Director: Kinji Yoshimoto
First Aired: 2019
Contains spoilers
Arifureta is an iseka anima (one in which a central protagonist is transported to another world, ordinary in theirs, they become powerful in the new world). The protagonist in this case is Hajime (Toshinari Fukamachi/Matt Shipman) who was one of a group of schoolkids (and their teacher Aiko (Ai Kakuma/Emily Fajardo)) transported to a world by that world’s Pope, to fight as heroes in the war between monsters, demons and humans. The world is a fantasy type world.
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| Hajime as we meet him |
At the beginning we see Hajime thrown from a bridge during a battle with monsters in a deep level of a dungeon. The class were transported deeper into the dungeon than they should have gone and, in flashbacks, we eventually discover that Hajime – who had a low-level transformation magic and no warrior skills – was targeted by a classmate, Hiyama (Minoru Shiraishi/Orion Pitts), who was jealous of the attention he got from Kaori (Saori Ônishi/Skyler McIntosh). It is assumed that it was an accident and Hajome is dead.
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| growing stronger |
Indeed, he should have been killed – but he managed to use his wits to survive at the low levels of the dungeon (though, before he emerges he loses an arm and an eye). Part of his survival is down to feeding on monsters, which brought Delicious in Dungeon to mind though this was – for the first few episodes definitely – a lot darker. As he eats the different monsters, they transform his DNA and bestow powers on him. This causes his hair to turn white but also improves his odds of survival.
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| Yue trapped |
Eventually he finds a young woman, Yue (Yûki Kuwahara/Tia Lynn Ballard) trapped in a contraption. He is going to leave her trapped but eventually releases her – in flashback Hajime is a pleasant young man but after his experiences he becomes abrasive and cynical, which was a nice direction of character to be honest. Yue is the last vampire (and a vampire princess) and becomes his companion, feeding from him and fighting by his side. They do fall in love but, as powerful as Hajime becomes, he is still 17 and both shy and clumsy in this regard. Eventually they discover that the dungeons are tests, left by a group called the Liberators. The god of the world is not a force for good and manipulates the war eternally for his amusement. Hajime resolves to solve the dungeons and gain their powers, not to fight the god but to get back to Japan.
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| worthless rabbit |
The tone of the series turns mid-season when they introduce Shea (Minami Takahashi/AmaLee), a beastman from a tribe of bunny people (she looks human but has bunny ears and a tail). The series then takes on some comedy and chibi elements and also becomes a harem series, with Hajime collecting several female companions in love/lust with him as well as a young meregirl who refers to him as Papa and who he becomes paternal to. However, the Hajime character remains cynical and, frankly, a tad unhinged after all he has been through.
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| Yue's magic |
The animation in this worked well and, to be honest, I enjoyed the ride. There was quite a bit of action, Hajime was ruthless and happily kills those who gets in his way and the comedy/chibi/harem elements stopped it from becoming too dark throughout. Yue, makes it a vampire series and is in every episode from number 2 onwards. The UK Blu-Ray also contains two very short OVAs (and also keeps the catch-up episode mid-season). 7 out of 10.
The imdb page is here.
On Blu-Ray @ Amazon US
On Blu-Ray @ Amazon UK
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