Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan, Episode 4
31 January, 2025
Apart from the age of its protagonist, Akuyaku Reijou Tensei Ojisan did not do all that much, in its first three and a half episodes, to distinguish itself from other villainess series. And then the scene switches back to Earth.
Although “tensei” is in the title, Kenzaburo is not dead; we learn he is hospitalized and physically should be conscious, but his body fails to awaken because his mind is in the other world. Hinako, his daughter, returns home, to find the TV frozen, then the protagonist’s name replaced with Grace (Kenzaburo), and she tells her mom about what’s going on.
Allow me to show you all 15 screencaps of her response.
I think I’d get along quite well with Mitsuko, there’s substantial overlap in our tastes. She’s a woman after my own heart… if not for the language barrier I wonder if she’d be reading this.
More seriously, this blog has its origins for research in a panel I gave at Anime Boston in 2023, and would have given in 2020 if not for the Covid-19 pandemic forcing the cancellation of that convention. Of the anime series that she mentioned, my panel covered Seisenshi Dunbine, Genmu Senki Leda, Fushigi Yuugi, Magic Knight Rayearth and Juuni Kokuki I’m struck by how similar isekai otaku tastes are on both sides of the pacific, and it’s really cool to see a contemporary one this blatantly reference the past. (I even had an audience member ask about Mashin Eiyuu Wataru. I’d only seen a couple episodes at the time, but in retrospect, I think I regret the omission; am rather enjoying the remake so far.)
Of the omissions, one can quibble about calling Ouke no Monshou isekai, it’s really a time travel story – this is a historic Egypt, not a fantasy counterpart - but I did first hear about it in an isekai general thread on /a/. Besides, its a good manga, and the protagonist may be a distant relative of mine. I didn’t realize it had an anime adaptation, and I may need to track it down now. I was defining things more strictly anyway, so I left it out.
The two discrepancies I must attribute to age; Mitsuko must be a few years older than me, to have watched 1990’s Wataru and Lamune & 40 as a kid. And by the same token, this is probably why 1999’s Digimon Adventure and Monster Farm: Enbanseki no Himitsu, which inspired me to do the panel in the first place, escaped her notice. All four series have elementary school aged protagonists and target audiences, and while Mitsuko enjoyed the former enough to want to rewatch with her teenage daughter, and I’ve become a lifelong fan of the latter, which very much hold up as an adult, it’s always easier to get into that kind of anime as a child.
My panel also covered Tobira wo Akete and Tenkuu no Escaflowne. I can’t say Mitsuko *didn’t* watch or even enjoy them, as “50 minute anime convention panel” and “minute-long rant to your daughter about your favorite isekai” are quite different formats, but 1986’s Tobira wo Akete, while an excellent OVA, is relatively obscure, a bit before Mitsuko’s time, and does itself no favors on search engines with its generic title (even if it’s one which grasps the goal of many an isekai character). Escaflowne may have been more popular in the US; having a (butchered) English dub on American TV must have raised its profile compared to all the anime only available in video rental stores or waiting many, many years for fansubs. But it wasn’t a failure in Japan, and it seems like the kind of show she’d enjoy to the point where I’m kind of surprised by the omission.
Books, of course, were outside the panel’s scope, but Narnia’s influence was mentioned, all seven volumes are on my bookshelf, and I really hope the various licensing issues will get worked out so I can add the manga adaptation to that stack – and I’m starting to think I really need to finally read Neverending Story; it was popular in my childhood, but I personally never did.
And speaking of books, one really cool thing Fushigi Yuugi did, that more things should emulate (Tsundere Akuyaku Reijou Liselotte to Jikkyou no Endou-kun to Kaisetsu no Kobayashi-san did it recently, and its a big part of its charm, but I can’t think of other recent examples) is have other characters read the ones our MCs are transported into and progress or subtly intervene in the events therein. Tetsuya and Keisuke’s research is one thing that really sticks with me, while Miaka and Yui’s swapping places caused so much of that series’ tragedy and power.
We learn, at episode’s end, that the giant floating hands which made Kenzaburo his Ancient Dragon familiar belonged to Hinako reaching into the TV, and I’m excited to see where they go from here.
Anyway, go watch all the anime she recommended, plus Digimon Adventure and Monster Farm: Enbanseki no Himitsu. You won’t regret it.