Anime Spotlight #58: Unaware Atelier Meister
a.k.a. The Aware Animeister.
As you can probably tell from the above image, I'm putting about as much effort into this post as the creator of today's anime put into making it an original product, and why not start with its similarities to yesterday's selection in the month of Anime August, Possibly The Greatest Alchemist Of All Time.
To say nothing of the similar title designs (right down to color choices, font, and the appearance of diamond shapes in each), both anime feature a silver-haired male protagonist who makes superior potions, weapons, clothing, etc. compared to the norm, and garners female attention by being a bland, happy, kind, clueless dork.
Unfortunately, the lack of originality doesn't end there as the series' one joke with variation is that Kurt (said knuckleheaded protagonist) is from a mysterious town where everyone does everything legendary as a matter of daily life (Suppose A Kid From the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved To A Starter Town) so as long as his muscle memory is kicked in, he can mine rare materials from living monsters, dig the Holland Tunnel in under an hour, mix up miasma-nullifying paint, forge Sosuke Aizen's Zanpakuto as a casual, last-minute gift, and other absurd feats. But his combat stat is garbage, so because the assholes who've been using him as a supporter don't know how useful he is, Kurt also gets Banished From the Hero's Party at the beginning of the series and must make his own way in the world while his former party falls into ruin without him. As the one joke repeats in different contexts and the harem of noble girls, demi-humans, demonesses, and swordswomen grows around him, Kurt also accidentally winds up with an adorable, magically overpowered monster-girl child with blue hair who calls him Papa even though they aren't related (Arifureta and Raising Kids While Adventuring).
For anyone who cares, an atelier (pronounced like British slang for a telephone in Canada) is like a cross between an apothecary and an alchemy guild, and because everyone is playing into Kurt's ignorance about how good he is at both of those things, we have a title, a joke synopsis, and a main character descriptor all in one. There is something resembling a plot when a demon warrior lady shows up in the third act of the entire season to kill the monster-girl toddler and everyone teams up to rescue another demon (whom Kurt accidentally made immortal when he was a kid) from a noble who's allegedly using her blood to stave off his daughter's aging curse...until Kurt ruins the espionage plan and fixes everyone's problems with the one joke for the three-dozenth time.
Unaware Atelier Meister doesn't piss me off, but the constant, "that's from that anime, but blander" plot recognition and the repetition of the one (admittedly not bad, and sometimes funny) joke is at least tiresome when you have slightly above average expectations that something will happen. I don't expect a second season for this one, and if there ever is, I have, like, years of content I could be watching instead.
Tomorrow, we go from alchemists and ateliers to healers for the penultimate Anime Spotlight of Anime August, so Stay Tuned and please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can hire Kurt to make me cool stuff, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.
Aware Animeister,
Out.
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