Tsukimichi -Moonlit Fantasy- — Episode 1

What’s It About?: Misumi Makoto is your everyday, ordinary high school student living an everyday, ordinary life… until he gets yeeted into another world to become a capital-h “Hero.” However, the goddess who summons him isn’t a fan of our intrepid hero and strips him off his title before casting him into the wilderness at the ends of the Earth, er… world. It’s there that he wanders about, facing all manner of RPG-esque foe (and finding friends) as he tries to make this new world a better place despite being spurned on a godly level.

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I have a soft spot in my heart for isekai that are aware of the conditions of, well, isekai; this is in large part because I spent a fair amount of time at the beginning of the year finally watching Re:Zero, which kindled a hunger for isekai in me anew. That said, Tsukimichi -Moonlit Fantasy- (hereafter Tsukimichi) immediately struck me as a series that’s… well aware of the tropes of isekai.

Episode 1 kicks off with a very aware hero named Misumi Makoto who knows all about how isekai situations go… that is, until he gets into the world’s most unfortunate iskeai situation. Meets Makoto, a boy who’s life is an absolute joke: a joke that forms the foundation of Tsukimichi’s premise.

In Makoto’s previous life, he was a high school student–of course–in his school’s Japanese archery club. After school, he went home and had dinner, presumably with his family. And after that? A bath and surfin’ the net for a web novel. He even starts on his father’s new book. Coincidentally, his father is a fantasy writer: more specifically, his father’s book is titled “Knight of Another World (Part Two),” which like… inauspicious for poor Makoto. Either way, this kid is as dull as dishwater, but that’s kind of the point in isekai, isn’t it?

Then Makoto gets yeeted into a galactic liminal space, where he meets a god who declares that he’s about to enter another world, but, of course, needs to sign on the dotted line. When informed that Makoto didn’t know he’d be getting stolen away to a new world, the god reveals himself to be the the ruler of the realm of night, Tsukuyomi. He’s here, in large part, to escort (hand over) Makoto to the goddess who will reincarnate him into the next realm.

And oh yeah, Makoto’s parents? They’re from another world, so like… this kid’s been double isekai’d, in a way. It’s all very tongue in cheeks, and honestly? Pretty hilarious, enough that I guffawed a few times. Things only get more funny–and in a way, a bit tragic–when Makoto meets the afformentioned goddess who absolutely drags this child and reads him for fantasy filth.

That’s pretty much the basis for Tsukimichi’s premieer: setting up the hilarity of this isekai series by playing with the genre’s tropes and often, upending them, to a hilarious degree. It’s been a long time since I’ve laugh this hard at an isekai series, and I think that’s because Tsukimichi doesn’t take itself seriously in the least. It’s a comedic isekai that, overall, is a solid hit when it’s on.

Thankfully, it’s on most of the time, making for a pretty solid premiere, especially since it seems to be avoiding a lot of the negative trends (by this, I do mean that weirndess that it isekai slavery, which has permeated a lot of isekai over the past few years) though… it definitely dips its toes into having a pretty dragon girl become his pact partner, in which she refers to herself as… being a slave and calls Makoto her “master.” Wait a minute. Let me check my notes again.

Yep, she uses the words “slave” and “master.” At least it’s not sexual? And she calls it a contract, so it’s not slavery so much as her forging a pact? Oh, for crying out loud anime… Well, I guess just ignore what I said about Tsukimichi not dipping its toes into that, huh?

Anyways.

It helps that C2C (Harukana Receive, Izetta: The Last Witch, Wandering Witch) has really put the polish on a lot of sequences in this first episode, though time will tell if that holds. Plus, with the acting talents of Hanae Natsuki (the Japanese voice of Nier: Automata’s 9S, as well as I-Chu’s Noah and Oddtaxi’s Odokawa) playing Makoto, it’s all around a good time, even if isekai aren’t really your thing. Plus, Makoto is such an everyman–and so utterly mundane–that you can’t help but pity the poor kid while also chuckling wryly at the situation he’s landed in.

Tsukimichi is very tongue-in-cheek, which is partially why I enjoyed it. It’s also just really fun , though I’m not sure if it’s enough for me to sit with this series for the entire cour. That said, I can easily see watching through episode 3 before reassessing my interest, since Summer 2021 is chockablock with new series and sequels and second cours.