The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest – Episode 1

What’s it about? In the age of magic and monsters, Gaius the Sage was known to be very powerful, but decided to reincarnate in order to gain the magical crest for combat.  Unfortunately, he was born during an era where magic was in serious decline, and his standard abilities now look like he’s a prodigy in the making.  

I can tell you right off the bat that this show isn’t interested in reinventing the wheel.  It’s a standard reincarnation story about a boy named Matthias who’s so overpowered that even his teachers at school are taking lessons from him.  He even gets a standard love interest who immediately has a crush on him–she even gets nervous when they hold hands.

What I find to be incredibly sad is that the production team doesn’t have any faith that this series will succeed.  They literally cram in Matthias meeting his friends, taking the entrance exam AND a tournament arc all in one episode.  It’s so obvious they cut out so much material from the light novel in favor of just hitting the story beats without any emotional investment.  Maybe it’s because there are so many anime about overpowered boy protagonists that it’s not even worth it to make it entertaining anymore.  I’m also wondering if it’s because the series composer, Uchida Hiroki is dedicating all their energy to working on Requiem of the Rose King instead of this show.  I wouldn’t blame them, since the premise for that sounds far more interesting than this B-tier fantasy.  

Granted, this wasn’t entirely a bad premiere.  The overall light-hearted atmosphere made it easy to watch and might even qualify as a show you can casually view if you want to turn off your brain.  The only character worth mentioning at all is the gender-nonconforming character named Alma Lepucius.  He is genuinely a lovable character who gets along with everyone and for now no one seems to have a problem with his gender presentation so that’s nice (he even wears a uniform distinctly different from the boys and girls).  

That’s it folks.  I have nothing else to say about another standard power fantasy for boys.  There are too many of them for fuck’s sake.