Streaming: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 12
Source: Light Novel
Episode Summary: Gaius is a powerful sorcerer, but his power has reached the limits of what the crest on his hand is able to accommodate. In order to hopefully gain the benefits of an additional fourth mark, he chooses to roll the dice and reincarnate into a new body. He’s reborn as Matthias, son of Castor, and he now bears his desired crest. The only issue is that, between his death and his current life, the world has changed quite a bit. His treasured crest is thought of as weak, and spellcasting is almost exclusively performed with incantations rather than quickly and without speaking (as Gaius/Matthias had been taught).
Matthias meets two friends, Alma and Lurie, who are preparing to take the entrance exam for a magic academy. Curiosity inspires Matthias to join them, and his incantation-less spellcasting draws the attention of the school headmaster. While their main campus has long since abandoned this type of magic, the headmaster at the secondary campus is interested in bringing it back as a skill – the only problem being that there’s no one around to teach it anymore. Enter Matthias, who’s recruited to do the job. A month later, when the two campuses are set to compete in a magic tournament, Matthias uncovers the fact that demons have infiltrated the main campus and poisoned the curriculum against teaching the type of magic that might allow human beings to defeat them.
Impressions: Even if I’m not interested in an anime series, I almost always appreciate if it manages to surprise me or exceed my expectations. The title of this series definitely reads to me as “typically-average fantasy light novel material,” and in most respects what follows in the early moments of the episode seems like a fairly accurate representation of that thought. But along the the way, the atypically fast-paced premiere becomes both a story of budding romance and a battle of educational philosophies, before finally revealing itself as a continuation of the battle its protagonist had been waging in his former life. It’s pretty plainly executed, but at least there’s a lot going on to distract from that fact.
While this isn’t technically what I’d call an isekai story, the protagonist does reincarnate into the same world at a later date, so at least a few of the same compliments and critiques could apply. A criticism I’ve lobbed at some of its seasonal brethren is that reincarnation isn’t a viable plot point if the character’s former life doesn’t matter to their current one (in that case, just make it into a straight-up fantasy story and shed the extraneous tropes, please). In this episode, Matthias’s power appears to have built-up from his previous form, and he consistently references knowledge he obtained in his former life. In this case, history matters, which is more than I can say for a lot of series with similar plot mechanics.
Ultimately, though, this tale of humans versus demons, led by a protagonist who’s truly too cool for everyone else, isn’t really my style. It’s fairly straightforward, inoffensive fantasy fluff that doesn’t necessarily seem to have a lot to offer in terms of real intrigue or emotional pay-off. But I do get the feeling that its averageness is sort of a small victory in and of itself, because staying in its lane and understanding its genre is something that, surprisingly, many copycat stories can’t seem to internalize and master. I’m not sure if this is making much sense, so I’ll just say that sometimes a piece of media that adheres to a formula is more tolerable than one which thinks it’s too good for it. Breaking the mold requires a certain amount of respect for that mold that not every creative team has a handle on. This episode is pretty okay, and that’s great.
Pros: I like that the conflict introduced here seems to be a long-game of gradual infiltration and subterfuge. So much anime deals with blunt-force delivery of plot points that the idea of an enemy gradually taking advantage of the societal structures already in place to turn the tides of public opinion to their favor is interesting to see – and also unsettlingly realistic (oof). The only downside is that this all this intrigue occurred while our protagonist was out of the picture so we didn’t get to see it all unfold.
Cons: This story runs into some of the same philosophical issues that plagues other reincarnation stories that involve romance. Matthias is an adult reincarnated as a child, who retains his former knowledge. He may as well just be the same person in a younger body. When you introduce romance mechanics into this type of situation, it brings up certain ethical questions involving age-gaps and the resulting power imbalances that come with them. It’s difficult to enjoy the blushing hijinks when you know that mentally one party is an adult and the other a child.
Content Warnings: Violence (non-graphic). Implications of an age-gap relationship.
Would I Watch More? – In essence, this show isn’t really to my tastes, so I doubt I’ll watch more of it. However, the first episode is fine and one could do much worse this season.
One reply on “Winter 2022 First Impressions – The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest”
Age gap is always problematic.
I generally believe that physical age trumps prior life experience. One may have memories from a past incarnation but you still have that adolescent brain, adolescent insecurities and reactions. It’s like saying that if an extremely bright boy read a whole bunch of adult literature and managed to understand it, that would make him an adult and he could no longer have a romantic relationship with anyone his own age.
Conversely, if we take the position that the boy really is a fully mature male in a small package, then he should be able to have sexual relationships with fully mature women. That opens a whole ‘nother can of beans. Denying him any romantic relationships at all for his entire youth would be unrealistic and cruel.
For me, it is enough if his psychological age matches his physical age around girls.