colonial aspects and thinly veiled indigenous allegory, I was on full alert.
Ultimately, this is a show that I’m going to keep an eye on, if only to see it prove me wrong about its surface level engagement with Dias, colonialism, and the incredibly brown peoples of the oni village. I don’t think I’ll probably return in earnest at this time, but I’m always open to being surprised. For now, I’m going to give this one a pass, and suggest that you watch and make the decision of whether or not this is going to be on your mile-long watchlist this season.
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