Isekai "Quartet" #5: Isekai Quartet
Greetings, Weebotaks!
After several false starts and skipped weeks, I finally bring you the...finale...of Isekai "Quartet", which, true to the form of the franchise, is now more than a quartet in issue count.
Before I begin this fairly short entry, indulge in your inner Dartagnan, your inner Tommy Oliver, your inner third or fifth wheel, and remember to click those social media buttons and comment down below so I can bowl that extra frame and beat the game with more than a hundred percent. If you haven't yet, you can watch Isekai Quartet on CrunchyRoll in the VRV app, which gives you more than you could ask for at a lower price than you'd think. And while we're being extra (because themes), a double SPOILER Warning is in effect after the image.
Following from KonoSuba Season One, Re:Zero Season One, Saga Of Tanya the Evil, and Overlord Season Three, the casts of the four series are each given a red button by some mysterious force, and because comedy and nothing bad ever comes from pressing a red button that pops out of nowhere, each button is pressed, transporting everyone to a chibi world where the heroes and "heroes" are forced to play along with school life, with the more mysterious characters, villains, and military superiors of the group serving as their teachers and school administrators. Isekai Quartet is an easy series to binge, with two seasons of twelve short-form (eight-to-fifteen minutes each) episodes. The first season sees the huge, amalgamated cast playing off of each other in entertaining ways. Subaru and Kazuma bond over their love of track suits, their respective tsundere love interests trade quips over how much the men in their lives suck, while the rest of the female cast have words with one another over who is Best Boy, etc. But the best dynamic to come out of the first season is between Ainz Ooal Gown and Tanya, as the former is known to play God with the lives of the human characters in his world, and the latter is vehemently anti-god. Though not explored as fully as I would have liked, the pair's dynamic makes a lasting impression in such a short period of time. Also, Isekai Quartet is where we learn that Albedo (the succubus NPC who romantically pursues Ains throughout Overlord's run) is a virgin! Irony or oxymoron, the concept of a virgin succubus is hilarious, and it's bound to stick with you whether you want it to or not.
When they aren't sitting around and taking jabs at one another, or plotting to overthrow whatever force is behind their predicament, the cast are engaged in school-mandated sports competitions (wherein their respective talents and powers are used to spectacular and comedic effect), and what can only be described as shenanigans. Or chicanery. Chicanigans? Shenanery? Let me know in the comments which is your favorite.
Whatever you call it, the Season One finale ends with an intramural "chicken fight" against a smaller version of the giant spider-tank that Kazuma and his party defeated in Konosuba, and the class learns that they are getting some new transfer students. When the second season opens, we learn that those transfer students are Naofumi, Raphtalia, and Filo from The Rising Of the Shield Hero. If things improved after the first three episodes, let me know, but the Shield Hero trio immediately felt like what they were: forced additions. I stopped watching after the third episode of Isekai Quartet Season Two because it relied less on character dynamics and more on chicaniganery (ooh! Here comes a new challenger!) than what the first season had on offer. Apparently, two characters from yet a sixth isekai series (Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered But Overly Cautious) that I didn't watch because I wasn't in the mood for comedy at the time, also show up in the second season. Despite the shallow pandering presented in the opening episodes of Season Two, enough people liked it to justify a third season, as well as a movie slated for Japanese release in 2022, so maybe it deserves another watch?
Once again, let me know your thoughts in the comments and click those social media buttons down below.
Stay tuned for a new MCU theory, a look at Netflix's Fear Street Trilogy on Streaming Saturday, and a return to the Anime-BAWklog to get you caught up on all the series that I finished watching.
As always, here's the list of links if you want to check out what these services have to offer:
* Tower Of God, God Of High School, and Noblesse
Out.
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