English Dub Series Review: Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest S1 and S2

Based on the Japanese light novel series written by Ryo Shirakome and illustrated by Takayaki. Originally a web novel, the series follows Hajime Nagumo who after being Transported to another world and left behind by his former friends, Hajime had to make his rise from literal rock bottom. It was in the labyrinth where he strengthened his weak magic and found several beautiful allies. Now after saving his classmates, he ventures for Erisen to escort Myuu and her mother. He’ll fight and defeat anyone he has to find a way home… including a god!

On the technical side, season one’s production originally would have been directed by Jun Kamiya and written by Kazuyuki Fudeyasu, with animation by studio White Fox and character designs by Atsuo Tobe, who also would have served as chief animation director. However, following the postponement, it was announced on April 29, 2018, that Kinji Yoshimoto would be taking over as director and studio Asread would be joining White Fox as animators. Additionally, Chika Kojima took over from Atsuo Tobe as a character designer to adapt Takayaki’s original designs, and Kazuyuki Fudeyasu left his position as a scriptwriter, being replaced by Shoichi Sato and Kinji Yoshimoto. Ryō Takahashi is composing the series. The band Void_Chords feat. LIO performed the series’ opening theme “FLARE”, while DracoVirgo performs the series’ ending theme “First Song” for Season One.

As for season two’s production, Akira Iwanaga replaced Kinji Yoshimoto as director, and Studio Mother replaced White Fox as the secondary studio, and the newly formed studio Mother also came in to help as well. The rest of the staff and cast returned to reprise their roles. With Season Two’s opening theme is “Daylight” by MindaRyn, while the ending theme is “Gedō Sanka” by FantasticYouth. As of February 2020. Funimation had licensed the series for an English simulcast and simuldub. Following Sony’s acquisition of Crunchyroll, the series was officially moved to Crunchyroll after the big merger.

 This show works as your by-the-numbers power fantasy Isekai, I believe main characters carry anime or story in general. For Hajime Nagumo in Arifureta, it’s a tight rope balance between being jokingly edgy and not taking himself too seriously while giving a big middle finger to Evil (and sometimes his classmates). For an Isekai focusing on a bad ass power fantasy, it does a good job at writing a main character that is seemingly hyper capable yet sympathetic and occasionally showing humility in that his words and actions (specifically in his less serious dialogues) are just him trying to look cool, which, in my opinion, is respectable because it’s more genuine than most fictional characters are written.

For season one, we get character growth being a big focus. The first two episodes are all about Hajime’s growth as a person, dealing with the loss of his friends, trying to wrap his head around one of them betraying him, and sacrificing pieces of himself (quite literally, sometimes) to survive. While introducing all the characters and some of the creatures who also live in this universe and the God they worship who may not be as benevolent as he/she seems. As for season two, The characters though are still problematic. They unsurprisingly still act like their stereotypes but thankfully, they do have a bit more depth this time. Except for Shia, who is way less annoying. Tio is ever so hilarious with her BDSM jokes. Kaori is a bit dull, but she got actual development. Hajime still acts like an edgelord when he’s around people that not just his harem, but in the presence of the Mer-Child that they later rescued named “Myu”, it’s funny when he breaks character and acts like an overprotective father.

The introduction of Kaori into Hajime’s harem makes for some interesting moments as she simply will not back down into getting into Hajime’s heart which is currently occupied by Yue at the moment. But with her inclusion in this harem has made the whole harem feel bloated. Now there are harem shows that have a larger cast than this, but Arifureta struggles to try and balance it out because we already know that Yue has won and the introduction of Kaori in this harem is trying to complicate things, yet Hajime makes it even clearer how Yue is the only one for him. Even though he is the generic bad ass protagonist you’d expect in a show like this, he differs from others by not being the cliche, obliviously indecisive Archie Andrews archetypes that anime shows like Black Clover are often guilty of replicating to the Nth degree. Other side characters play a more important role in this season, especially the classmates whom some begin to suspect weird corrupted shit happening within their kingdom and find out who’s been pulling the strings behind all of it…

The story at the moment doesn’t feel like we are rushing from place to place at a rapid pace. I mean, Hajime drives a magical Hummer so it is going to be quicker but not in a way that it feels like we’re rushing it. The first season is usually the introduction to all the main characters, while the second has the task to develop them in some sort of fashion. There is hardly much of that going on. It mostly introduced the main antagonists, the demon lord generals, and the evil apostles and there were fights where Hajime had to struggle more than usual.

Both Seasons were good but not perfect. Sometimes it suffered from pacing issues or unfunny jokes that mostly involved Hajime’s Harem being at each other’s throats for one petty reason after another, and what makes it slightly problematic is that sometimes they don’t always put their problems aside in life or death scenarios. At least later on it gets less annoying but the last episode (which was a “special”) was easily one of the most random things the animators felt the need to post that felt more like actionless filler.