Touka always faded into the background at school. And when he’s summoned to another world with his
classmates, that still doesn’t change! They all acquire top-rank skills, except Touka, who’s deemed a
failure and cast to ancient ruins by the goddess Vicius. Turns out, his low-rank skills may not be so
useless after all. Now, he seeks revenge against the goddess, and his true nature is revealed.
(Source: Crunchyroll)
When an anime opens with a scene of child abuse, you know it's going to be a mess. And a mess this is. To get things out of the way: this anime is not *good*, by any stretch of the imagination. However, if you like what it's bringing to the table, you'll probably enjoy it anyway. I know I did. **Content warning: This anime contains depictions of child abuse, bullying, sexual harassment and rape threats against most of the major female characters, premeditated murder committed by a protagonist, abysmal cost-cutting CGI, and in general a crapsack world where only the worst can ever come out on top and anyone who is nice is going to end up worse off for it.** Also, this review may contain unmarked spoilers. The general premise is that a bus full of high school students, all either terrible people, bullied into silence/complicity by the terrible people, or both, ends up isekai'd into a crapsack world. There, the goddess Vicius (a very fitting name) tells them they're heroes, that they have ranks for their power, and gets them to turn against the lowest-ranked person: our protagonist, Touka Mimori. He gets banished to certain death, but is able to survive because his "terrible" skill is in fact overpowered. And swears revenge on Vicius for fucking him over. It's my understanding that this is likely the usual tropes of the subgenre, though I'm not familiar enough with it to know for sure. What I do know is that it's not going to appeal to everyone. Expectation-setting spoiler for plot progression with this adaptation: ~!If you're looking for closure, you won't find it here. The anime as it is now ends on a cliffhanger of a plot hook. Touka is not yet at the point where he can take his revenge, nor does he meet any of his former classmates by the end of episode 12. There's the beginnings of a romance subplot, but it barely gets off the ground.!~ Touka as a character is very edgelord-appeal. He's not particularly empathetic, barely hesitating before murdering not just monsters but people, and at times seems to enjoy it. What he does have is pragmatism, forming (mutually beneficial) alliances with people he thinks would be *useful* for his goals. The other isekai'd characters are sidelined for large chunks of the story, as Touka was forcibly separated from them and he's the protagonist doing protagonist things half a continent away. That said, they, and Vicius, do appear every so often. The plot comes across as contrived in places. Lots of conveniences that benefit Touka, so you'd probably need some level of "turning your brain off" to tolerate it. The animation quality is... mediocre at best. Close-up shots are decent-enough 2d animation; distance shots and also monsters - of which there are many - are CGI, and really noticeably awkward CGI at that. Stiff movement is very obvious in those scenes. But again, if you can turn your brain off, it's close enough to watchable. The music is fine. I did enjoy the opening theme, and the rest of it didn't feel out of place to me. In conclusion: If you like revenge stories where everyone's a terrible person but the protag's at least a sympathetic terrible person, and don't mind lowering your standards, it's possible to enjoy this. Would I recommend it? Not really, unless you're looking for exactly this sort of edgelord isekai revenge story for mindless edgy fun. To repeat the review summary: I didn't say it was good, I said I liked it.