How would you rate episode 1 of
Seirei Gensouki - Spirit Chronicles (TV 2) ? Community score: 3.7
What is this?
Just after rescuing Celia from her wedding, Rio witnesses six pillars of light. He heads towards them at Aishia's behest and finds three people he never imagined meeting in his world... and they need his help!
Seirei Gensouki - Spirit Chronicles Season 2 is based on the light novel series by Yuri Kitayama with illustrations by Riv. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.
How was the first episode?
Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:
Has it really been only three years since the last season of Seirei Gensouki - Spirit Chronicles? Because let me tell you, it feels like a decade. Despite the gap in time since season one, this episode does nothing to remind you of what happened in the first season. It just continues right on as if there was an episode last week. Honestly, watching this episode made me wish I had the time to go back and watch season one again in its entirety. Without doing that, I definitely played catchup during this whole episode.
All that said, I really enjoy the personal drama being set up in this episode. Rio is different from many reincarnated protagonists as he isn't strictly the same person he was before his death. Rather, he is a mixture of the Haruto and Rio personalities. Hence, he refers to his pre-reincarnated self in the third person. Running into Miharu and Aki, people deeply important to his first life leaves him unsure about his own feelings and how to move forward. It's a situation brimming with dramatic potential which I expect will be mined at length over this season.
The other aspect of this episode that I really enjoyed was how the language issue was realized. Aisha is able to link Rio and Miharu's minds. That was when Miharu could speak and understand both languages. However, none of the others have this connection, and can thus only understand half of the conversation.
Most anime would have dropped the language issues at this point by doing everything in Japanese, and leaving it up to us to remember who could understand what. However, this episode keeps it in the forefront. We can hear the fantasy world language with Japanese over it if the person is speaking in the fantasy world tongue and straight Japanese if in Japanese. From this, we are constantly reminded of the language barrier. And as a person who has had to play translator for friends and family, I really enjoyed this touch.
All in all, this was a decent premiere. While it did nothing to reintroduce the world and setting, it set up the season's conflict well and utilized some creative storytelling tricks I did not expect.
Rebecca Silverman
Rating:
We've all got that one not-so-great isekai series that we can't quite quit. This one is mine. While I do think it gets bloated later on, the novels this sequel season is likely to adapt should stop just short of that point. In any event, I'm surprisingly happy to see this series back, picking up from the cliffhanger the first season ended on. If you don't remember, that was the reveal that Miharu, specifically, has been brought to the world where Haruto was reborn, just after he'd decided to move on from his past life and forget about her.
Although this episode doesn't do much with Haruto's attempts to move on, it does crash his two lives together in ways he hadn't anticipated. Hot off of rescuing Celia from a horrific marriage, Haruto and Aishia see the summoning lights that remind us that this series is, in fact, isekai – it's just combining two subgenres in one show, the rebirth and the summoned. The summoning circle Miharu and company get pulled into is plainly not intended for them, though; Miharu's friends Takehisa and Satsuki are in its center and vanish first, leaving Miharu, Aki, and Masato to follow a moment later. Does this explain why they're dropped in a field where they quickly fall prey to slavers? Possibly. More importantly, they're deposited in a spot close enough to Haruto and Aishia that they can be sensed and, therefore, rescued.
While this episode largely serves to bring Haruto/Rio's worlds together, it also plays with the timeline a bit. We know that Haruto died in his early college years, Miharu was isekai'd long before that, as a high school first year. That means that Haruto was reborn back in time, allowing him and Miharu to be the same age once again when they meet. It's a little convoluted, but still an interesting conceit; certainly more interesting than the harem antics that begin when Aishia, nominally not understanding human norms, says that she's going to sleep with Haruto. Miharu doesn't think that this Haruto is her Haruto (and why would she?), but she clearly feels more awkward around Celia and Aishia, and Celia's outburst doesn't help. It's obvious what's being set up, and that will likely only get worse (or at least weirder) when the Spirit Village girls return to the plot.
My biggest gripe here is the way that Aishia's translation ability is shown. Because both Celia and Miharu are still speaking their respective languages, the show uses a double-layer of voice tracks, so we can hear an echo of the other language behind the main one. It's like having an itch deep inside your ear trying to listen to it, and if you're sound-sensitive, be aware that it's truly awful. That aside, I'm oddly pleased to see this second season materialize – and it's reminding me to pick the novels back up.
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.
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