Anime Review: Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai Kyousoukyoku (Unfortunately Bland & Generic)

Isekai has flooded the anime and manga industry and it's extremely hard to not encounter one when you are reading a manga or watching an anime. A lot of people say that isekai sucks and is repetitive, and I agree that isekai stories usually follow a certain plotline so it can get boring. But there is something in isekai that continues to draw me in - it's a like a black hole. Love it or hate it, it's gonna draw you in. Whilst I don't have an intense hatred for isekai stories like a few people I seen on the internet, anyone can differentiate between a good and bad isekai. Unfortunately, the anime adaptation of Death March is one of the latter.

Like most isekai stories, Death March has an OP protagonist, who gets "summoned" to another world, and essentially beats ass immediately. What differentiates this protagonist from others is that this guy is invincible. He can learn skills and develop element immunity just by maxing out a skill at the blink of an eye through a control panel. Wow! So fun. Furthermore, the protagonist is very plain and doesn't seem like a character that I would remember, and his voice shows this. If you hate protagonists like this, I recommend diverging your attention to other better isekai stories in the market that are animated. The other characters are not much better either, but their voices aren't too bad.

Whilst this anime doesn't have a strong cast of characters, the animation and sound are pretty decent. It may not be Kyoto Animation quality, but it's not sub par either. However, this makes sense considering it was animated by Silver Link. The story itself isn't too bad either, but a lot of these aspects can be seen in other isekai stories. It's this aspect which got me interested in watching this anime despite the low score on MAL. I just love the thought of being in another world, doing dungeons, etc. It allows people like me to temporarily escape into another world and makes us wish about how we can live in such worlds. However, we are left with an open-ended ending, where they start embarking on another journey. They essentially want people to buy the light novel or manga to read more. I personally don't like this type of ending, I rather have some sort of "conclusive" ending where we see a conclusion of a major conflict, and we don't see any new conflicts appear. That's how it should be, but it's not the case for Death March.

If you are looking for an isekai with a unique story, you will not find it here. Then again, it's extremely hard to find an extremely original isekai story, so I'm sure people who are interested in watching series like this are just trying to experience different isekai despite similar story aspects. However, the generic and bland characters is a let-down for this series, and characters are one of the pillars for making an anime enjoyable to watch. I don't know how the manga is like, but it looks like it's doing decent, and maybe the anime just cut stuff out. At least, the OP and ED are very nice to listen to, but no one is going to watch anime just for that.

No I'm not. widepeepoSad

Overall Score: 5/10

Story: 3/10

Characters: 3/10

Art: 7/10

Sound: 7/10

Enjoyment: 5/10