I’ve written First Impressions for three isekai shows this season. Might as well cover a fourth one. I am a little surprised at how many of these are clicking for me from the get go. I consider myself lucky if I find just one isekai show to watch from a given season. This is probably all a fluke and not an indication towards a positive shift in the industry but with how dominant isekai is these days, I’ll take it. Watch all of these jump the shark later…
The Weakest Tamer takes place in a world where people are born with a star-based ranking and magical abilities that allow them to work as Tamers. Our protagonist, Ivy (Aina Suzuki), is a young girl born with no star and therefore no abilities. Because of her unusual status, Ivy is ostracized by her village and she is eventually forced to run away into the nearby forest and scavenge through garbage to survive. While on the run, Ivy befriends Sora (Mutsumi Tamura), a Slime so weak that it has a life expectancy of just one day.
Right now, the story isn’t anything to write home about. It is pretty easy to endear yourself to Ivy though that’s only because it’s hard not to care about a little girl when she’s getting hunted down by some hostile grownups. Other than that, the premise of an isekai protagonist being perceived as the weakest one in the bunch has been done to death. There are also some odd creative choices. The premiere is a lot stronger in the first half when it’s just Ivy scrounging for scraps and evading bounty hunters. Once she meets Sora, the episode devolves into a long winded exposition dump. Throughout the episode, Ivy occasionally hears the voice of her past life, which the show indicates with the sound of a chime, and I find that a little odd. It gives Ivy someone to talk to, especially since her only companion at the moment is a blob, but the voice in her head adds little to the story and I don’t know why you can’t just have Ivy do some inner monologue. For all I know, it’s just there so that you know that you’re watching an isekai show.
What does stand out to me is the direction. There’s a variety of different “shots” that put emphasis on either Ivy herself or the environment. Some scenes are edited with the soundtrack and others have pure ambience instead. All things considered, the episode feels very atmospheric and it does a wonderful job conveying how lonely, dangerous, and adventurous Ivy’s journey is. There aren’t a lot of complicated animation to be found here but otherwise, the visuals are very pretty. It’s all the more impressive given that this show is Studio Massket’s first major production. I don’t know if the direction and visuals can carry the show for a whole cour but they at the very least elevate this premiere from becoming one of the many forgettable debuts that I see far too often in the isekai genre.
Watch The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash on Crunchyroll
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