Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week.
Expect spoilers for covered material, where relevant.
Of all the anime from this season I thought I would still be writing about several months deep, this was maybe the last on the list. I didn’t even do a first impressions piece on Level 1 Demon Lord & One-Room Hero back when it premiered! To be honest, I simply wasn’t that taken with its first episode. There, the series sets up its central conceit; typical JRPG-style fantasy hero experiences gifted-kid burnout and grows up into a total slacker (same, dude), and is harassed into shaping up by the reincarnated form of his former nemesis. Together, they are the titular One-Room Hero, Max [Yuuichi Nakamura], and Level 1 Demon Lord, usually just referred to as that, but who we’ll call Maou, going by some info from AniList [Naomi Oozora]. (I think “Maou” might literally just mean “Lord” or something, but whatever.) That first episode was decently funny, but it wasn’t anything revolutionary. And its second followed suit; it was notably horny, for sure. And in terms of technical presentation, it was well-done (worth noting in the depths of production delays and jank that have defined much of the season), but it seemed like that was about all it was.
But, I kept watching, on and off, and the show started to take a very odd turn. The third episode introduced the show’s first proper arc, and it was here that, while retaining its signature zany comedy, the series started to take on a different tone as well. Beginning with the introduction of Fred [Yoshitsugu Matsuoka], one of Max’s former companions and, presently, a stooge for the government of the kingdom that they once all fought for, the series begins to question what would actually happen to the heroes of a traditional fantasy story if, indeed, they defeated the big bad guy and saved the day.
One-Room Hero postulates that they’d be rewarded with positions of influence, and it’s what they do with those positions that gives the series its unique identity; one-half a sharp, witty look at contemporary geopolitics as filtered through a typical fantasy world (albeit one with cars, cellphones, and the internet), and one-half a screwball comedy about a burned-out slacker. Max squanders his position. Fred becomes a behind-the-scenes power player interested in the kingdom’s welfare before anything else, including any kind of morality. Another former companion, Leo [Hiro Shimono], leads the breakaway Republic of Gamma, situated in heavily-terraformed former wasteland. The fate of the fourth, Yuria [Ami Koshimizu], has yet to be elaborated upon.
Thus, One-Room Hero becomes the vanishingly rare contemporary fantasy anime to actually try to address the sorts of things that monarchies—the most common form of government in fantasy anime—actually do. Specifically; the show’s wit for satirizing imperialism is shockingly pointed. This is most obvious with the ongoing Kingdom / Gamma conflict. You had better believe that, while nothing here is clean black and white, the show largely takes the Gammaites’ side. Leo is repeatedly shown to be pushing for a peaceful end to Gamma’s ongoing conflict with the Kingdom, whose forces are generally portrayed as unreasonable and only interested in Gamma at all because what they once dismissed as a wasteland happens to actually be chockablock with useful natural resources. (“Magic ore” here. I guess making it oil would’ve been a little too on the nose.) In episode 7, a government minister—unsubtly named Grimm—on the side of the kingdom approaches Fred and mentions that he’s working out a peace deal with the Gammaite government. He’s not, of course; in actuality, the visit sets up a false-flag terrorist attack that drives Fred to become an even more brutal and sinister agent of his nation. This as a capstone to an episode that is mostly about side character Zenia [Youko Hikasa] comedically failing to be a spy.
That attack, of course, is perfect pretense for war, which every important character on both sides of the conflict is well aware of. The buildup to the inevitable comprises most of episode 8, and that, as of the time of this writing, is where things stand. The show has never lost its comedic edge (and it remains egregiously horny), but it’s also genuinely pretty tense at the moment, as it heads into what is presumably its final arc. (The manga is still being released, of course, so there is presumably more after that. Still, we’re obviously hitting a big breaking point in the story.)
All told, between its genuine comedic chops and its cynical, satirical look at the modern political landscape, there’s an awful lot to like about One-Room Hero. Admittedly, the aforementioned horniness is going to put some people off, which I do understand—there really are a lot of pervy camera angles—but I don’t personally think it’s a huge dent in the show.
I won’t blow smoke and say that One-Room Hero is necessarily essential viewing. But I do think it’s quite good, and between this and Helck, it’s been a solid season for amusingly offbeat fantasy anime with a more serious undertone than you might expect. That’s a pretty specific thing for a season to be good for, but it’s worth a lot in what has, overall, been a rather weak year for the medium. There have been obvious standouts of course, but if One-Room Hero proves anything, it’s that even in apparent dry spells, there are often anime that remain under-sung and overlooked.
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